Massachusetts

Everyone whose family has been in Oklahoma for more than a hundred years usually identifies as "I'm part-your-tribe-here." Ms. Warren undoubtedly heard stories in her childhood of a Native American ancestor in her family tree. She is not a member of the Cherokee tribe. To become a member of the Cherokee tribe one's family has to have a member of the Dawes Roll listed which closed in May of 1907. Every person on the Dawes Roll was entitled to 80 acres of their own, BUT by identifying as a tribal member in those times also ensured that you could not vote (until 1926 at the earliest) and would be subject to the US government as wards, and all the attending prejudice which that implies. Ms. Warren's family did not take that step, but that does not mean that she isn't of Cherokee heritage, it just means that her family didn't sign up. At one time a genealogist told her that she was 1/32nd blood quantum (blood quantum was dreamed up by the government, not the tribes) and so she invited others of Cherokee lineage to contact her during her time at Harvard. That message is what her opponent in Massachusetts slammed her for (prove you are Cherokee!) and of course she can't prove it because her ancestors didn't want anyone to know except through family stories told around the fire.