Joan Kendall , Kutztown State University
With Friends Like This...The Pennsylvania Lenni Lenape's Struggle for State Recognition.
The idea that the United States government should establish the standards by which it is determined who is or is not an Indian has always been an affront to native peoples, not only because of the role it plays in "...bringing about their generalized psychic disempowerment," (Jaimes, 1992 p136) but because there are practical consequences, such as loss of land, resources, and federal funding, associated with lack of official recognition. And since the establishment of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, an Indian artist can be denied the right to market work as "Native American Art" unless he/she is a member of either a federally recognized tribe or a state recognized tribe. This act, which was established to protect Indian artists and craftspeople from non-Native products being misrepresented as Native, has no doubt benefited some Indian artists; but it has hurt many others. The Lenni Lenape of Pennsylvania are a people who fall into the latter category, although, ironically, the Delaware (the European word for the Lenape) of Oklahoma, the Lenape who were removed to Oklahoma, are federally recognized. This paper details the struggle of the Lenni Lenape people of Pennsylvania to be officially recognized by the state of Pennsylvania, and includes a review of their history and the underlying issues related to their petition, as well as an examination of the criteria that are used to determine recognition.