Who still counts as Native American in 2026? - The Sunday Story

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: Who still counts as Native American in 2026?
Podcast: The Story
Hosted by: Manveen Rana (The Times/The Sunday Times)
Date: July 5, 2026

To mark 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, this episode explores the diverse, complex, and often overlooked lives of Native Americans in present-day America. Journalist Louise Callahan investigates what it means to be Native American in 2026, focusing on the revival of culture and language, the legacy of oppression, intergenerational trauma, and the deeply contested question: Who gets to call themselves Native American today?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Context: 250 Years On

• America at 250: The show marks the anniversary by examining American history from the perspective of Native Americans, highlighting how their experience diverges sharply from the dominant national narrative.
• Marginalization and Revival: Hosts and guests describe centuries of forced assimilation—from language bans to the forced attendance at boarding schools—and how recent generations are striving to reclaim their cultural heritage (01:00–02:49).

The Madera Family and Language Revitalization

• Focus on Spokane, Washington: Louise Callahan travels to Spokane to meet the Madera family and visit the Salish School of Spokane, a hub for indigenous language revival (04:42–06:39).
• Reviving Salish Language:
  • The Colville-Okanagan Salish language nearly died out, with only two native speakers left—until a local immersion school started a revival.
  • “They speak this language, this language that was almost extinct. And they don’t just speak it at events or during ceremonies... They speak it every day. They’re at basketball practice speaking this language, which almost went completely extinct.” – Louise Callahan (06:12)
• Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Context:
  • At home, the Madera family—parents and six children—speak Salish daily, demonstrating how survival and rejuvenation of indigenous culture happens through everyday acts (06:49–08:01).

Personal and Intergenerational Legacy of Repression

• Meet David Madera Sr.:
  • The 80-year-old elder, raised on the Spokane Reservation, describes his life at the end of the boarding school era, marked by violent assimilation and loss.
  • His mother and grandmother, fluent in Salish, withheld the language to protect him from persecution—a choice with profound personal consequences.
  • “He was ashamed to be Native American... when he was a kid, he’d go to the cinema and he’d watch cowboys and Indians films, and he’d cheer for the cavalry.” – Louise Callahan (11:08)
• The Trauma of Heritage:
  • “That shame, I think, is something that so many people of his generation and subsequent generations have to some extent internalized.” – Louise Callahan (11:34)

The Meaning of Reservations

• Explained for UK Listeners:
  • Reservations are lands designated for Native Americans after forced displacement in the 19th century, originally meant to limit resistance and facilitate settler expansion (12:00).
  • Today, they often look like small rural towns, but with educational and cultural initiatives unique to each tribe (12:00–13:17).

From Shame to Pride: Three Generations

• Intergenerational Shifts:
  • While David Sr. grew up in shame, his great-grandchildren are learning Salish in school and engaging in traditional ceremonies—now legal only since 1978 (14:00).
  • “He’s also very sad that he never had that.” – Louise Callahan on David Sr. seeing his great-grandchildren’s cultural fluency (14:10).

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The Contested Question: Who Counts as Native American?

Blood Quantum and Tribal Membership

• Blood Quantum System:
  • A method, imposed in the 20th century, that defines tribal membership by “fractional” descent (e.g., ¼, ⅛) (16:43–17:50).
• Controversy and Unintended Consequences:
  • Different tribes apply it differently. Some count any Native heritage, others only “tribal blood.”
  • “The system of blood quantum was designed with the idea… that eventually it would be diluted, quote unquote, and that then the U.S. government would be able to get control over these resources that the tribes have.” – Louise Callahan (18:25)
  • The more time passes, the fewer people qualify. This leads to “mathematically” shrinking tribes.
• Real-World Tensions:
  • Disputes arise: Is it about blood, cultural connection, or growing up within the community? (18:50–19:51)
  • “It’s a really complicated thing that tribes are trying to figure out at the moment.” – Louise Callahan (19:51)

Practical Implications: Rights and Benefits

• What Do Tribal Members Receive?
  • Depends on tribe: Some (like Florida’s Seminole, owners of Hard Rock Cafe) distribute significant dividends, but most see modest benefits.
  • “I think there’s this incorrect and racist idea among many in the US that if you’re Native American, you get kind of everything handed to you on a plate, which is just not true.” – Louise Callahan (20:47)
  • Broader reality: Poverty and poor health continue to affect Native populations at far higher rates than the US average (24:29).

Reflecting on “Blood Quantum”

• A System Nobody Loves:
  • “It’s very contentious. I don’t think anyone’s happy with the system, really. …it was the US Government who decided who belonged on the reservation. So should you really take their word for it…?” – Louise Callahan (21:18)
• Why Is It Still Used?
  • “I think no one’s come up with a better one. I think there’s just no perfect system. And that’s really an indictment of, unfortunately, how effective the U.S. government’s campaign to try and eliminate Native American identity was—and makes it even more extraordinary that it still does exist today.” – Louise Callahan (22:13)

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Diversity and Understanding

No Single ‘Native American Experience’

• Regional and Tribal Differences:
  • Experience varies dramatically—between, for example, Spokane and Arizona, or eastern tribes like the Iroquois and western groups.
  • “The Native American experience varies enormously across the U.S…Their experience will be very, very different to the life of someone who’s living in Arizona, for example.” – Louise Callahan (22:55)
• History Shapes Memory and Connection:
  • Eastern tribes suffered genocidal attacks and disease much earlier than western tribes, leading to more distant cultural ties among descendants (23:39).

Persistent Misconceptions and Statistics

• Enduring Myths:
  • Despite some successful tribes, most communities struggle with poverty, health disparities, suicidality, and high rates of alcoholism and chronic disease.
  • “Native Americans are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty or die by suicide as the average US citizen…This is in the richest country on earth.” – Louise Callahan (24:29)

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Memorable Quotes and Moments

• On Learning Language:
  “What Tommy and Dakota are doing, raising their children in their culture, with their ceremonies, with their language, going every weekend to powwows, all of that was pretty much illegal until 1978. Not 1878, 1978.” – Louise Callahan (07:33)
• On Intergenerational Trauma:
  “So what Dave Madera grew up with was this shame…He told me that because of all of this, because of the shame…he was ashamed to be Native American.” – Louise Callahan (10:45)
• On Survival:
  “That you can still make this decision to say, actually, no, I’m going to learn my language, I’m going to learn my culture. I’m going to live in this way. That’s something really, really radical and extraordinary to me and something that will stay with me for a while.” – Louise Callahan (27:31)
• On Visibility and Survival:
  “She wanted them to be visible, to say, we’re still here. And I thought that was really extraordinary.” – Louise Callahan, speaking about a mother’s reason for raising her kids off-reservation (29:39)
• On the Cost of American Progress:
  “The US as it is today, can only exist because of the destruction of Native American societies.” – Louise Callahan (28:33)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 01:33–03:30 – Introduction to Native American perspectives; the erasure and marginalization in US history curriculum.
• 04:42–06:39 – The Salish School and language revival in Spokane.
• 06:49–08:31 – Life in the Madera family and the transformation from cultural prohibition to celebration.
• 08:31–14:10 – Interview and biography of David Madera Sr; the legacy of boarding schools and lost language.
• 16:43–22:38 – The challenge of defining Native American identity today, blood quantum, and its consequences.
• 22:55–24:29 – Wide variance in Native American experience and persistent socioeconomic difficulties.
• 25:31–27:57 – Personal reflections on the extremity of Native American repression and cultural persistence.
• 28:33–30:15 – Closing thoughts: The cost of American independence and contemporary Native American visibility.

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Conclusion

Louise Callahan’s reporting lays bare the paradox that, even as Native American identity is under continuous threat from the legacy of colonialism and assimilation policies, vibrant efforts to reclaim heritage, language, and pride persist. The story concludes by affirming the continuing presence, resilience, and diversity of Native Americans—“they survived, and they’re still here today”—even as the country celebrates its 250th “freedom” anniversary.

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Transcript

[Hannah Previtt]

Hannah Previtt here from the Business Podcast. Join me for a special episode with PwC UK's Marco Amitrano and WPP's Michael Froelish. Recorded at the Greater Together Conference in Los Angeles, California. We'll discuss how partnerships between the US and the UK can drive economic growth and shape the future of transatlantic collaboration. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Today's markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays. Through sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp, Stay brief. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts.

[Manveen Rana]

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story on Sunday. I'm Manveen Rana. This weekend on the podcast and across the times, we're marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. Yesterday we heard how modern America was forged through revolution and war. But for the Native Americans, that history reads differently.

[Louise Callahan]

David Madeira, Sr. He's 80 years old and he lives on the Spokane Reservation. He told me that because of the shame that he was given and that he grew up with, when he was a kid, he'd go to the cinema and he'd watch cowboys and Indians films and he'd cheer for the cavalry.

[Manveen Rana]

For centuries, their cultures have been pushed to the margins. Children taken from their families, languages banned and traditions forced underground.

[Louise Callahan]

As I was reporting the story and I was speaking to non Native Americans, people would say things like, oh, are they still here?

[Manveen Rana]

The Sunday Times senior US Correspondent Louise Callahan has been to visit a family who are striving to change that.

[Louise Callahan]

I spent some time with the Madera family who are raising their children in their culture, with their ceremonies, with their language. All of that was pretty much illegal until 1978.

[Manveen Rana]

But that revival has exposed a deeply contested question. After centuries of displacement, assimilation and intermarriage, who actually gets to call themselves Native American? And how should that be determined? The story today who still counts as Native American in 2026?

[Louise Callahan]

So it's the 250th anniversary of the United States, and when I was thinking about how I wanted to cover it, I was talking to my editors. And one thing that came up was, what is life like for Native Americans today? And once my editor asked me the question, I realized that I didn't really know. And I think that's pretty normal for people in the US As I was reporting the Story when I was speaking to non Native Americans, people just had absolutely no idea. People would say things like, oh, are they still here? Wow, right. I really think that it's a subject which is so unexplored in the US today. People learn a bit in the school about, about the wars in the. In the late, like mid to late 19th century between settlers and, and the cavalry and Native Americans, but there's so little focus on what it's actually been like since then for Native Americans.

[Manveen Rana]

So in order to find out, just describe where that story takes you.

[Louise Callahan]

So I went to Washington State, that's right out in the west of the us And I went to an area around a city called Spokane. I ended up focusing on the school called the Salish School of Spokane. I cannot describe to you how extraordinary this place is. About 10 years ago, this language, Kolvenokenhagen, Salish, which is one of the many Salish languages which are in the west of the us it was going extinct. And today there are only two native speakers of Colvin Okanagan Salish alive. Two. But this school, the Salish School of Spokane, has got this immersion program. The people who run the school, Larae Wiley and her husband Chris. Larae Wiley is from this tribe, the Colville tribe. She wanted to save the language because she was going to these funerals all the time and just watching her elders die and realizing that her language just disappearing. So they moved into the houses of one of the last native speakers of the language, learnt the language over two years and then started the school. And in this school, then there's dozens of students and there's all the teachers and the parents of the students. They all have to learn this language. What's amazing to me is that they speak this language, this language that was almost extinct. And they don't just speak it at events or during ceremonies or they speak it every day. You know, they're at basketball practice speaking this language, which almost went completely extinct. So for me, that was kind of my entry point into the story was this extraordinary look at language revitalization. Because the more I looked into it, it became so clear that one of the ways that the US government tried to destroy Native American tribal system, the communities, the culture, was by taking away their language and then so bringing it back as this extraordinary act of reclaiming who they are.

[Manveen Rana]

You spoke to some of the pupils there, some of the families attached to the school. Tell us about one family in particular who you spent some time with.

[Louise Callahan]

I spent some time with the Madeira family who have Six kids who are all at the school. And the parents, Tommy and Dakota, are both teachers there at home in their completely normal house in a completely normal suburb of Washington state. They speak Kolvanok and Lagan Salish all the time with their kids. And the kids are like making burritos, eating pizza, talking this language. And what was so extraordinary to me is that, I mean, in a way, it's just a completely normal household scene right from the outside. Then if you think about the history of what happened to Native American people in the us, what Tommy and Dakota are doing, raising their children in their culture, with their ceremonies, with their language, going every weekend to powwows, which are these meetings where Native Americans come together, all of that was pretty much illegal until 1978. Not 1878, 1978, under. It was Jimmy Carter who passed the law making it legal to live as a Native American.

[Manveen Rana]

And Louise, as you say, you know, that broader history of America and how it's dealt with its Native American population, whether it's that Jimmy Carter moment, everything that came before has such a huge impact on the way individuals live, and you can see it in the generations of this one family. So just tell us about one of the elders in the family who you met. Just tell us a bit about him. Who is he and what is he like?

[Louise Callahan]

David Madera senior is Dakota's grandfather. He's 80 years old and he lives on the Spokane Reservation, which is about an hour outside Spokane, an hour away from Dakota's suburban home. As a child on the reservation, he was growing up sort of at the tail end of the boarding school era, where people that he knew were sent to boarding school, but he was able to go to school on the reservation. One of the leaders of one of the boarding schools said that their strategy was kill the Indian in him, save the man. That was the idea. It was the idea that. That you had to drop everything about you that was Native American. You had to cut your hair, you had to wear a suit, you had to speak English. You were beaten for speaking your own language. His mum had been sent away to boarding school, where she'd been terribly, terribly beaten and mistreated and told not to speak her language. His mother and his grandmother both spoke Salish, but to protect him, they didn't teach it to him. So he's the first generation that doesn't speak Salish. When he was growing up on the reservation, he told me it was a very violent place. They had nothing. I mean, they're out in the woods, there's nothing around there. This is the land of his tribe. It's land that his tribe owns. You know, it's a tiny, tiny fraction of what they initially controlled, which was sold in the late 19th century to the U.S. you know, it's in the middle of the forest. It's very, very beautiful, but there's nothing really there. There were very few jobs. The church was very dominant. They didn't have electricity. They didn't have plumbing. They lived mainly off deer meat. Alcoholism was incredibly prevalent. And we've seen in some of the. In some of the primary sources from the late 19th century that. That the US had this strategy of giving out as much alcohol as they can to Native Americans on reservations and sort of watching as their culture disintegrated. But to try and break the fight in them was the idea. And so what Dave Madera grew up with was this shame. Where Native Americans like him, they were poor. There was nothing going for them. They were told that their culture was bad and they were beaten for speaking their language and worth nothing. So he told me that because of all of this, because of the shame that he was given and that he grew up with, he was ashamed to be Native American. He told me that when he was a kid, he'd go to the cinema and he'd watch cowboys and Indians films, and he'd cheer for the cavalry. And that shame, I think, is something that so many people of his generation and subsequent generations have to some extent internalized.

[Manveen Rana]

And he described to you what the reservation was like when he grew up there. It sounded like quite a hopeless place. Did you go and visit it? I mean, what is it like now? And just describe what a reservation is for, you know, British audiences. That alone is quite an OD idea.

[Louise Callahan]

In the mid late 19th century, then the US had this policy of moving Native Americans onto reservations, which was these usually small, remote patches of land. So it was to break the resistance of the Indian wars. The idea was that you could just kind of round Native Americans up, get them to stay on this reservation, and then settlers would be able to expand throughout the rest of the U.S. and, you know, farm and set up wherever they wanted. So today a reservation is. It looks like pretty much anywhere else, but there's usually signs saying, you know, you're entering. In this case, you're entering. Well, Pennant Reservation, it's in the forest. It's really, really beautiful. There's lots of kind of small houses here was. It's these little country lanes that go through the reservation. There's a shop, there's A school. It just looks like any other kind of nice small town in the forest. The only real sign that there's Native Americans living there specifically is the way that they teach kids in school. They have these kind of cultural aspect to it, religious aspects to it, and they have a language school there as well.

[Manveen Rana]

Did he tell you about his time at school? What was that like?

[Louise Callahan]

So he went to school on the reservation. People weren't allowed there to speak Salish, so it was. All the teachers were white. The focus was very much on Christianity and it was about assimilating. It was about being like any other American.

[Manveen Rana]

So he and his son. So this is, you know, a cross generational thing. Grow up not being able to speak the language. Now he has his grandchildren who are speaking it all the time. There's a school his great grandchildren are going to where that's how they're doing lessons, that's how they're learning. How does he feel about that?

[Louise Callahan]

I asked him about this. He told me, look, of course, I'm so happy for my great grandkids. I'm happy for my grandson. They can grow up in this language, that they can live in their culture. They can do all these dances and ceremonies and everything that he was banned from doing. He's also very sad that he never had that.

[Manveen Rana]

Coming up. What does being a Native American in 2026 actually look like? That's in just a moment. Foreign.

[Hannah Previtt]

Here from the Business podcast. Join me for a special episode with PwC UK's Marco Amitrano and WPP's Michael Froelish, recorded at the Greater Together Conference in Los Angeles, California. We'll discuss how partnerships between the US and the UK can drive economic growth and shape the future of transatlantic collaboration. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Louise Callahan]

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[Hannah Previtt]

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[Manveen Rana]

Louise, you've been telling us about the Madeira family and how you can have a completely different experience of being Native American now as opposed to a couple of generations ago. And yet, while you were looking at the subject, what's really fascinating and unexpected is just how even the question of who actually counts as Native American seems to be changing. Just explain what the difficulty is.

[Louise Callahan]

The question of who gets to be Native American is one that's really, really difficult to figure out for so many reasons, because people were moved in the 19th century onto reservations, and once they were there, then life was really, really hard and a lot of people left. Once the. The reservation era was kind of ending in favor of these policies from the US that you should assimilate. Then people were, in some cases, kind of forcibly pushed to move to cities where they then lost their culture, became like just any other American. And then so trying to figure out kind of who actually gets to be Native American is pretty tough. And then so the US government introduced this system called blood quantum, which is used differently in every tribe, and some don't use it, but it's fairly common. And basically it's that on your tribal id, you have this fraction, right, where it says how much blood, you know, one quarter or one eighth or whatever is Native American. And. And also what proportion of your blood is from the specific tribe? So it depends on the tribe. Sometimes they count total Native American ancestry. Some just count from the specific tribe. But yeah. So you get a card and it says, you know, you've got quarter Spokane Salish blood. This is obviously incredibly controversial because there's a lot of people who maybe grew up pretty far away from the reservation who have no connection to the land and who have access to tribal rights, whether that's fishing or whether that's health care or whatever it is not that the Native American health care system is particularly great or enviable, but that there is some level of access to health care and dividends from various businesses that the tribe engages in? Right. Whether that's casinos or fishing or whatever. And then so there's this debate over who gets to call themselves that. Who gets that? Is it someone who grew up on the reservation, but who might only have a Native American grandparent, or is it someone who is half, but who grew up in Oakland, California, really far away? What happens then when someone who grew up on the reservation has a quarter, quote, unquote, blood marries someone who doesn't have any? What if their children grow up on the reservation, do they not get to be Native American anymore? It's really, really complicated, I think, and I think there's not really any easy answers. The system of blood quantum was designed with the idea by the federal government that eventually it would be diluted, quote unquote, and that then the U.S. government would be able to get control over these resources that the tribes have. And so there's this system which in a way, was designed to, mathematically speaking, destroy them. Because of course, you can't all just continue to have children within your own tribe. And then, so it's just logically, the more time passes, the less power you will hold in your hands as a. As a tribe as a result of this. But then also, I mean, what are you supposed to do to say that anyone who wants to be Native American can be Native American? That's also not going to work. It's a really complicated thing that tribes are trying to figure out at the moment.

[Manveen Rana]

And Louise, just clarify. What do you get for being Native American, apart from the ability to call yourself Native American? You know, are there particular rights, are there particular dividends that you automatically benefit from?

[Louise Callahan]

Yeah, so it depends on the tribe. And I think there's a few exceptions where you get a lot. So, for example, the Seminole of Florida, they own the Hard Rock Cafe. That's quite significant. If you're an emerald tribal member of the Seminole, you get fairly significant dividends every year from that business. There's tribes which have, I mean, I'm really against the odds, managed to make successful businesses, to. To use the resources on their lands, whether that's, you know, mining or fishing or things like that to make money. But I think for most tribes, the dividends are not particularly significant. You get some access to health care. There's. There's a few other things that you get. But I think there's this. There's this incorrect and racist idea among many in the US that if you're Native American, you get kind of everything handed to you on a plate, which is just not true. The levels of poverty among Native Americans are far higher than for the average person in the US and the access to resources is much, much lower.

[Manveen Rana]

And Louise, just the idea of a blood quantum is so bizarre. I can't imagine that happening to any other community or any other race in the world of being told what fraction you are and whether that qualifies you. You know, it's such an odd concept. I mean, how does that play out?

[Louise Callahan]

It's very contentious. I don't think anyone's happy with the system, really. Some other tribes don't use the blood quantum system, or they use it in conjunction with the tribal roles of names. When a reservation was created, then the US government would say, okay, well, there are 50 families living here, and here are their names. We've registered them, so you can also use those. Are you part of this family? But then it was the US Government who decided who belonged on the reservation. So should you really take their word for it that they were the people who really lived there or who were really part of the tribe? Maybe there were other tribal members who ended up on a different reservation. So it's just really, really difficult.

[Manveen Rana]

Well, in a way, I suppose that's the huge question I have, which is that if this really controversial system, the idea of a blood quantum, was introduced by the US Government in order to try and dilute the tribes, in order to make them smaller, in order to almost sort of wipe out the identity of being a Native American, why are they still using that system?

[Louise Callahan]

I think no one's come up with a better one. I think there's just no perfect system. And that's really an indictment of, unfortunately, how effective the U.S. government's campaign to try to eliminate Native American identity was and makes it even more extraordinary that it still does exist today and that people are working so hard to try and keep it alive, as well as

[Manveen Rana]

the debate about who gets to call themselves a Native American. I suppose. You know, what your reporting also highlights is just there's no such thing as a particular Native American experience. It's so varied. I mean, just give us a snapshot. Give us a sense of how varied it is in modern life.

[Louise Callahan]

The Native American experience varies enormously across the U.S. so the people that I spoke to who are living in Spokane, Washington, their experience will be very, very different to the life of someone who's living in Arizona, for example. And so one really important dynamic that's at work here that I don't think I'd really fully appreciated before reporting on this is how the east coast tribes, people like the Iroquois, for example, they were subject to extermination or disease or attacks from settlers much, much, much earlier than, for example, people living out west or in Arizona. For someone who has Iroquois ancestry, their relationship, would that be much, much further away? Because their tribes were attacked and decimated a long time. You know, when the first British settlers were arriving on the coast centuries ago, then they were being impacted by them, and measles and smallpox are spreading, and the populations are being decimated. Whereas the tribes who are living out west had this completely different experience where the settlers were arriving much, much later during the gold rush in the mid to late 19th century. And so their experience is very different.

[Manveen Rana]

And as you described, you know, there are clearly lots of misconceptions amongst a lot of Americans about what the modern Native American experience is. And you know, some are very successful, as you said, but there's also a lot of poverty. I mean, just talk us through the statistics on Native Americans.

[Louise Callahan]

Now. After centuries of repression from the US government, then Native Americans are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty or die by suicide as the average US citizen. To date, they have the lowest life expectancy of any ethnic group in the US. Native American men have a life expectancy of 67 years old, which is lower than the life expectancy in Ethiopia and Pakistan, Malawi. And this is in the richest country on earth also much more likely, four times as more likely to die from alcohol related causes or live with a chronic disease. So there are these enormous, enormous difficulties.

[Manveen Rana]

Louise, having spent some time looking at this community that doesn't get very much coverage, and having spent time with a family, in particular with the Madeiras, when you came away from that, what were your impressions? What were the things that you'll, you'll never quite forget?

[Louise Callahan]

I think for me what was initially so shocking was how recently it had been illegal as Native American to take part in your culture, your language. What's been so striking for me when I've been looking into this, which is something that Native Americans know very, very well, they have been repressed and oppressed on a completely different level and in a different way that to other ethnic groups in the US I spoke to this historian at Yale, Native American guy, who was saying that for the US government, as America is being kind of formed as a modern nation in the wake of the Civil War and then into the 20th century, then native Americans were used to represent something which was anti American. This idea of savages and civilized people, cowboys and Indians, that they were sort of demonized as the opposite of all of this Enlightenment era thought that the US is supposedly based on right, freedom and liberty and justice. This idea that in the new world where you can come and leave everything behind and start a new life, Native Americans were shown incorrectly and painted in this way of being as the opposite of that. So Native Americans only gained automatic US citizenship in 1924. That's 56 years after the 14th amendment established birthright citizenship for everyone born in the US including freed slaves. Their experience of repression from the US government has just been really extreme. That's something I'll remember. But I think also the respect for the people that I met, how hard they're fighting to live in their culture, with their language, doing that is something so extraordinary. When you grow up, you're in poverty, surrounded by all this difficulty, you live on a remote reservation, and the people who are in charge have been trying to wipe out your culture and trying to make you assimilate for a very long time, that you can still make this decision to say, actually, no, I'm going to learn my language, I'm going to learn my culture. I'm going to live in this way. That's something really, really radical and extraordinary to me and something that will stay with me for a while.

[Manveen Rana]

And finally, Louise, as America marks this anniversary, this 250 years of independence with fireworks and celebrations, they're marking the idea of America and what it was allowed to become as an independent republic, as a democratic democracy with a constitution that enshrined equal rights for all of its citizens. How has this reporting trip made you reconsider the history of America and that image of what America is?

[Louise Callahan]

I think it's made me think a lot about what it came at the expense of. The US as it is today, can only exist because of the destruction of Native American societies. A lot of Americans would say, well, that happened a long time ago, and we just have to get over it and get on with life. But actually, Native Americans, they're not something of the past. They're not some people that had a war fought against them by the us, had their societies exterminated and went quietly away, bear an important part of American life today. They have ordinary jobs, they live ordinary lives, but they also celebrate their culture, and they survived, and they're still here today. And when I spoke to. When I spoke to Tommy from the mother in the Madeira family, I was asking her about why she decided to raise her kids in a city rather than on the reservation. She grew up on a reservation, and she said one of the reasons was that she wanted her kids to be out among Americans, representing their culture. She wanted them to be visible, to say, we're still here. And I thought that was really extraordinary.

[Manveen Rana]

That was Louise Callahan, senior US Reporter for the Sunday Times. You can read her piece [e-mail] just search for who still counts as Native American in 2026. And to see more of the paper's coverage of the 250th anniversary of American independence. Do have a go at the Spin the Wheel feature in our news archive, uncovering hidden gems from the paper's long history of reporting on America. The producer and sound designer today was Dave Creasy. The executive producers were Sophie McNulty and Edward Drummond. Be back as usual tomorrow. Do join us then.

[Hannah Previtt]

Foreign. Here from the Business podcast. Join me for a special episode with PwC UK's Marco Amitrano and WPP's Michael Froelish, recorded at the Greater Together Conference in Los Angeles, California. We'll discuss how partnerships between the US and the UK can drive economic growth and shape the future of transatlantic collaboration. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Louise Callahan]

You didn't just say how can I provide these investments? You'd be how do I holistically provide everything?

[Hannah Previtt]

How do I bring in the legal,

[Louise Callahan]

the accounting, all this and do it at a price point no one else is doing it. Learn more about how we approach wealth [e-mail] integrated.