Monday, October 20, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 **An investigation into how Native American identity became a commodity, from cultural appropriation to ethnic fraud to disenrollment** Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In _Who Gets to Be Indian?,_ scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States. As an entry point to the seemingly intractable problem of ethnic fraud, Gilio-Whitaker critically looks to the film industry, including a case study of Sacheen Littlefeather, who is most known as the Native American woman that rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973—though later revealed, she was not who she said she was. Gilio-Whitaker argues that this pretendian phenomenon originated in Southern California when the United States was forcing assimilation of Indians into white America culturally, but also into its capitalist economic system. With Indianness becoming a marketized commodity in the Hollywood film business, the field became open to anyone who could convincingly adopt an Indian persona. Deeply researched using socio-historical analysis, Gilio-Whitaker offers insights from her own experiences grappling with identity to provide clarity and help readers understand how the commodification of Indianness have ultimately left many people of legitimate American Indian heritage to be disconnected from their tribes. Personal and compelling, Gilio-Whitaker takes settler capitalism to task and helps us better understand how we got here in order to counteract the abuses of pretendianism and disenrollment. **Dina Gilio-Whitaker** (Colville Confederated Tribes) is a lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos, and an independent consultant and educator in environmental justice policy planning. At CSUSM she teaches courses on environmentalism and American Indians, traditional ecological knowledge, religion and philosophy, Native women’s activism, American Indians and sports, and decolonization. She also works within the field of critical sports studies, examining the intersections of indigeneity and the sport of surfing. As a public intellectual, Dina brings her scholarship into focus as an award-winning journalist as well, contributing to numerous online outlets including _Indian Country Today_, the _Los Angeles Times_, _High Country News_ and many more. Dina is co-author with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz of Beacon Press’s _“All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans_, and _As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock_. Comanche artist **Eric Tippeconnic** is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation on his father’s side and his mother hails from Copenhagen, Denmark. Eric’s interest in painting and art was heavily influenced while growing up on numerous reservations and Native communities as well as from frequent travel to Denmark. Eric’s cultural diversity and love of history and art from an early age fostered interest and passion for creating art from the moment he could hold a pencil. Using bright, rich and vibrant color combinations, Eric utilizes his artwork to capture movement that serves as a metaphor for the viewer which boldly states that Native American cultures while intimately connected to their history are in fact contemporary, alive, and constantly evolving. In addition to his work as an artist, Eric is also an assistant professor of American Indian studies at Cal State University San Marcos.