Native food sovereignty figure comes clean about 'identity'

What was once a phenomenon, has now become a steady spectacle of 'identity discoveries. The latest being Native food sovereignty figure Elizabeth Hoover, more commonly known in this part of the world as 'Liz Hoover'.

Hoover worked closely with a number of Akwesasronon on her 2017 book, "The River Is In Us". In Hoover's acknowledgments, Hoover lists respected elders and aspiring youth alike.

Hoover deeply embedded herself into Akwesasne while writing her book – "The River Is in Us is about "a place where decades of environmental contamination has become embodied through acts of traditional land-based subsistence. Emphasizing inescapable connections between food and health, Elizabeth Hoover suggests how environmental justice, affirmative indigenous identity, and decolonization might be achieved at individual, social, and structural/political levels. Essential reading for anyone interested in intersections of ecology, sustenance, and survivance in Native North America."

Hoover's book brought her accolades in the literary world winning the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award and the Native American Literature Symposium Beatrice Medicine Award.

She was welcomed into Akwesasne and taken for her word as to who she was, where she came from and with this, gathered every bit of information she needed to write her book. Many of the Akwesasronon, if not all, worked through the Smithsonian Institution's Health and Culture Research Group.

Her funding came through the Smithsonian Institution's Consortia, Western Carolina University, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, and the Recovering Voices program of the Smithsonian Institution. Hoover received a number of fellowships to write her book. She received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, a Switzer Environmental Fellowship, and a Brown University Graduate School Fellowship. Hoover also received a number of grants, including a National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Dissertation Improvement Grant award, a Swearer Center Dissertation Award, and a Lynn Reyer Tribal Community Development Grant.

She worked with SUNY Albany Superfund Basic Research Program researchers, the Contested Illness Research Group, and members of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University and Jason Weidemann, the editor at the University of Minnesota Press

It should come as no surprise that Elizabeth Hoover, a Native food sovereignty figure who was known in Akwesasne as Liz Hoover has finally come clean about her lack of a connection with any of her claimed tribal nations. In an apparent attempt to avoid accountability for her own actions, she appears to come clean but really, when closely read, her 'Statement of Identity' blames others for her ignorance, conjures up stereotypes and images about Native people and fails to apologize for the opportunities she exploited in the acadmic world and in Akwesasne for over a decade.

Indianz.com succinctly writes Hoover, "Blames Others for Pretendian Lore: "According to my mother, her grandmother was a Mohawk woman who married a French-Canadian man" and "My dad's family said his grandma was Mi'kmaq, which was also something we were proud of but never quite as close to."

Associates Harmful Stereotypes with Native People: "Unfortunately, he was abusive and an alcoholic, and my grandmother died by suicide, leaving her children behind to be raised by someone else."

Negates Tribal Sovereignty / Tribal Ways of Belonging: "My identity within the Native community, rooted in the histories of my family, is something that shaped my entire life, even though I was not eligible for tribal enrollment due to blood quantum requirements."

Never Apologizes: "I am still the same person, with the same knowledge, skills, and commitments gained through decades of experience."

Her Statement of Identity is included below.

Elizabeth Hoover's Statement about Identity

I came to my commitments to Native American food sovereignty, seed sovereignty, and environmental justice through my upbringing. I was raised in rural upstate New York working the land with my family and spent formative years at pow-wows, ceremonies, and food summits over the past several decades hearing stories that have shaped my values, education and career. While in these spaces, I have always introduced myself as the person my parents had raised me to be-someone of mixed Mohawk, Mi'kmaq, French, English, Irish, and German descent and identity. According to my mother, her grandmother was a Mohawk woman who married a French-Canadian man. Unfortunately, he was abusive and an alcoholic, and my grandmother died by suicide, leaving her children behind to be raised by someone else. This was a traumatic aspect of my mom's family background that impacted her connection to her grandmother's heritage growing up. As an adult she wanted to reclaim her Mohawk heritage and share that with us. She took my sisters and me to ceremonies and powwows as kids to connect us to our heritage. For us, being dancers, and being invited into sweats was a way to connect with and contribute to this broader community. My dad's family said his grandma was Mi'kmaq, which was also something we were proud of but never quite as close to. My identity within the Native community, rooted in the histories of my family, is something that shaped my entire life, even though I was not eligible for tribal enrollment due to blood quantum requirements.

As a result of recent questions about my identity, I, along with others, conducted genealogical research to verify the tribal descent that my family raised me with, digging through online databases, archival records, and census data. While it is clear that racial identifications in census records are complicated and sometimes unclear (especially since the only race-identifying options for a long time were white, black, and mulatto), we have to date found no records of tribal citizenship for any of my family members in the tribal databases that were accessed. Essentially what I am currently left with is that I do not have any official documentation to verify the way my family has identified.

I have discussed this with my sisters and my parents, who were, like me, shocked and confused about what this information means for us. Our Native identity has structured not only our family activities but how we relate to other people and they to us. I have been a fancy shawl dancer and bead worker for over three decades, something my sisters and I learned at powwows when we were young, and this has brought us great joy. I have been grateful to the people of Akwesasne who took me in called me their chosen daughter, auntie, and friend, and who put me to work. When people told me 'welcome home' when I would come to visit, that meant something to me. In short, this identity has shaped my entire life and guided my work. When I left home for Williams College, I helped run the Native student organization and organized the first powwows the campus had seen. While at Brown University for graduate school and later as a professor, I also helped to organize the now-annual powwow, and worked with the Native student organization there for close to two decades. Working with youth and garden projects in the Akwesasne community over the past 15 years or so has been incredibly important to me. These relationships strongly shaped my work as an advocate for and scholar of environmental justice and food sovereignty.

​Given these new revelations about my background, I have asked myself: should I have dug deeper to confirm what my parents were telling us, through official genealogical records? In retrospect, yes. When I should have done this is much harder to say. At what point do you question whether the way your family raised you is correct? In high school? College? Grad school? As it is for many people-Native and non-Native alike-my identity was always just part of me. Since I knew I was not eligible for enrollment, locating official genealogical records did not seem important. But in retrospect, especially given the complexities surrounding tribal affiliations, I recognize that this examination should have come sooner.​

Now, without any official documentation verifying the identity I was raised with, I do not think it is right for me to continue to claim to be a scholar of Mohawk/Mi'kmaq descent, even though my mother is insistent that she inherited this history for a reason. As such, I have been approaching my friends, collaborators, students, colleagues, and members of the general public, to share this information about my identity and to re-form these relationships as needed. As I have begun this process, I have been enormously grateful for the love and support I have received from the Mohawk people who call me their chosen daughter, friend, and ally, and from my friends and compatriots from across the Native food sovereignty movement. I am still the same person, with the same knowledge, skills, and commitments gained through decades of experience. But I will accept with humility and understanding the decisions of people who do not think I belong in certain spaces. Going forward, I will continue to passionately support food sovereignty and environmental justice movements in Native communities where and when I am invited to do so.

Posted October 20, 2022