Native American groups claim that the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Native American Art curator, Patricia Marroquin Norby, is not a Native American.
The museum received praise when it hired Norby as the first Native American art curator. It makes sense to have a Native American curate the section.
Norby described herself as Apache, eastern Apache, Nde, and Purepacha/Tarascan in legal filings.
Man, how many fakes have been exposed? A LOT. Lizzie Warren takes the cake, though.
Norby’s PhD in American studies thesis analyzed how “European Americans have historically manipulated American Indian images to create a non-American Indian perspective.”
After Norby got her PhD, she held lucrative jobs before the Met:
After receiving her doctorate, she became director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and a trustee of the city’s Field Museum, “where she advised on repatriation cases,” according to an online biography.Before her historic appointment at the Met, Marroquin Norby was senior executive and assistant director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan for 10 months in 2019 and 2020.
But Norby shot to fame when the Met hired her.
Art/culture sections in the media went crazy over Norby.
Norby told NPR that she is Purepoacha, a Mexican indigenous group. The US Department of the Interior’s Indian Affairs division does not recognize this group.
Native American groups disputed Norby, who screamed cancel culture on social media.
“Purepacha and Nde (Mexican Apache) family roots from Mexico, northern Mexico and Texas,” insisted Norby. “I am not going to hide my identity or family history in shame.”
The Met said, “Patricia Marroquin Norby is of Purepacha descent and also descends from Indigenous communities in what is now Texas.”
Kathy Griffin, a member of the Cherokee Nation, shared Norby’s genealogy with The New York Post. Norby’s action even confused the Purepacha community:
The review of Marroquin Norby’s ancestry compiled by Griffin shows no evidence that any of her parents, grandparents or great-grandparents were enrolled members of a recognized tribe.“It’s genocide again of Native Americans,” Griffin said. “Now [white people’s] descendants are colonizing us again by claiming to be us.”Purepacha is not a federally recognized tribe in the US but has a diaspora community, a member of which told The Post: “[Marroquin Norby] wants to be the only Indian in the room and that doesn’t serve the community.“It’s the first time that someone claiming to be part of our community has behaved this way.”
“With all of the Native American scholars out there, we really wonder why the museum chose Patricia, who is definitely not Native American,” lamented Griffin.
Native American groups are tired of who they call pretendians. Can you blame them?
Native American writer and activist Jacqueline Keeler said the groups look for red flags. One of the biggest flags is the “shifting of Native identities.”
Norby shifted her identities many times!
“The Met really needs to educate themselves about American Indian sovereignty,” said Lianna Costantino, a co-founder of the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds. “They are so obsessed with DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] that they are not doing their due diligence, and when they don’t do the work, they are doing a disservice to the Native community, to people who have suffered erasure. They are just erasing them again.”
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