Only Approved Indians Summary

Jack Forbes, a Native American scholar, is the author of Only Approved Indians. This is a collection of seventeen short stories that take in to account the vicissitudes of life for modern-day Indians. The stories are full of humor and irony. The book gets its title from its lead story, ‘Only Approved Indians can Play Made in the USA’ (Howard, 1995).
‘Only Approved Indians can Play Made in the USA’ talks about a basketball match. The story is full of irony. I talks of an Indian basketball team that attends the tournament but it is not allowed to play because its players are allegedly not approved Indians. The story kicks of describing the situation at the second day of the championship. Conventionally, in a basketball tournament, each and every

team plays daily, so if the team was disqualified during the second day, then most probably it had played the first match already. Still, to stress the point, the author says that most of the teams were very good, meaning that he had seen them play in the first day. All the teams were very hungry to win, hence they resulted to fighting each other on the basis of their origin in fear of losing.
The Indian Sports League had put in place rule for all players.

To be a legible player, one had to be an Approved Indian. An approved Indian in this case had to be of a quarter or more Indian blood. If challenged on their origin, they were supposed to avail their BIA roll numbers. So this makes BIA roll numbers the sole way of determining whether the player in question is Indian or not. This makes it ridiculous since as stated, all official Indians were under the rule of the whites and only the “recognized Indians” were considered Indians regardless of their skin color, what they speak or where they come from. Having “Approved Indian” as the title of the piece creates ridicule and impacts curiosity to the

reader.
The BIA is an acronym for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is an agency of the Federal Government of USA (Bureau of Indian Affairs, n.d.). The bureau is responsible for the protection of Indian legal rights as well as the provision of services to the Native Americans (Parman, 2017). It was founded in 1824, and it has played a great role in the relationship between the Federal Government and the Indians tribes. Its main mission is the enhancement of the quality of life, promotion of economic opportunity, as well as protection and improvement of the trust assets of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Indian tribes (Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), 2017).
In this story, in the event a player’s origin was questioned and challenged, they were supposed to produce a BIA enrollment card.

This would prove that they are approved Indians hence eligible to play the game. The origin of two players of one team was challenged and they could not produce the BIA roll numbers. One was allegedly Chicano – a person with the origin of Mexico but born in America – since he was heavily built and dark while the other one, apparently looked like an Indian but had a big goatee and a Spanish accent hence the suspicion. The player who was allegedly Chicano was able to speak Papago, and the other player with a goatee claimed that he was a full – blood Tarahumara Indian but still, their team was disqualified in the end. On the other hand, the opponent team had players, where most of them were very white. This brought about a lot of suspicion regarding their origin but all of them had BIA identification cards to prove they were true Indians. The team had one player who had blonde hair. Although in reality he was only about a sixteenth, BIA rolls had been changed for his tribe. There, he became a fourth legally. This shows and emphasizes how wide the term “Indian” could be. There was no much difference between this guys and the guy who was allegedly Chicano. But the difference sets in since he had a BIA card. This shows how important it was to be identified by the Bureau of Indian

Affairs.
The story mentions about the tribe Tarahumara, also known as the Rarámuri. They are Native Americans originating from northwest Mexico. They are famous for their ability of long – distance running. The Spanish did not succeed in conquering the people of Tarahumara. Also Jesuit missionaries were unable to fully convert them (Rarámuri people, n.d.).
Jack Forbes uses this tribe in the story since it was never under the rule of the whites. The Tarahumara man even narrates how his father and uncle were killed by the whites. Someone asking the man if his tribe was recognized and whether he had a reservation. The people demanded to know the state the tribe was living. He then claimed that his tribe lived free and was not under control of any state. The people claimed that all the official Indians were under the rule of the white man and they were issued with numbers to prove that they were recognized. This proved that the Great Lake Indians were already submissive to the rule of white man and that the authority was responsible for determining who is an Indian and who is not. They claimed the man was not an official Indian. It is very alarming to see Indians very eager to turn against their very own so as to win a basketball game. Since Tarahumaras was not in the BIA dictionary, then they basically did not exist.
Disqualification of the team is very unjust and unfair. The tournament is supposed to be for Indians but a team is disqualified because it has Indians – who can even speak their language-but have no BIA cards. This is a very low gesture to render the team unfit making the opponent team which is seemingly “American”, the winner. This shows a lot of hypocrisy.