I have serious concern over Elizabeth Warren's claim that she is a non-enrolled Native American, "proved" by DNA . My concern is best explained with the words of anthropologist Michael Lambert , a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He described Cherokee identity politics as a "battle over sovereignty":

"One of the terrains on which this is being fought is that of how we define "Indian." The current effort to define Indian as a racial/cultural group is an effort to extinguish Indian sovereignty. The only way for Indian nations to defend and expand their sovereignty is to make exclusive claim to defining who is Indian and what it means to be Indian...



