With the rise of Indian gambling casinos all over the country — and in particular those 60 casinos in California with more on the way — the question naturally arises: Who exactly qualifies to call themselves an “Indian”?

The basic answer to what appears to be a simple question is that an “Indian” is whoever the particular tribe says is an Indian. Now any person can claim to be part Indian, just as many say they are part Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

Since the sympathetic attitude toward real Indians and descendants became a popular cause in recent decades and more recently, some Indian tribes and bands opened lucrative gambling casinos. More and more people are laying claim to be “Indian” or part Indian often with the hope of cashing in on the huge profit distributions in per capita payments paid out to tribal members of federally acknowledged Indian tribes, bands or communities with casinos.

The federal agencies charged with recordkeeping for recognized tribes refuse to get involved in the tribal enrollment practices, so enrollment is dependent, almost entirely, on tribal government and politics. Typically, there are controlling families within tribal groups who hold sway over membership issues.

There are several recognized groups of California “Indians” who have only one, two or perhaps a handful of members. So any new members admitted are often family members of existing members.

The only thing the responsible federal agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will furnish is a calculation of the blood quantum of anyone seeking membership, if the tribe or band has such a limitation.

The tribe has sole discretion to set such a “blood” requirement and to submit the name and ancestry of any proposed member seeking enrollment. Whatever vague and incomplete historical records the BIA has are based on “field surveys” and “Indian Census taking” nearly a century ago and which were based entirely on forms filled out by those agents when they talked (sometimes) with the persons and families involved. They relied upon those sketchy and often incomplete interviews and replies in creating an official “Indian ancestry” record.

These federal Indian policies have created no shortage of hardship and injustice to real Indians and no shortage of corruption by those “wannabe” Indians trying to scam the system now that gambling casinos are here.

It has also created many absurd interpretations, particularly now that there are significant economic benefits, for a share of the millions in welfare and grant monies provided to Indian groups, on top of the monies they receive from their many economic endeavors, like gambling casinos, hotels, restaurants, amusement parks, shopping centers, marinas, ski resorts, etc.

A classic example of the potential for abuse of this federal “hands off” policy is the re-creation of a tribe calling itself the Mashantucket Pequote tribe. The founder, “Skip” Hayward, was able to trace a 1/34 ancestry to an old Indian woman living on an abandoned Pequote reservation near Ledyard, Conn. Jeff Benedict recounts the incredible story of how Hayward parlayed that connection into the billion dollar-a-year casino called Foxwoods, in his expose book titled “Without Reservation” (HarperCollins 2000).

Perhaps it is too simple a solution, but if one is more than 50 percent of a non-Indian ancestry, then they are not Indian for any legal purpose. After all, if one were 7/8ths German and 1/8th Arapaho it hardly seems like you would be “Indian.”

It is a graphic example of how federal Indian policy is so easily manipulated by outside, non-Indian gambling investors seeking to spread casino gambling beyond Nevada and Atlantic City by using the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act of 1988 and so-called “Indian tribes” as a front.

The ugliest side of this federal Indian enrollment policy is the power it puts into the hands of tribal governments and controlling families, because the fear of any disenrollment becomes a weapon to advance tribal corruption and silence members who do not agree with their government or its policies.

One such vivid example here in California occurred at the Pechanga tribe, another massive and profitable gambling casino between Riverside and San Diego. Once boasting about 900 members, in one fell swoop, tribal Chairman Mark Macarro disenrolled an entire extended family, the Gomez family, in a move commonly recognized as an effort to fatten the profits for the remaining members and families.

To sell this disenrollment to other suspicious tribal members, who suspected Macarro’s true motives, he paid for and commissioned an ethnological investigator from here in Santa Barbara County, John R. Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He is a renowned authority on California Indians and was hired at the tribe’s considerable expense.

His thorough investigation and report to the Pechanga tribal government concluded, essentially, that the Gomez extended family was as much entitled to enrollment as anyone else. The tribal government promptly dismissed his report out of hand, ignoring his findings. To this day, the Gomez family has not been re-enrolled. Because Indian tribes are allowed to disregard the U.S. Constitution, even though tribal members are, by law, U.S. citizens, the Gomez family has no legal recourse.

Congress attempted to rectify the injustice of tribal governmental power trumping the U.S. Constitution by enacting the Indian Civil Rights Act. But when they did that, they created a Bill of Rights in that law with no legal means to enforce those rights in any real court of law.

Locally, the 152 enrolled members of the Chumash collect $45,000 every month in per capita distribution of gambling profits, while the 700 or so descendants of 1/8th or less ancestry get no money at all.

Most of us remember the millions the tribes and their outside casino investors spent to legalize casinos in California, and their main argument was how it would get all Indians off welfare and make them self sufficient. They never mentioned “enrolled members” only.

Unless Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court does something to correct these blatant injustices created by federal Indian policies, then the question of who is and who is not Indian will always be answered, “Whoever the tribe says is Indian.”