Abstract

I will examine the factors that define ethnic identity and how that identity is construed by members in three Louisiana Indian groups. The external forces as well as the internal forces that help define these groups are examined. In particular, I focus on the Federal Acknowledgment process (the means by which the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognizes American Indian Tribes) as a major external defining force in the groups' ethnic identity. I will contend that the major criteria which affects the definition of ethnic identity in these groups is kinship.