With the change we're seeing right now in the culture, after it's made to include

Native people once again back into the wider society, there are a lot of opportunities have opened up and

the second opportunities open up. Grifters are going to go in and if there's not any gatekeeping,

it's going to run rampant.

Robert Jago and Angel Ellis are the hosts of the new podcast Pretendians, which shines a light on scam artists who have committed indigenous identity fraud. Robert, a member of the Quantland First Nation and Nooksack Indian tribes,

is a writer, educator, and political consultant whose writing has appeared in publications like the Nation and the

CBC. Angel is a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation and the director of Muskogee Media, as well as the subject of the Sundance Award-winning

documentary Bad Press which follows her fight to create an independent press within

the Muskogee Creek Nation. For this episode Robert and and get away with this fraud, the effects these charlatans have on the indigenous peoples

they sloppily attempt to emulate, and how these living caricatures continue to

overshadow the true identities of various indigenous communities.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American hysteria.

I am so happy to introduce Angel and Robert to the show.

I have just absolutely loved the first two episodes I've got to hear my

advanced copy of and yeah I just really think our audience is gonna be

interested in this topic. So welcome and I would

love to just start with the basics. What is a Pretendian? Well first thank you. Pretendian, it is a pretend Indian. So you might say

Native American or First Nations are indigenous. Most Native people probably still say Indian.

So it's a term that originated in Native pop culture.

And it refers to these people who pretend to be native people in order to get some sort of benefit,

either to get a large platform to share their views or to get federal contracts or to get a scholarship and stuff like that.

So it's native slang.

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