Berkeley professor apologizes for claiming to be Native American for years, admits she’s ‘a white person.’ An anthropology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, whose identity as Native American had been questioned for years apologized for falsely identifying as Indigenous, saying she is “a white person” who lived an identity based on family lore. Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, said in an apology posted on her website that she claimed an identity as a woman of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent but never confirmed that identity with those communities or researched her ancestry until recently. “I caused harm,” Hoover wrote. “I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students, and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms.
The exact number of murdered and missing Indigenous people may be hard to pinpoint, but a 2018 report from the Urban Indian Health Institute ranked Alaska fourth in the country for number of cases — and Anchorage the third highest city in the nation. Although people of all genders are affected, women and girls are the primary victims of this type of violence. May 5th has been recognized as National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls since 2017. Aqpik Apok, Executive Director of the group Data for Indigenous Justice, said her organization has now documented more than 700 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Alaska. And every case, she said, has a name. “These are not just numbers, right? We know that these are loved ones. Each of those cases are people who are very much loved and missed in our communities, and that’s just here in the state,” Apok said.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
