Pueblo Negotiations: The Impact of Enrollment on Pueblo People's Reproductive and Social Labor

Reproductive Justice is defined as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children (or not), and parent children in safe and sustainable communities (Ross & Solinger, 2017). Reproductive politics in settler nations like the United States are based on gendered, sexualized, and racialized acts of oppression (Gurr, 2014). Among the Indigenous communities in New Mexico, reproductive sovereignty is synonymous with tribal sovereignty and is intimately tied to connections to their land base. A central question guides this work: How have the rules of tribal enrollment impacted dating, child rearing, and family structures within Pueblo communities? Pueblo communities have been subject to centuries of settler colonial rule, then under the Spanish, Mexican, and currently U.S. jurisdictions, each of which shaped enrollment policies. Those policies reflect external normative systems (the Catholic church) and governmental structures (tribal constitutions based on the U.S. model), and membership rules based on settler notions of blood quantum. In particular, strict blood quantum rules threaten the continuity of families, land tenure systems, and Native nations themselves. Blood quantum and other forms of tribal enrollment practices must be understood as reproductive justice issues. This research draws on 89 interviews with 24 Pueblo people (15 women, 5 men, 4 non-binary) over the span of 11 months in 2021. Interviewees represent the Pueblos of Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Pojoaque, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Taos, and Zuni. This research found that Pueblo people conceptualize the term “reproductive nation building” in two ways: (1) they correlate tribal enrollment requirements with reproductive expectations placed on Pueblo women, and (2) Pueblo people feel a sense of belonging that transcends enrollment via concepts such as responsibility, accountability, permission, and protocol. Current tribal enrollment practices (especially blood quantum and lineal descent) significantly impact Pueblo women’s reproductive choices. Both positive and negative impacts have generational legacies that hold long-lasting implications for the future of tribal nations. Reimagining enrollment is necessary to reclaim kinship, clanship, and other forms of belonging that have been used within Pueblo communities since time immemorial.