Five white women who lied about their ancestry

A professor of environmental science specializing in Native American issues apologized this week for “incorrectly identifying” as Native American for years, joining a list of white women who have feigned membership in a different racial or ethnic group.

The fringe trend has, in some cases, appeared to be attempts to take advantage of affirmative action, while others have used their adopted ethnicity to achieve certain social statuses.

WHITE UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR ADMITS SHE ‘INCORRECTLY IDENTIFIED’ AS NATIVE AMERICAN

Here are five white women who have claimed to belong to a different ethnic group:

Rachel Dolezal

In 2015, Rachel Dolezal was forced to resign from her position as the president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP. Her resignation came after media outlets reported that, while she presented herself as a black woman, Dolezal was in fact born to two white parents.

Dolezal, who has since changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, claimed that she identified as black and has defended herself since her high-profile fall from grace. In a 2017 interview with the Guardian, Dolezal said she believed racial identity was more fluid than gender identity.

“I feel that I was born with the essential essence of who I am, whether it matches my anatomy and complexion or not,” Dolezal told the outlet. “I’ve never questioned being a girl or woman, for example, but whiteness has always felt foreign to me for as long as I can remember. I didn’t choose to feel this way or be this way; I just am. What other choice is there than to be exactly who we are?”

Elizabeth Warren

Massachusetts’s Democratic senior senator, Elizabeth Warren, was dogged by accusations that her claims of Cherokee ancestry were fraudulent. For nearly 10 years, Warren was identified as Native American in a directory for the Association of American Law Schools while a professor at Harvard Law School.

Warren repeatedly defended her claims of Native American ancestry but eventually apologized in 2019 after a DNA test revealed she had little, if any, Native American blood. The controversy prompted then-President Donald Trump to tab her with the nickname “Pocahontas” as Warren sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Hillary ‘Hilaria’ Baldwin

The wife of actor Alec Baldwin employed a Spanish accent for years, claiming that the Iberian nation was her native home before it was revealed that she was actually from Boston and that she had been faking the accent.

Hilaria Baldwin defended herself, saying she would not apologize and that she “grew up with two cultures” and spoke two languages.

“I care because my thing is about being authentic — and then if people say I’m not being authentic, it hurts my feelings. … I don’t really understand why it’s turning into such a big thing,” she said in 2020 when her true background was revealed. “I’m getting attacked for being who I am … people wanting to label me Spanish or American. Can’t it be both?”

Carrie Bourassa

A professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, Carrie Bourassa resigned from her position last year after a 2021 report from CBC revealed that she was likely 100% European despite claiming indigenous ancestry.

Bourassa had claimed to be a member of the Metis, Anishinaabe, and Tlingit peoples, three indigenous groups from Canada. She used the name “Morning Star Bear” when introducing herself at a 2019 TEDx talk.

Elizabeth Hoover

The newest member of the misrepresented ethnicity club, University of California, Berkeley environmental science professor Elizabeth Hoover issued a lengthy apology this week for “incorrectly identifying” as Native American. Hoover’s research at the California university centered on “Native American environmental health.”

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Hoover said she “uncritically” accepted as fact stories she was told by her family that she had Native American ancestry and that she should have properly researched her ancestors and confirmed the stories she had been told.

“I have brought hurt, harm, and broken trust to the Native community at large, and to specific Native communities I have worked with and lived alongside, and for that, I am deeply sorry,” Hoover wrote in a lengthy apology statement posted on her website.