Susan Guillory Phipps, Long Lance Buffalo Child, and Takao Ozawa had interesting histories with race and identity. Each person dealt with these issues different but had similar outcomes, other people defined how they should identify. They were not able to self identify, the society labeled them. Susan Guillory Phipps identified as white, but according to the state she was African American. She possessed “3/32 negro blood” and that was enough to make her African American(Blay, 12). She battled the court to be recognized as white and lost. She argued that she looked white, grew up white and had white parents so she would also be white. The courts saw it as she had black blood so that makes you African American. She wanted to challenge the rule of hypodescent. …show more content…
Americans began to look into him and his background and found otherwise. He was not the child of Blackfoot, his dad was from North Carolina, and it was said that his family had ties to African American bloodlines (Garoutte, 2). People quickly began to turn on a man they once admired because he was now considered African American. Later we find out that he indeed was partially indian on both his parents side. People did not care, to them he was an imposter. Lance had ties to the Native American community, he went to their schools, and practiced Indian culture. The article goes on to explain how it is different to claim it and to be legitimate. This struggle is shown in Long Lances