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.

Connecting the three pieces of this dissertation is the foundation of our land or Mother Earth. Our relationship with our Mother is key to our indigenous legal tradition, as it both defines and is shaped by indigenous laws. These laws set forth the values and rules for relationships between humans, and between humans and the environment, including non-human beings. How we live in this environment, how we nurture our relationship with our Mother, and how we emulate our original instructions in treatment of one another are integral to our indigenous legal traditions. With this connection in mind, the three parts of this dissertation address the status of Pueblo women in colonial New Mexico, a study of attitudes toward preservation of traditional structures, and the ways in which we seek to protect our sacred places.

The journal article will focus on the impact of Spanish colonial laws on pueblo people in New Mexico, and pueblo women in particular. I propose the usefulness of comparing the Pueblo chthonic legal tradition with that of the colonial Spanish civil legal tradition as an approach to a fuller understanding of the impact of Spanish colonial laws on Pueblo peoples. As pueblo peoples move into the future with a focus on core values, this comparison can assist in determining what traces of the Spanish colonial, often patriarchal, systems might continue to exist among our Pueblos, to our detriment.

The book chapter looks at a survey on attitudes toward preservation of traditional Laguna housing in Paguate Village, at Laguna Pueblo, and its possible uses for community planning. This is done within the context of a community whose traditional housing has been interrupted by 30 years of uranium mining and decades of government (HUD) housing, both of which worked against Pueblo indigenous paradigms for how to live in the environment and how to live together.

The policy briefing paper makes a case for using international human rights instruments and fora to protect sacred places where United States law and policy cannot provide the degree of protection that indigenous peoples seek. In all three pieces is a question of how we essentially reclaim the gift of our original relationship with Mother Earth.