Allison Hedge Coke

Allison Hedgecoke (aka Hedge Coke) is a nationally recognized poet (a finalist for the National Book Award, 2022; and Emory Elliott Book Award Winner, 2023) who falsely claims to be of Cherokee, Huron, Metis, Ojibwe and Muscogee descent. 

Hedgecoke claims that her Cherokee and Huron ancestry came from her father’s side. In her memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer (2004), Hedgecoke writes: “My father went on to tell us about the immense abilities of the linguists among our direct Huron ancestors and the mingling of French traders and trappers who saw our grandmothers and fell in love” (page 5). She adds: “Our Huron/French-Canadian grandmas and grandpas traded and traveled by canoe and by foot, smoking tobacco to chase away hunger, finally ending up in Indian territory as well.”

Hedgecoke also claims Native ancestry in her mother’s family as well. She writes that “our maternal grandpa, Herbert, was mixed-blood himself” (page 7). Referring to Herbert’s grandfather–four generations back from Hedgecoke–she writes: “This Portuguese grandpa married in with people (Muscogee and possibly another nations) also traveling in Missouri, and together they migrated back and forth into Canada, their offspring eventually marrying and settling from Minnesota to Alberta, at the base of the Rockies” (Page 7).

A careful review of Hedgecoke’s ancestry found that she has no connections of any kind to any of these tribes or any other. Hedgecoke is a white woman who has built her career with a fantastical “Native” identity that no one in her family has ever possessed. Thus, her entire career is predicated on a fraud. Her autobiographical material is fiction. Her writing about anything American Indian is not written by a person with any American Indian perspective or lived experience. It is distorted at best and a disrespectful mockery at its worst. 

And every time the voice and the work of a pretendian fraud is elevated, a real American Indian voiced is silenced and ignored. 

You can see her genealogy here. This is hard evidence. Please do not support or enable American Indian identity fraud. It is tantamount to genocide as it erases real American Indian voices and perspectives. There is no sitting on the fence here. A choice to ignore the problem is a choice to allow it to continue to cause real harm. Choose to be an ally.