Subject: Patricia Denise Marroquin-Norby
Title: Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Sovereign Nations / identity falsely claimed: Nde, Apache, Eastern Apache, Purépecha, “Tarascan”
Determination: Zero American Indian ancestry found
Date: 5-25-24
Upon receiving multiple reports from insider whistleblowers questioning Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s claims of being Apache and Purépecha, TAAF researched her genealogy and found no evidence of any such ancestry.
Her genealogy can be seen on our website along with a detailed report explaining why this is problematic. https://tribalallianceagainstfrauds.org/patricia-marroquin-norby
There are hundreds of documents that serve as hard evidence to back up the family tree you will see there. It would be very cumbersome to try to upload them all there, but they are available upon Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s request, for a fee. Anyone can look them up for themselves, just as we did.
The burden of proof always lies with the person making the claim, not the other way around, yet we have shown that Ms. Marroquin-Norby is clearly not an American Indian woman. Being an American Indian is not about who you claim to be, but who claims you. Can Ms. Marroquin-Norby prove she has any ties to the historic Apache people? Does any legitimate Apache tribal nation claim her? No.
Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s scholarship is foundationally flawed and academically dishonest, as everything she says or writes purports to be said or written by someone with an American Indian perspective, which she has never had and will never have.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has failed the American Indian people whose cultures and ancestors it relies upon by not educating their employees sufficiently. They need to be capable of doing their due diligence to properly vet the claims of prospective employees such as Ms. Marroquin-Norby, who will hold important positions that require relevant competencies and the ability to maintain trust in their relationships with American Indian communities. Lying about being one of us will not accomplish that. Avoiding compliance with NAGPRA laws will also do nothing to foster good relations with American Indian people. What DO museums give back to the American Indian people they owe much of their financial success to?
The Tribal Alliance Against Frauds would also like to know exactly what Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s specific qualifications for this job include. We do not understand how she was even qualified to be offered this position in the first place.
Our determination: Ms. Patricia Denise Marroquin-Norby is a pretendian FRAUD.
And the Metropolitan Museum of Art needs to do much better going forward. They have earned a FAILING GRADE as an institution on their allyship report card from TAAF.
Subject: Patricia Denise Marroquin-Norby
Sovereign Nations / identity falsely claimed: Nde, Apache, Eastern Apache, Purépecha, “Tarascan”
Determination: Zero American Indian ancestry found
Date: 5-25-24
TAAF has conducted our own independent investigation into Patricia Denise Marroquin-Norby, including our own genealogical research, which corroborates the findings of others who have also determined that Ms. Marroquin-Norby is Mexican American and not an American Indian from the United States or Mexico. We agree.
Ms. Marroquin-Norby is a non-American Indian person who has been shifting her ethnic identity for at least the past 14 years. She does this by falsely claiming to be an American-Indian person of one tribe or another. So far, she has falsely claimed to be Nde, Apache, Eastern Apache, “Tarascan” and Purépecha. She has based her slippery claims on a vague family myth she never bothered to verify, despite a vacation to Michoacán, Mexico, for the purpose of advancing her career. The boon to her career stems from the appearance that she possesses an American Indian perspective gained by supposedly having the lived experience of an American Indian person, by claiming to be Apache, and one that extends all the way to Mexico by claiming to be Purépecha. We have noted that Ms. Marroquin-Norby has begun to claim Purépecha more than Apache recently and this fits with the tactics mentioned above, especially with regard to advancing her career based on these false claims of “Indigeneity” that she is hoping no one can disprove.
It should be noted that “Tarascan” is, in fact, a pejorative exonym, referring to the Purépecha people. Purépecha people do not refer to themselves as “Tarascan”, which Ms. Marroquin-Norby would know if she were Purépecha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pur%C3%A9pecha
It is a common pretendian tactic, often referred to as “tribe-hopping”, to claim more than one tribe, to change claims as one’s claims are debunked, and to claim tribes or communities one believes will be difficult to disprove. Pretendians routinely have several family stories that shift and multiply as they are challenged, a tactic intended to deflect from the simple truth and to keep people constantly guessing. Many pretendians prefer to claim border tribes, such at the Mohawk or Yaqui, as a shield in their claims for verification.
Ms. Marroquin-Norby is clearly Mexican-American, as her genealogy proves. The Purépecha people come from Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro. The vacation Ms. Marroquin-Norby took to these places does not equate with belonging and recognition within one these communities. It is incumbent upon Ms. Marroquin-Norby to prove that she has any genuine kinship ties to a Purépecha community in Mexico. She has shown none to date. Also, the Purépecha people do not have things like “tribal rolls”, as Indians in the United States do. They rely on community kinship and belonging in their communities within living memory. For them to consider someone Purépecha, that person would have to be fluent in the Purépecha language. Ms. Marroquin-Norby most certainly meets neither of those embedded Indigenous expectations. Essentially, you must be born into one of those communities to be acknowledged as a Purépecha person. They do not recognize distant ancestry or “descent”.
Ms. Marroquin-Norby shows some genealogy from Jalisco, however, the Purépecha people have not lived in that area since the 16th century at the latest. So even if she had such an ancestor, which we haven’t found, it would not make her Purépecha, it would make her a Mexican-American person with an ancient Purépecha ancestor…. Big difference. Also, the Christian baptismal records of Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s family, such as those of Antonio Carillo and Maria Ysisdora Gomez, further disintegrate her family myth because the Purépecha people were not Christianized, as a whole, and that was actually a point of pride for them.
We at TAAF are primarily concerned with American Indian people from the United States. The First Peoples of what are now known as Mexico, the United States and Canada were all racialized, marginalized, colonized and oppressed in very distinct ways by 3 distinct colonizer governments. TAAF deals with those in the United States. We will focus, going forward, on her Apache claims. That said, we can clearly see in her genealogy that she has zero “Indigenous” ancestry from any of the aforementioned First Peoples of either the United States or Mexico. So until she can prove otherwise, those claims are moot and certainly do not give her any Purépecha perspective, traditional knowledge or lived experience regarding anything.
The results of our investigation into her genealogy, which is all a matter of public record, can be found here: https://tribalallianceagainstfrauds.org/patricia-marroquin-norby
There are hundreds of documents that serve as hard evidence to back up the family tree you see. However, it would be very cumbersome to try to upload them all here, but they are available upon Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s request, for a fee. We do have them all. And anyone can look them up for themselves, just as we did.
In the end, the burden of proof always lies with the person making the claim, not the other way around, yet we have shown that Ms. Marroquin-Norby is clearly not an American Indian woman. Being an American Indian is not about who you claim to be, but who claims you. Can Ms. Marroquin-Norby prove she has any ties to the historic Apache people? Does any legitimate Apache tribal nation claim her?
Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s scholarship is foundationally flawed and academically dishonest as well. As everything she says or writes purports to be said or written by someone with an American Indian perspective, which she has never had and will never have.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has failed the American Indian people whose cultures and ancestors it relies upon by not educating their employees sufficiently in order to ensure authenticity on every level. They need to be capable of doing their due diligence to properly vet the claims of prospective employees such as Ms. Marroquin-Norby, who will hold important positions that require relevant competencies and the ability to maintain trust in their relationships with American Indian communities. Lying about being one of us will not accomplish that. Avoiding compliance with NAGPRA laws will also do nothing to foster good relations with American Indian people. What DO museums give back to the American Indian people they owe so much of their financial success to? What are they doing to make amends for the years of abuse that most museums have inflicted upon American Indian communities in order to make a profit? Enabling pretendian fraud and everything that results in is adding to the problem, not working to make things better.
The Tribal Alliance Against Frauds would also like to know exactly what Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s specific qualifications for this job include. We do not understand how she was even qualified to be offered this position in the first place.
It appears very dismissive of Ms. Marroquin-Norby’s Mexican and Mexican-American ancestors for her to ignore all of their sacrifice, success, and beautiful proud Mexican heritage by falsely claiming American Indian ancestors who do not exist among her actual ancestors.
We’d like to note that that is not an isolated complaint. This issue has been a poorly kept “secret” that many all across Indian country have questioned since her appointment to the Met. It is time to drag it into the light of day and expose it for what it is: fraud. We thank all the brave whistleblowers who have brought this to our attention and the attention of other watchdogs as well. Thank you ALL for your courage and dedication to American Indian sovereignty and the honesty, authenticity and due diligence we expect of organizations like the Met, whom we expect to see doing better going forward.
Our determination: Ms. Patricia Denise Marroquin-Norby is a pretendian FRAUD.
And the Metropolitan Museum of Art needs to do much better going forward. They have earned a FAILING GRADE as an institution on their allyship report card from TAAF.
Patricia Marroquin Norby made a very problematic Facebook post yesterday which TAAF would like to address. It was very typical of a Pretendian fraud upon being exposed as such. Lots of mudslinging in the direction of those she blames yet who are not responsible for where Ms. Norby finds herself.
The nutshell is that Ms. Norby has been claiming to be Apache and Purépecha, with roots from Mexico and Texas. There are no legitimate Apache tribes in Texas. There are no legitimate Apache tribes in the U.S. who claim Ms. Norby as one of them. If there are Apache or Purépecha communities in Mexico who claim Ms. Norby and her family as one of them, we have yet to see evidence of that. Our website explains how that would be very difficult, if not impossible, for Ms. Norby. An attempt to achieve this, disingenuously, at this point, would look very bad indeed for Ms. Norby and would be very apparent.
The “gatekeeping” of our American Indian cultures, especially our ancient sacred ceremonies, our ancestors, our very identities as Indian people, has become a necessary tool and crucial skill in order to safeguard them from lying, thieving, Pretendian frauds. It should be remembered that the genocide against us continues, and everything we have is still very much in danger of going extinct.
Ms. Norby says she’s not going to hide her Purépecha or Apache identity in shame. No one asked her to. Because she has no Purépecha or Apache ancestry to begin with. She is Mexican American. That’s it. And while it is not incumbent upon US to prove a negative, we have done her genealogy and we have asked the 9 federally recognized Apache tribes of the United States whether Ms. Norby has any such ancestry and the answer has been a consistent resounding NO.
It is becoming a more and more frequent tactic to claim ancestry from the First Peoples of Mexico because Pretendians hope no one will be able to check up on such claims. They hope we don’t speak Spanish or other tribal languages. They hope we have no contacts among the First Peoples of Mexico. They hope we don’t speak any of the original languages of those peoples. But TAAF has all of the above. And a travel budget.
But the onus of proving that she actually has any Apache or Purépecha kinship lies with Ms. Norby. Not anyone else. Which Purépecha or Apache community in Mexico actually claims her as one of their own? When we go to visit that community, and speak with them in their original language, who will confirm that to us? Because we will check further and do that next.
So no one is expecting Ms. Norby to “hide”. We expect her to do the right thing and come clean by admitting that she has never had any kinship ties to any Apache or Purépecha community. We expect her to be open and honest about her family and her upbringing as a Mexican-American woman, not a Mexican-Indian, Apache or Purépecha woman.
Ms. Norby showed her ugly bias in her post yesterday towards legitimately American Indian women, who had nothing to do with the article in the NY Post, by attempting to smear their good names and reputations solely because they had the courage to question Ms. Norby’s vacuous claims of “Indigeneity” in 2021. God bless the efforts of Jacqueline Keeler and others like her, who consistently brave the toxicity (and worse) of people like Ms. Norby, who clearly have no respect for actual American Indian people (and that includes Mexico, Canada and the U.S.).
It's a shame that more people don’t listen to the actual American Indian people when we speak out about fraud like this that continues to erase us, putting the final nail into the coffin of our genocide. Why does that happen? Why don’t people listen to us? Because we are invisible. Because we are a romanticized, fetishized, tokenized, commodified notion that non-Indian people feel no accountability towards. Rather, they feel entitlement to take and use as they please, no matter the cost to us. This is not what uncolonized, non-performative, genuine allies do.
And it should never be the victims of any con-artist who should have to bear the brunt of exposing things like this. This is one reason why watchdog organizations like TAAF exist. We, and journalists like Jacqueline Keeler and others, will do that work and protect the whistleblowers. Because retaliation at the hands of frauds when they get exposed is very real. The person blowing a whistle on fraud should not be the focus. The focus should be whether or not the information being presented is factual and is there evidence to back it up? Also, can the alleged fraud in question prove otherwise? If you have nothing solid to base your claim of being an American Indian upon, you’re not an American Indian.
Pretendians routinely create Pretendian echo chambers and Pretendian mills at museums and universities, hoarding the access, the opportunities and the microphones that actual American Indian scholars should be given in spaces where our voices should have priority. We are tired of others speaking for us. We are even more tired now of others pretending to BE us as they presume to speak for us.
It is not an act of violence or “racism” when legitimately American Indian people expose, on a list or individually, Pretendian frauds stealing from us and defrauding the public by claiming to have an American Indian perspective when they have none. It is an act of violence and racism for non-Indian people to lie about being one of us as they usurp things meant for us, as they desecrate our ceremonies by distorting them beyond recognition, as they distort our cultures and histories in general in “teaching” about us because they do not share our lived experience, as they participate in trauma porn (classic example: Allison Hedge-Coke), fantasizing about the stolen intergenerational grief and trauma that American Indian people are STILL trying to survive and heal from, which no one in their family ever experienced.
Calling the NY Post, a very reputable publication, a “tabloid” is not going to work either. #DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse victim & offender. A common Pretendian tactic. Look it up.) The NY Post is to be commended for doing their best to report on this story because up until now, Ms. Norby has managed to intimidate any journalistic source attempting to air the truth regarding her misrepresentation of herself to the public. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city has worked to deflect accountability in this case, displaying poor ethics in all areas, including communication, consultation and repatriation with respect to the Native American Art in their care. To date, the Met has not responded appropriately to the criticism regarding Ms. Norby coming from actual American Indian people who absolutely deserve a response. It is extremely harmful and adds more trauma to hundreds of years of intergenerational grief and trauma to gaslight and ignore legitimately American Indian people when they attempt to point out harm being actively done to them, i.e. Pretendian theft and fraud.
Ms. Norby referred to “detribalized Indigenous people and descendants like me”. Those are common red flag buzzwords among Pretendians. The extremely vague “Indigenous” term is highly problematic. A person claiming to be “Indigenous to Mexico” could just be someone born in Mexico. Not everyone born in Mexico is a Mexican Indian. “Detribalized” is more often than not misused out of context and completely misunderstood, often replacing “tribal termination” or “disenrollment”. “Reconnecting” is another one. Disconnected American Indian people should always be encouraged to reconnect to their tribe, when they actually have a tribe to legitimately reconnect to…. But this is often a tactic that Pretendians use, to imply they have something to reconnect to when they do not.
And there is a huge difference between being an enrolled federally recognized sovereign tribal nation citizen, versus someone who found an American Indian ancestor on a roll 400 years ago, i.e. a ‘descendant’. Or someone making an appearance in a Purépecha community while on vacation in hopes of validating a family myth. There’s a bit of food for thought when considering American Indian identity and kinship issues.
So no, Ms. Norby, none of these fabulous legitimately American Indian scholars you have libeled have been ‘violent’ or ‘racist’ towards you. They simply asked reasonable questions and pointed out reasonable concerns. And you are the only one who can turn it around by coming clean and doing better going forward. Your behavior as it stands will not be tolerated. You made this bed. This is the consequence of your own actions. Time for a trip to the local furniture store at this point because there is no re-making this bed. No blaming of others.
No scholar, or anyone in a position of trust owed the public, such as Ms. Norby’s position at the Met, is immune to expectations of honesty, authenticity and accountability. And vetting the claims of prospective employees is imperative. The Met needs to learn how to do this properly and do better going forward as well. This is part of the job and the responsibility of anyone involved in anything to do with the media, let alone trust relationships with American Indian sovereign tribal nations.
The exposure of your fraud is actually very RIGHT. And it’s about time.
There is nothing for you to “fight back” about. But by all means. While you’re at it, you’ll need to actually prove your claims of being Apache and Purépecha.
To learn more about uncolonized allyship and the problem of Pretendianism, see the reading list provided on the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds website.
Many members of the American Indian community brought to the attention of TAAF their concerns about Patricia Marroquin Norby being a possible pretendian. We found out that Patricia was claiming to be “Apache from Mexico” and “Purépecha”. Simultaneously, through her social media, Patricia claimed to be “detribalized”. These claims counter each other. The claim of being “detribalized” is that of someone not being connected to any community of legitimate First Peoples. How could Patricia claim to be Apache or Purépecha, if she is not connected to these communities? The term ‘detribalized’ is used by Mexican & Chicano pretendians.
There are some who bring up the concern about the differences between the U.S., Canada, & Mexico, regarding claims to Indigeneity. While we at TAAF acknowledge that there are differences between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with regard to levels of sovereignty, and style of Indigenous governance, Indigeneity works similarly throughout the continent in that you have to be part of an Indigenous community in order to claim them. Patricia has yet to show anyone that she is part of an Indigenous community in Mexico. And in her own words, she claims to be ‘detribalized’. Since Indigenous sovereignty is weaker in the Mexican territory than it is in Canada, or the United States, it is more essential that anyone claiming Indigeneity via an Indigenous community within Mexico actually have ties to the specifically claimed community.
Within Indigenous communities in Mexico, family ties are important to claim Indigeneity.
Families are well known within Indigenous communities, so when someone claims indigeneity via Spanish Catholic records from an ancestor hundreds of years ago, without community ties, those claims are not met with open arms. Even though there are large diaspora communities of Indigenous peoples from Mexico within the United States, family connections are still important. This is shown in Coming Out as Indian: On being an Indigenous Latina in the U.S. by Lourdes Alberto. Whether the connections to Indigenous communities are in Mexico, or in a diaspora experience, cultural and linguistic ties are still prominent.
The problem of pretendianism (race-shifting) is a global systemic phenomenon that has been created by European colonialism. This is why it is important for people to understand the history, and about the living Indigenous communities that reside within a territory in order to help stop pretendianism. Pretendianism in Mexico has its similarities, but at the same time it has big differences. We hope that the reader continues their journey to learn about pretendianism throughout the North American continent, which has only recently been referred to as Canada, Mexico or the United States, in order to eradicate it.
To learn more about the race-shifting phenomenon within the United States and Mexico, I highly recommend reading the following books on the topic:
- Becoming Indian: The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the Twenty-First Century by Circe Sturm.
- Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science by Kim Tallbear.
- Playing Indian by Phillip J. Deloria.
- Nations, Nationalisms, and Indígenas: The “Indian” in the Chicano Revolutionary Imaginary by Lourdes Alberto.
- Eugenics in Nation Building Post-Revolutionary Mexican Identity Formation by Francesca Contreas.
- Before Mestizaje the Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico by Ben Vinson III.
- Mestizo Genomics Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America by Peter Wade, Carlos López Beltrán, Eduardo Restrepo, and Ricardo Ventura Santos.
- The Neo-Indians: A Religion for the Third Millenium by Jacques Galinier.
