So is Jasa searching for a mate with enough Salish blood so that any children she may have can enroll in the tribe?

No.

Like her father when he was her age, Jasa said, “It’s not even something that would occur to me to think about when considering who I was going to date.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by other young Native Americans. After all, European and American culture has glorified love as paramount to any other consideration since the time of Romeo and Juliet. Who wants to make equations about the future blood quantum of hypothetical children when they’re falling in love?

Kelly Crawford is the vice president of the American Indian Council at Montana State University. She grew up in Heart Butte on the Blackfeet reservation with a Blackfeet father and a British mother. She doesn’t care if her future mate is Indian or not.

“Because I think of it as there’s a right person for somebody, it doesn’t matter what their cultural background is,” she said.