In 2012, her Senate campaign almost came unhinged over her fumbling response to questions about her native American background. An old article in the newspaper at Harvard University, where she was a law professor, had quoted a university spokesman defending faculty diversity by citing Warren’s heritage, and she was accused of getting her job under false pretenses. Republicans demanded she prove who her ancestors were.
“As a kid, I had learned about my Native American background the same way every kid learns about who they are: from family,” she writes. “I never questioned my family’s stories or asked my parents for proof or documentation.”
She writes that her mother’s family lived in Indian Territory that had become part of the new state of Oklahoma by the time her mother, Polly, was born. Both of her mother’s parents had native American ancestry, she says. The Boston Globe eventually did an investigative article into Warren’s family history, and tracked down distant relatives who also spoke of the family’s native American background.
Warren also says she never sought advantage from her background: “I never asked for special treatment when I applied to college, to law school, or for jobs.”
