In Oklahoma, if you can trace your ancestry back to someone who was on the Dawes Rolls, you can apply to be a member of the Cherokee Nation regardless of your percentage of native ancestry. So there are a lot of people who are effectively white, but are part of the Nation and consider themselves part Cherokee.

This is distinct from the “part Cherokee” or “descended form a Cherokee princess” claims that were used to try and legitimize white supremacy in the south.