82 Unwanted and ambivalent citizenship local newspaper, the Post-Standard, published at the time, included a particu larly interesting photograph of team member Marty Ward, taken while the team was waiting for a decision in New York. In this image (see Figure 6.1), which was taken by Mike Greenlar, Ward is seen from behind. He looks out over the Hudson River towards the symbolic icon of American freedom, the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is emblematic for having greeted those denied freedom elsewhere as they arrived in America. In Greenlar’s picture, this liberty is seen from a different perspective, through the eyes of Ward, as he waits to learn whether he and his team will be able to leave New York or whether they will be grounded for contesting the State system and citizenship that is usually assumed to be emancipatory. For the team to board the plane with only Haudenosaunee documents, the UK required that the US would vouch officially that the players would be allowed to return after the tournament.7 As negotiations continued, the team reportedly missed matches, with effects on their potential performance in the championship as well as financial implications.8 When no satisfactory solution was offered the team eventually returned home.9 Joe Heath, General Counsel to the Onondaga, one of the six nations that make up the Haudenosaunee confederacy, is quoted in the press as describing the bureaucracy that would not let them travel as part of a ‘racist colonial, assimilationist machine’.10 I interpret this to mean that he saw the travel restrictions as part of a framework that reinforces the status quo which was created by, and continues to support, colonial occupation of lands previ ously occupied by the Haudenosaunee, and forcing those that would contest this to conform. It is hard to disagree. In 2010, the lacrosse players were told that they must either submit to a framework that they contested or be prevented from fulfilling capabilities within it, symbolised by their inability to travel to the tournament. Since that frame work is the overarching global political framework within which rights are crafted and protected, the coercive threat in this is strong. This incident shows how the prevalence of the citizenist assumption renders contestation of it, and of one’s place within it, difficult. It also makes it easier for that contestation to be unacknowledged. The imposition of citizenship, including through the coercive refusal of travel to those unwilling or unable to make use of a recognised citizen ship, seems also to challenge the freely chosen and consensual (even if only hypothetically) nature of the citizen relationship itself. It forces those who are 7 Brian Kolva (2012) ‘Lacrosse Players, Not Terrorists: The Effects of the Western Travel Initi ative on Native American International Travel and Sovereignty’, pp. 307 in Washington Univer sity Journal of Law and Policy 40, p. 309; Thomas Kaplan (2010) ‘Iroquois Defeated by Passport Dispute’, New York Times 16 July 2010. 8 Kolva 2012 ibid. 9 The Economist (2010) ‘The Iroquois and their passports: unfair play’, 22 July 2010; Kaplan 2010 ibid.; Lindsey Kingston (2011) ‘Opting Out of Legal Nationality: Identity, Passports and the Iro quois National Lacrosse Team’, Western Political Science Association 2011 Annual Meeting [unpublished]. 10 The Economist 2010 ibid.