A bit of bio

I recently shared this story with a close friend. I call it, "How I Spent My Summer Vacations, OR, What It Means To Me To Be Indian."

I went most of my young life never really giving any thought to being Indian. It didn't really mean anything to me. I knew my mom worked for the BIA and I knew that I was Indian, but it didn't really have any context. We would go to SD for visits and everyone was brown. No big deal. (As an aside, I remember being a little girl and learning about WWII and the Holocaust. I couldn't understand why people didn't like Jewish people. They were white (to my eyes). Didn't everyone like white people? Obviously I missed something there.)

This all really changed when we moved to Rapid City, SD in 1983. I very quickly learned that Indians were not viewed well by white people. My entire schooling in Rapid City - from 6th grade to 12th - I only went to school with maybe 6 black kids. And they were the coolest kids in the school. It was the Indian kids that were completely looked down on and treated like dirt. A cousin of mine once told me that her experience growing up in NYC was totally different - people thought it was exotic and interesting that she was Native. This was SO not true in this state.

I became ashamed of being Indian. All my friends and teachers and everyone I knew (outside of family) had horrible things to say about Indians. I didn't want to be associated with that group of people at all. I never told anyone that I was Indian. When people would ask about my name, I'd just tell them that it was a family name and I didn't know anything about it. I remember being grateful that I didn't "look" Indian like my mom and others in our family - this is not something easy to admit at all. I look now and see all the beautiful women in my family and would give anything for their gorgeous hair, eyes, and skin.

So that was kind of my life for a few years. I was a "white" kid. Looking white like I do has allowed me to hear some really terrible stuff over the years. No one talks smack about brown people in front of people who look obviously ethnic. But if you can "pass" then you get to hear alllll the dirt. It led to kind of a schizo existence. We would spend the school year in Rapid City and I had all these nice white, suburban friends. But then my summers would be spent at the River and I was a rez girl running around with her cousins and swimming every day.

All of this kind of came to a head my junior year of high school. I had this creative writing class with this total hippie teacher. She was one of those that had the whole class sit in a circle. We watched weird documentaries about Thalidomide babies so that we would have deep meaningful things to write about. She was kind of a nut really. I can't even remember her name beyond "Sue" because we weren't allowed to call her Mrs. Whatever. Weird.

One day we were all sitting in a circle and the teacher asked if any of us knew anything about the Wounded Knee massacre. I raised my hand and so did this other kid. I was kind of sitting off the the side of the teacher and so she didn't see me. She asked the other guy what he thought about it. And the dude just went off on this big long vitriolic rant against Indians. It was just unbelievable. I've hardly ever heard such hateful speech. It was like being in apartheid South Africa or the deep south. One thing he said was that Indians can commit almost any crime and get away with it.

I finally had enough and jumped in. At that point in time, my uncle was chairman of our tribe and he hired my mom to be a temporary public defender until he could get someone hired permanently. I asked him if he knew ANYTHING about how crimes are handled on a reservation. The difference between white on white crime or white on Indian or Indian on Indian or whatever. He countered with the fact that his dad was a dentist and was always having to fix the teeth of Indians who beat the crap out of each other. What a tool. I told him that maybe the inane attitudes that come from people like him and his dad contributed to that and I hope his dad was happy that his son's ignorance was drumming up more business for him. This thing went back and forth I don't know how long. And basically I just dismantled every stupid thing he had to say. I effectively reduced him publicly to an ignorant hateful bigot. He finally just got pissed off and said, "Why do you care about a bunch of filthy Indians anyway." So I answered him with, "Because I AM ONE you stupid ************." And then I left the classroom. An Asian girl got up and left too. The teacher later apologized (which I felt was unnecessary) and said that she would talk to him. I didn't really care about that. He was an idiot and I wasn't. End of story.

That day was the last of my shame about where I came from. It's not like I'm little miss Lakota trotting out my heritage at every given moment. But when I'm asked, I tell the truth. If I hear someone say something really ignorant about Indians or blacks or Jewish people or whatever, I pipe up. I'm just not going to stand for people spouting idiocy in my presence. Are there problems with Indian people? Absolutely. Lots of them. But I'm not going to listen to anyone speak from a position of ignorance. (This also includes not listening Native people start on their anti-white crap either.) I am also not going to hide who I am anymore. I don't "define" myself as Indian. It's PART of who I am. Just like part of who I am is Irish or female or short or whatever.

South Dakota is a different place now. I was worried about what Dylan would run into when we moved back here. But it seems like some of these problems have relaxed - especially with his generation. Certainly there are still a lot of bigots, but the overt, systemic racist crap has gone away to a large degree (I'm sure every relative I have would argue with me about that until the end of the world...but I think it's true. On the other hand, no one follows me around in stores to make sure I don't steal stuff. So what do I know?). I'm glad about that. It was a hard way to grow up and I'm glad he doesn't have to go through doubting himself and his background. Maybe my difficulties have made me a better, stronger person....or whatever. But no one wants their kids to experience difficulties if they can be avoided.