This is the face of an indigenous woman. Perhaps not what you were expecting. Not what I was expecting either, to be honest. Does my face with my identity, my history, make you uncomfortable? Or perhaps worse, do I make indigenousness more palpable for you?
These questions reflect my insecurities: I may risk doing a great disservice to many people, many of my people, my ancestors, but mostly to those alive, those whose faces does not look like mine. Those who actually experience racism. Not the white reflections. They are bombproof. Protected, revered and powerful. The caucasian may cry but are left unscathed. They wince, but there is no blood to justify it.
Wait. It's me. I'm doing it right now aren't I? I try to not be ignorant of my place as a very, very white and privileged person, after all. But this is an example of such isn't it? Poor white girl. Are you more likely to be listening to my voice, because I am more likely to have a voice in the first place?
I feel mismatched. And not in the unbothered way I wear socks. It is conflicting. I claim one history at a time, not together; it must be kept separate. I am both over AND under-represented. And I am not sure to which bloodline it is that I feel an imposter too. My claim to indigenous identity is dangerous. Perhaps unfair.
If I tell you to accept me, to see me as something more than what is evident by my fair skin, does it make those punished by their darker skin, who are screaming, demanding, and dying for acceptance, to just be seen - does it push their movements some steps back? Does it silence them all over again?
I am constantly seen, constantly here. I am so normalized that I don't even notice that I am seen. This is where my brothers and sisters that do not look like me would say, no, of course, you don't need to be seen. You don't need to be recognized. You have enough. You are human. You exist with safety. Your claim does us no good.
Is it even right for anyone that lives with white privilege to take identity with something that for those that "look the part," have a very different experience? Indigenous Identity without Indigenous struggle? That can't be fair. Maybe I shouldn't yearn to be rid of it. There are correct, I am safe. You can't see the Indian in me.
I am the literal physical embodiment of the consequences of colonialism, of racism, of discrimination, of power and control, and of the loss of indigenous voices and stories. My ancestors' stories have been white-washed, and as I exist, I do to them the same.
White people say white people things to me, a fellow whitey, all the time.
"Something, something Indian."
"This one time this damn drunk Indian."
"Ah yea and our taxes pay for it."
Incomplete sentences with incomplete reasoning.
"I'm actually Metis. Yea, my Dad's side is indigenous and Metis." Full stop. The irony here is that I am having trouble finding the accent on this format to correctly even spell Métis. There it is. Had to dig a little deeper, is all.
We wait to see what this whitey comes up with next. How good are they are at backtracking without making it look like such? As if they have a larger conception of the situation than they voiced. As if their previous statement might be misunderstood if they didn't now say what they really meant. You realize how little someone knows about something when you inquire with the littlest bit of confidence.
Who knew, "Ok, and why do you think that?" could be such a triggering invitation.
This wasn't mean to be a conversation after all. Talking at, not talking together. How dare we question the white man.
According to the paperwork, the family tree, back to the 1600s, Metis Citizen B.C. considers me Métis. I got their stamp of approval, a card and everything. The name literally means mixed. Names for some of the women on this written history, precursors to the Metis society, make it very clear that they entered from a different world. Her identity was not compatible for translation into the white man's society. They married and bore children into an encompassing but alien world.
Last name - "Cree".
History either did not care what her proper name was, didn't care to recall her in depth or in accuracy, or just didn't have the tools to tell her story correctly - it's one of many early acts of genocide. Tell her story for her and tell it wrong.
When I am feeling an identity crisis or weak to my connection to my past, my ancestor's history, and our stories, I remind myself of the most significant indicator of our native lineage:
Intergenerational trauma.
ooooff.
Let's stop.
Not good enough. Terrible actually. Not useful right now. It serves my argument, but the white man has gotten enough of us, hasn't he? The consequences of trauma do not need to be my default claim to fame. It has its place, maybe in a different essay. For now, I can do differently. That's his story; it is not mine. I try to correct myself. Let's start to write it now. I come to memories of highway drives sitting in the passenger seat (TLC, is that you?).
It still puts me in awe how quickly and effortlessly we can travel through valleys, over mountains, across the rivers and lakes (isn't this also a song...), chasing the sun or under the stars. My ancestors, my relatives lived, thrived and died, for thousands of years in these lands. Valleys that would have taken weeks to travel across and through, mountain corners that would have taken stride and purpose to get to the other side of, arrival at rivers and lakes and seasonal homes with pride and celebration, that I get to not just see, but bask in, take for granted in the span of a couple of hours from a heated seat and a tinted window.
Their footprints are all over these same lands that I inhabit now. My ancestors were the first humans to inhabit these lands, really not so long ago when the ice fields opened up, the melt and the green and the open called to them. They made a home of this world. That is powerful for me. I can see the travel. I can see the battles. I can see the passageways they took almost as if it is my own faint memory. I can see the stories and feel the presence of them and their lives every time I cross a valley. We are still here. I am still home. I always have been home. How many people can say that they have always been home? Our story is continuing where it started.
It would be a disservice to forget that.
But then I look in the mirror. What a way to hide all that, what a way to erase her story, by changing her face. The blue eyes, the blonde hair, it seems like they won. Like they are winning. And let's be honest, they essentially are. I'm tricked into thinking I don't know my own history, even if I know how to read family trees. I look for her, and If I can't find the right lines, I read between, under, and around the other ones.
The legitimacy or not of my claim to identity and my feelings towards such should always be trumped by the bigger picture of what I am an embodiment of and the reality of those that live in this world as less seen.
Last name - "Cree."
It would be a disservice to forget that.