Who am I, What am I

[A longer-than-usual post; written for a PCC class Summer 2020]

"Hi Julie, it's Mom. I’m looking at this 2010 Census form, and wondering if I should mark

the Native American box.  I’ve never done that before, but it would probably help the

tribe, right?” I tell Mom what I know about how the Census is used, especially that

federal funds are often distributed based on census data. It’s also a marker for historical

purposes leaving a trail of family lineage.

We could have tried calling the Census Bureau: Is your question who am I? Or what

am I? Are you interested in hearing me tell my story, or do you want me to answer your

categories to put me in a box you understand? Authors Wendy Willis and Thomas

Chatterton Williams approach their multi-racial quandaries in sometimes similar,

sometimes unique ways.

Wendy Willis, in “Boxed In,” tells us she is a middle-aged white lady. She also has

Cherokee heritage, through a beloved grandfather. When presented with a form to mark

her race, she is conflicted each time: is she White or Native?

Williams, in “Black and Blue and Blond,” is a fair-skinned Black man married to a

white French woman; they have a beautiful blue-eyed blonde daughter. Williams poses

the philosophical question of the ship of Theseus, where parts of the ship were replaced

every year: over time, after all the pieces have been replaced, is it still the same ship?

In reading these two essays, I came to a stunning realization. American policy, and American

capitalism, wanted more Blacks and less Natives. Williams mentioned a one-drop policy, a

phrase I had only heard of as meaning our tribe accepts “one drop” of blood to be eligible for

enrollment.  A report from American Public Media discusses government racial policies in 1955:

“Blackness was defined according to the one-drop rule [one drop of Negro blood is still a

Negro], but white America believed ‘Indianness’ could be washed away in just a few

generations through intermarriage with whites. This contradictory logic was self-serving

for white Americans. More Black Americans meant more workers to exploit. Fewer Native

Americans meant more land to take.” (Nesterak, Max. “The 1950s Plan to Erase Indian Country.” Www.Apmreports.Org, American Public Media, 1 Nov. 2019, www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/11/01/uprooted-the-1950s-plan-to-erase-indian-country. Accessed 12 July 2020.)

Ms. Willis presents as white and describes a privileged life. She wants to honor all her

ancestors, but she does not want to be an imposter, taking “the mantle of a legacy not

earned” (p.672). She wants to mark the Native box, so the assimilationists don’t win, but

she has lived a different experience, away from her tribal culture. She wants to be brave,

but she’s afraid of the kind of backlash received by Senator Elizabeth Warren. I admire

Warren, but she was overly exuberant in her love for her family’s story and, unusual for

her, did not research and understand Cherokee traditions.

Mr. Williams and his brother were raised by their Black father and white mother as

Black, “adamantly” he says. As an adult, he has a confusing encounter with a store clerk

who demands to know why he is not speaking Arabic, thinking that Williams is Arab. It is

after this encounter when he sees himself for the first time as bi-racial, or multi-racial.

Williams imagines a future where a group of European friends are talking, and his future

great-grandson casually mentions he has some Black American ancestors, and no big

deal, the topic is over. Williams’ ship, the Black ship, the slave ship, the one that carried

him is not the same ship in that future.

Ms. Willis, likewise, wonders if, in future years, she will be left behind in people’s

memories, just as she feels she is being asked to let go of parts of her family. She only

has time in this brief essay to allude to the history of Indian removal, relocation, or

elimination policies by calling out Jefferson, Jackson, and Pratt; I will expand on those.

Thomas Jefferson’s administration had two goals with Natives: peace and land

acquisition. Peace was “offered” as a choice to assimilate, or be wiped out by the army.

Land was acquired by driving Indians into debt through US trading posts, and taking land

to repay the debt. Andrew Jackson, as a general under President Jefferson, fought to

clear land from Creek and Cherokee nations, telling the troops to also kill Native women

and children to complete the extermination. As President, Jackson signed his Indian

Removal Act which cleared 46,000 Natives from their homelands east of the Mississippi

in the 1830’s, one of many “trails of tears” or “trails of death.”. Henry Pratt, who modeled

the Indian Boarding Schools, famously, horrifically, said, “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

Children were beaten for speaking their native language, ignored or starved for not taking

an English name, and had their long hair cut.  The last one seems simple but in fact

violates the belief through most Native nations that a person’s spirit is in our long hair, a

tie to Mother Earth and her hair of long grasses. 

The government has tried and mostly succeeded in killing Natives and Native culture. 

And now Willis has to choose? The smell of her German grandmother’s cooking or the

smell of her Native grandfather’s pipe? She quotes from a poem ending, “Lord, let me die

but not die out” (p.675).

One important component of Mr. Williams’ piece, not available from Ms. Willis, is a

gentle education toward realizing race is not a real biological system, and definitions of

race have changed drastically at times to fit the needs of certain politics or locations. The

paradox of the ship of Theseus leads to his final paradox: how can there be racism when

there are no races? Maybe his ship wasn’t a Black ship after all. Maybe, I think, it is a

sturdy ship without need of repair, and it is the cargo that is important: the echoes from all

his ancestors.

Back to the 2010 phone call from my mom: what was she, and what am I? It ended

with her deciding to claim her Citizen Potawatomi place in history on the census form. As

for me, I wasn’t enrolled until 2017, the year my mom died (as I went through her

paperwork, I found the long-delayed pile of information she had gathered to get us

enrolled.) With great trepidation, 2018 was my first time to attend our tribe’s NW district

picnic, thinking “Aren’t I too white? Blonde and Blue, I’m going to stick out and I really feel

like I’m intruding.” But no, there was only one person who had the stereotypical “Indian”

look and features; the “Indianness” is washing out.

My mother did not grow up with any Native stories, so neither did we. I am trying to

recover our culture, learning some language (our tribe of over 35,000 only has 7 native

speakers), attending local Powwows (I love hearing the Ancestors heartbeat in the drum),

posting information in a blog for all my cousins. Nawgishgok neshnabe noswen:

Nawgishgok (Center of a Blue Sky) is my Indian name. Kno ndotek; Eagle is my clan. The

2020 Census forever records my race as White and Native, Citizen Potawatomi.

In 2018, I was entering census information into the familysearch.org database, and

decided to look up Ida Louisa DuChene, my great great grandmother who is listed on my

tribal ID card. I found her on the 1890 census. Back in the day it was not beneficial, even

dangerous, to identify as a Native. She was recorded as White.