American Arithmetic
by Natalie Diaz
Native Americans make up less than one percent of the population of America. 0.8 percent of 100 percent.
O, mine efficient country.
I do not remember the days before America—I do not remember the days when we were all here.
Police kill Native Americans more than any other race. Race is a funny word. Race implies someone will win, implies I have as good a chance of winning as—
Who wins the race which isn’t a race?
Native Americans make up 1.9 percent of all police killings, higher than any race, and we exist as .8 percent of all Americans.
Sometimes race means run.
We are not good at math. Can you blame us? We’ve had an American education.
We are Americans and we are less than 1 percent of Americans. We do a better job of dying by police than we do existing.
When we are dying, who should we call? The police? Or our senator? Please, someone, call my mother.
In Arithmetic and in America, divisibility has rules— divide without remainder.
At the National Museum of the American Indian, 68 percent of the collection is from the U.S. I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out.
I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.
But in this American city with all its people, I am Native American—less than one, less than whole—I am less than myself. Only a fraction of a body, let’s say, I am only a hand—
and when I slip it beneath the shirt of my lover I disappear completely.
