Unconventional: A Short Story of Hiding in Plain Sight
Is a short essay written in 2023 on my personal struggles being Native American and AroAce, and how both subjects intersected in a small window of time.
Disclaimer⚠️:
anti-Native American racism
Use of "noble savage"
I think its fairly good, weather the writing is good or not i think it has a good message anyway.
Notes:
In the writing I use the name Wallace to refer to myself, but for context I present fem & still mostly go by my birthname, the people talking to me were using my birthname.
Info aluding to location is removed.
This also relates to my expiriences as a trans person but I'm closited to most people, so is not included
The names of others is changed cause it was fresh at the time and i didnt want to hassle reporting them.
Slightly edited from origonal
History has always been one of my favorite subjects. There isn't much reason aside from that the past fascinates me. Native units are different though. I was ecstatic! Beforehand, that is.
Walking into class on the second day, I already dreaded sitting down, only to be called an "American Indian" through the scribbles of graphite on worksheets. The teacher listed name after name of tribes nearby, he got to a tribe with a well known casino, its famous add campaign was shouted out from the kid beside me, with near no objection. All we are to them; our casino's tagline.
All throughout page after page, side conversation to worksheet, "Indian" rang through my head like the caws of blue jays. Imagine the discovery of discomfort displacing you far from anyone's mind when your history teacher reads blindly from a paper without a second thought.
Through the day, peeve soaked my clothes and I stomped on every drip and caw with the vexation of a murder of flustered crows as I ducked through crowded halls.
I wasn't even there. Not that I made that known.
I wasn't content to sit angerly in my hamster wheel of a head, If I was going to be angry, I didn't want to go through it alone, I was happy to at least vent to someone.
I sat down later for advisory, still soaked in irritation head to toe, I yanked my computer out of its sleeve and clanked at its keys till my frenzied fingers were sore, all class I deliberated my days into a lengthy group-chat email. Saying I was- am annoyed is an understatement, my eyes were incandescent as I slammed down each key. Whether I had history work or not I didn't care enough to do it, I wasn't in the mood to be called an "American Indian" for the next half hour by a paper for answering X Y & Z. I value my sanity over that any day.
I trampled the keyboard with every example I could think of, the textbooks, the kid next to me, the fact that in any history class I've been in all the natives are put under the blankets of numbers. I ended my rant venting, "Sorry if this is out of the blue or off topic or if I 'ruined tha vibe' or whatever maybe I'm just 'over-exaggerating' but I don't care right now… I can only hope we get more than a geography lesson in this unit." I took off my obnoxiously bright hat to see my Aro and Ace pride pins lining its rabbit face.
I've always "identified" as native, there was just never much else. Dads side is just smaller, and out of touch with one another. None of them ever talk.
My weekdays are spent looking at my grandmothers' walls, beadwork, and Formline, and family photos framing it from corner to corner. I've always been a Tlingit Kid. Through my mom and generations of women back till who knows when, I am my clans child. But my dad's side of the family being white, and me taking more after him, the impression I get, when I tell some people I'm native, is that I'm one of those "my grandmother was a Cherokee princess" girls. And that just puts me off from telling people I don't know in the first place.
Once a girl responded to my invisible native-ness with "... so you're white?" I can taste her entitlement every time I repeat her, as if she were owed any sort of "truth." What's the point? What do you want? To see proof of my brown family? My tribal ID? Me to wear my regalia 24/7? My blood quantum painted on a sign above my head?
In attempts to connect with my roots I picked up a book from the library, #ImNotYourPrincess seemed interesting by its title. There was one page that stuck to my skin. "It's strange to me how people always want me to be an "authentic Indian" when I say I'm kanyen'keha:ka. They want me to look a certain way, act a certain way. They're disappointed when what they get is.... just me. White faced, light haired... They want my culture behind glass in a museum. But they don't want me. I'm not Indian enough..." that page was part of the poem, Invisible Indians, by a Mohawk woman named Shelby Lisk.
Advisory September 29, still angered from history just an hour beforehand, I was already unamused with my day. Sitting down for class, I noted down any other things I'd heard from my peers for safekeeping on a word document. Today there was nothing, but I was irritated so I noted any semblance that could have been something as an angered precaution.
From there I went with the motions and hid my face from the dim windows and lights to avoid a worsened headache. I sat to chip away at the little work I had, seeing as it was a Friday, only to be met with an unwelcome whine of my name. "Wallace? Wallace? Wallace? Hey Wallace?" It rang in my worn-out ears like early morning bird disputes from the trees, "Wallace? Wallace? Waaaaaaaalllaaaaaace? Don't be rude Wallace. Wallace Wallace? Wallace?" Frustrated in giving him the time of day, I swiveled my chair in Gabriel's direction for just enough time to send the message of hey, bud I hear you, and twirled back, my face growing more and more sour as the moments inch by. All just for him to spit "Anthony likes you!" For the whole class to feast their ears upon.
His caws stained my expression as we shuffled our chairs around and he continued "Wallace? Waalaace?" We moved again, and without fail he still was in his territorial dispute with the neighboring crows. Get my name out of your mouth I thought. I just continued to angrily lean tired on tables.
We shuffled chairs again, (admittedly this advisory was, not productive.) too tired to take it much further than I already had shoved it, I pulled it past the backpacks flopped on the floor and stopped it by the counters on the wall. Another voice, chimed in "You like Jacob, right? That's why you're sitting so close to him?"
I sat with my right leg crossed over my left, my shoulders slouched to the back of my chair. All I could muster was a glare and stern "No."
The class ended, nothing productive coming as a result of it, and I continued onto lunch.
As I walked the hall, my tiresome time trickled down my cheeks. I was done. I crimpled my face in my light blue hood and sleeves and broke my voice as I shrunk on my lunch. A moment went by when I heard a voice through my whimpers.
"Are you ok?" Rea was sat at the other side of the table with her friends, all seeming concerned.
Through my hiccups I answered. "No." I've always wondered, why even ask? By the time you want to ask you've already answered your own question. That's my case anyway. As I explained my past few days, I was practically reciting the email I wrote yesterday. How I'm not an Indian, the kid at the other table in 1st period, how in my nine years in schooling all the white men had the privilege of being referred to by name while all us sliver of native kids had to go off outside our families is Billy Frank JR. How I wanted enough respect to not have words put in my mouth. How I already have enough on my plate. How I was overwhelmed.
Rea and her friends watched me concernedly as I sat shivering. They let me go on with my rant till I crumbled past speech, and they had some room to ask, "Do you want a hug?"
"Yeah."
I stood up in anticipation. She speed-walked over in open arms, her friends following close behind her. And we hugged in the aisles of lunch tables as she let me cling to her back and cry on her leather shoulder.
I doubt they anticipated many native kids' reading the textbook, not like there's many of us here, four of us in the whole thousand-plus kid school.
Being called something I'm not, in more ways than one, just felt- I couldn't explain it. The concept was quite earthly, grounded to me. But putting it to words others could understand, and so that I understood that feeling before sharing it, was foreign.
Later that night, I wrote to myself and the void in a journal on my phone (was what i said for the school asignment, it was really tumblr drafts). About my eventful last few days, my frustration, my exhaust, and I said as much. Reflecting on my week, I wanted to have a vocalization of just how, weird it felt. I doubt Anthony "liked" me, I barely knew his name, let alone had we talked. The concept of someone liking me romantically is foreign, unwelcomed. Can't be controlled by either side, still just as off-putting.
I image they were antagonizing Anthony alongside me whether he did "like" me, it or not. I don't make it too well known verbally, but I'm Aromantic. No romantic attraction. In my case specifically the type where any romance involving me feels, for lack of better, more concise words, gross. It's purely alien to me. I just don't understand it.
My first "crush" was conveniently chosen at the end stretch of kindergarten. It was almost cartoonish how much I faked it, even to myself.
By the time 6th grade rolled around, I had counted about 5 "crushes" up to that point. I made it to my 4th period world history class and while playing "would you rather" I talked with a girl who agreed that pineapples on pizza was delicious, we concluded it was because their sweet-savory-ness. We were sat close together, and we talked a lot. I figured out she was gay from her telling me she was excited to meet her crush at the park later for a mini date. I didn't even care there was "someone else" I was just perfectly happy that she was so happy. I felt weird, not feeling weird, but it took another year to read between the lines, to figure out it was admiration and close companionship. (And more like queerplatonic attraction, but I didnt want to delve into ALL that for a school asignment)
The night of the 30th, it took till I was pacing lost in thought and song lyrics till I thought of how to word it, "Just the idea of someone feeling a romantic way about me feels gross. Let alone a kid 1 barely know... like it feels so gross I wish I was more articulated to explain it, the best synonym I have at the moment is that I need a shower. It feels like, sticky- like the equivalent of I just got dunked in syrup and it dried a bit then my hair being covered in gum to the point I may as well just shave it."
I realize now, I'm not any of these people's "truth," I'm not what they expect. I'm native, but I'm not dark. I don't want to be a prince charming, or to be "saved" by one. I'm not what any of them name me. I'm not a "hostile Indian" or, better yet "Noble Savage" (both attributed to a documentary we watched in class). I'm not going to find "the one" nor do I want to. I'm not the words they put in my mouth, what they decide I am.
The days moved on. The class moved on.
The boys mostly stop bothering me.
The second of October, a new kid at the same table as add reading kid, chirped the headline of my morning, "If these people were still around today, Bugs Bunny would be their god." The only context I had was I think they were talking about aspecific region that used rabbits a lot in clothing and food, but the statement they were gone was laughably triggering.
From there kids didn't say much else. All I heard was my personal broken record.
From then on, I made sure I had my Aro and Ace pins, and my native pride shirts as often as possible, to show what I really am. At least if people don't know what the pins are they can assume I'm somehow queer and back off. At least I started wearing the pins at home. Not that many people would notice; or know what any of it means to me. But at least someone would. At least I know there are 3 more of us here, somewhere. Hiding in plain sight. At least I ultimately don't care for why people I don't know would care enough to comment. Or why I comment on them in all honesty. At least I can decide it doesn't affect me so I can scrub the stains gone. At least I have pretty good luck charms. At least I have Redbone's Come and Get Your Love.
I don't think its that I don't like history anymore, more often than not, I've learned, my favorite part of history is what is never taught.
