Native American Heritage Day and what it means to me
Osiyo brothers and sisters. I want to wish you all an uneventful Native American Heritage Day.
Whether you are a pure blood, half blood, or mixed. From the Arctic Circle to the Islands to the tip of Argentina. Straight, gay, lesbian, trans. Apache, Comanche, Inuit, Cherokee, Choctaw, Crow, Mohawk, Lenape, Cheyenne, Sioux, and so forth we are still brothers and sisters upon Turtle Island.
Take time to honor your ancestors for without them and their sacrifices we would not be here today. Honor those who are lost to generations of hiding and those who found their heritage. Honor those who are missing and those lost to cracks of time. Those who know of and fought to keep their culture/language/art/traditions and those who through forced assimilation had to lose it. Those who were born and raised on the reservation and those who live in the cities.
Through the darkest moments of human history, we are still here. We are still fighting for our right to live and be respected. We may seem to be invisible, when it comes to minority rights, but we shall endure because we are resilient. We owe it to our ancestors to continue our fight. We are NOT invisible and we will not go away.
Last month, a store Co-Mananger approached me and informed me that for this month they are doing spotlight interviews of those who are Native in the company and consider it. I told him I would think about it, but truth be told I don't know much of my heritage to do something like an interview.
See I am one of those who is a mixed blood. I get my Native blood from my father who some would call a Black-Indian and my Irish blood from my mother. I identify as mixed, but in my 19 years of working retail/grocery I have had many full-bloods ask me who my people were. I told them and many of them said "I look as a full blood" or that "my blood sang to them."
Many have asked what it means to be Native, and for me personally it is being acceptance. Those customers told me being a mix doesn't make me any less of a Native than someone who is full blooded. My family even befriended a Mohawk/Abanaki family and grew close too. They accepted us more so then family members on either side. Or peers I grew up with. Something which meant more then one could imagine when you are neither "white enough" for some. Or "black enough" for acknowledging the Native heritage.
Our heritage makes us who we are, and we must never let it go.