Story of a Native White Girl

A lot of people might be confused by the title of this Hub, but I assure you, once you've read it it will make perfect sense.

I am a Native White Girl.

My father's father, my grandfather, was Native American. I don't know what specific Nation he belonged to, where I can trace my ancestry.

A lot of people ask me, "Michelle, why are you so interested in aboriginal issues? What is your connection to our story?"

I have to resist the urge to go a tangent, somewhere along the lines of "Why does it matter to you, don't you need allies wherever they come from?"

My mother is white, she comes from an Australian family that can trace it's roots back to both England and Ireland somewhere way back. My father's mother, if I remember the stories correctly, was of Polish ancestry.

I grew up first with blonde hair and blue eyes, then with brown hair and green eyes, until sometime in my teens my body settled on dark red hair and grey eyes. So as you can imagine, I have had some form of White Privilege most of my life. It's not something I asked for. If I could have grown up the way other Native children did, I would do it just for the experience. I never said "You know, I think I will grow up looking like White child. I'd just love to have White Passing Privilege. It would really make my day."

When I tell people I am of Native American descent, they laugh at me. "You're White." People tell me. "You may wish you were Native American, but you never will be. You will never understand what it's like to REALLY be a Native Girl."

My father told me growing up that I was lucky to look white. "Most mixed children get called terrible names. I grew up being called 'half-breed', 'blanket butt', and all kinds of other things." He told me that in high school, some of the kids (Even other Native children) would call him "apple." For those that don't know, that's one of the worst things you can call someone of Native descent in North America. It means that one is "Red on the outside, but White on the inside."

Now that I am an adult, I get looked at oddly if I bring up Native issues. "What would you know?" People seem to be thinking.

But just because I have had White Passing Privilege doesn't mean that I am dense. I know what my ancestors had to put up with, and I know what Native People deal with today.

Not long ago, some kids tried to rob my father in law. When I heard the story from Amy, she made a comment along the lines of "These weren't even aboriginal kids, they were white." "Why does that matter?" I asked. "Does it make it worse that they were White? You're half Chinese, you should know better than to profile people based on their race."

If you treat someone like a monster they start to learn that that's what people expect of them, and so they act that way. If you treat someone as less than human, they will behave as less than human.

Here in British Columbia, there is a lot of negativity towards the First Nations people, as they are called in Canada. The major groups in the area are known as the Coast Salish Peoples. You may have heard the term tossed around on the recent coverage of the Vancouver Olympics.

I could write a whole other Hub on the atrocities the government of B.C. committed against the First Nations people. They bought out the leaders of the four tribes they mentioned, but what about the other ones? I believe there are approximately 20 major First Nations groups on Vancouver Island ALONE.

But that's not the point.

When people look at photos of my family, they don't believe that my father is really my father. "It's so nice of someone to take care of four kids like his own." I've heard people say. "Not many step fathers could take care of so many."

"He's my biological Dad." I respond. "And he's also the biological father of all three of my sisters, thank you very much."

"But he looks Indian." Someone had the tact to blurt out once. She was my former Resident Assistant at the college I attended. Not the first one, the second one. She did lack tact in other areas too, but this was one of the most tasteless things she could have said. Like some other people I have met, she should have known better than to make racial comments about others, since she was actually Jamaican. She also should have known not to use the term "Indian" to describe someone of Native American descent, after all she knew that the term was considered derogatory. But I just smiled and said "I'm 1/4 Native American."

Anyway, I'm not sure what the point is here, except possibly that making assumptions based on race really annoys me. It isn't fair to stereotype someone based on looks either, because you never know what a person's ancestry is.