“Nothing can stop an Indian who knows who he is.”
MARGARET TREUER in Ojibwe in Minnesota
Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?
Part of the story is simple math. American Indians are a very small percentage of the global population and even a small percentage of the U.S. population. In some parts of the country, one is likely to run into an Indian. But for most Americans, direct contact with an Indian is rare, and a deep conversation with one even more elusive. The situation is very different for many other racial groups in America. African Americans comprise a much larger percentage of the U.S. population. Asians comprise a larger percentage of the U.S. population and a much larger percentage of the world population. The same is true for Spanish-speaking people.
However, there is more to the story than the math. Part of the reason for this lack of understanding about Indians has to do with who controls the story. A great many well-educated African American people in the United States occupy positions of economic and political power. There are many black teachers, Asian teachers, and Hispanic teachers. Surely, there are not enough. But the numbers are still greater than those of Native American teachers. Very few Indians have PhDs and write books. The civil rights movement, for example, brought a great deal of attention to America’s unfair treatment of black citizens. Since then, there have been successful efforts to weave strands into the curriculum about black history and black heroes. But there has never been a comparable effort to weave Indian heroes into the curriculum on a system-wide basis. With so few Indians in the world, and so few of them in positions of educational, financial, and political power, prevailing assumptions about Indians often go unchallenged, or the challenges lack efficacy. Indians proliferate as mascots for sport teams when no other racial group in the country is similarly denigrated or mocked. Americans are left to their imaginings.
For Indians who do obtain higher education, there is an understandable urge to return to their home communities and serve their own people. Tribal governments and tribal colleges are eager to hire their own. As a result, Indians do their part to maintain their own isolation, even if their actions are not intended to isolate. And that allows people to imagine, rather than to understand through personal experience.
As a white person, I don’t feel privileged. So what do Indians mean by that term?
Most white Americans are reluctant to say that they are privileged, even though many may feel and say that people of color in this country are sometimes underprivileged. However, if others around us are less privileged than we are, our status is defined as one of greater privilege. Peggy McIntosh, author of “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” and other scholars have done a lot of good writing on this subject.
There are many ways in which white Americans are privileged. Many of those privileges are ones that everybody should enjoy. They include relatively benign things like being able to walk into a store and purchase Band-Aids that more or less match the color of one’s skin, or walking into a barbershop or beauty salon knowing that you will find someone who knows how to cut your hair. These are simple, basic privileges that make life easier for whites than for others but are usually taken for granted.
White privileges extend to more serious things, too. A white person who is pulled over by the police can assume that the color of his or her skin was not a factor in being detained, but people of color can never be entirely sure. And people with reservation license plates often wonder if the plates were a factor.1 Whites also never have to wonder if the color of their skin was part of the process (conscious or not) in banking decisions or loan approvals, but Indians often feel that it is, and historically it has been.2
Whites never get asked to speak for all white people. Everyone knows there is a diversity of opinion on any subject, and nobody could speak for all members of their race, but Indians are often asked to speak for or represent their entire race. These are among the types of differential treatments and attitudes that create white privilege.
Why don’t tribes solve their own problems?
Tribes are doing more than most people think to address the problems in their communities. They have education, work, health, and poverty programs. They are developing infrastructure and seeking cooperative ventures with state and local governments in spite of the fact that their sovereignty does not require them to do so. Not all tribes have the same resources to work with in creating infrastructure and programs, so they do not develop or heal at the same rate. Some of the tribal efforts have been heroic and truly made positive changes. But problems are so deep and pervasive that it will take years of consistent intervention to really make things better. There is improvement on many fronts, though surely more work needs to be done by tribes. But the rest of America should join that effort as well, and not just because of historical injustices. Indians are Americans too.
All these problems are not my fault. Why should I be asked to atone for the sins of my ancestors?
I once had a conversation with a woman at Princeton University who opposed affirmative action. Her great-great-grandparents were southern plantation slave owners and extremely wealthy. Even after the Civil War, their family retained tremendous wealth and passed it on through generations. When I was talking to this woman, who attended the most prestigious private high school in the country and now one of the best and most expensive universities in the world, I asked how she felt about the fact that her opportunities were purchased with wealth built on the backs of others in slavery. I told her that the direct descendants of the slaves that her great-great-grandparents owned had exactly the opposite experience. Even if they were just as bright and just as deserving of the opportunities and privileges she enjoyed, they were denied access to private schools and universities with high tuitions because of financial barriers. There was probably a host of other barriers to their educational and social advancement as well. How fair was that? I was not of the opinion that she should jump off a bridge to make things right, but I had a hard time reconciling her opposition to affirmative action with her personal history.
On a larger though less obvious level, this is the issue with atonement for the sins of one’s ancestors. White people have consistently enjoyed privileges (educational, financial, social, political) that Indians and other people of color have been denied. The world is not a fair place. The past cannot be changed, but many things in the present that are also not fair we can do something about. While it is not fair to hold an individual entirely responsible for the sins of one’s ancestors, it is fair to expect our society to remedy the current impact of historical trauma and injustice and inequity. German and Swiss banks had to make reparations to the families of Holocaust victims for the gold fillings extracted from the teeth in their dead bodies and minted into coin. The German government had to make formal apologies for the Final Solution and mandate instruction about the Holocaust in its school systems. All of that makes perfect sense. But here in America, we have yet to get to meaningful formal apologies, much less substantive and comprehensive mandated instruction about genocidal policies toward Indians.
Guilt for whites and anger for Indians are neither healthy nor positive emotions. They are natural emotive responses, but they won’t fix anything. The critical challenge of all the troubling history in our country is to turn guilt and anger into positive action. We all need to come to terms with our collective past.
Is there anything wrong with saying that some of my best friends are Indians?
Yes. Some of your best friends might be Indians, but touting that line sounds like you are using your friends to tell the world “see, I’m not racist.” It sounds like an effort to alleviate personal guilt or insecurity about race. So, be friends with Indians, but don’t use your friendships as a badge or public statement about race.
Is there something wrong with saying that my great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess?
Yes. A large percentage of white and black Americans have native ancestry, and Cherokee is one of the groups widely represented in the gene pool. But the Cherokee did not have kings, queens, princes, or princesses. And saying that “my great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess” makes a profound statement about identity. If your great-grandmother was Cherokee, then one of your grandparents was too, and one of your parents, and in actuality you are Cherokee as well. Someone who truly identifies with his or her native ancestry will say, “I am Cherokee.” Everyone understands that at least some of one’s ancestors were, too, by that statement.
Claims that “my great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess” usually come from some level of ignorance about Cherokee history and culture, no matter how well intended the statement is. To many Indians, the statement also sounds a lot like claims that “some of my best friends are Indians.” To them, it speaks less to one’s personal identity and more to one’s sense of guilt (or ignorance). It sounds like another way of saying, “See, I’m not racist,” rather than a proud statement about heritage. Those who have investigated their heritage would say, “I’m Cherokee,” and know that princesses had nothing to do with it.
I might have some Indian ancestry. How do I find out?
A lot of people do have native ancestry. There has been a very high rate of adoption and foster care in native communities, in part orchestrated by missionary organizations and others as part of the larger assimilation initiatives that dominated American Indian policy for decades. Lots of Indians also married outside of their communities, and their descendants absorbed into the general population after a couple of generations. There are also large enclaves of Métis and other mixed Indian-European groups. Some Métis absorbed into the general population in Canada and the United States, some absorbed into tribal populations at Turtle Mountain (North Dakota) and other places, and some maintained distinct communities. The diversity of experiences makes tracking ancestry complicated.
The best thing to do is exhaust one’s personal information and archives first. Talk with relatives. Once connection to a specific community can be determined, query those tribes or communities. Many tribes keep large genealogical records for purposes of tribal enrollment and sometimes separate databases for specific land settlements or lawsuits. Those repositories are not often staffed with lots of people to help with generic questions like “Am I Indian?” But if you have the names of specific Indians from those specific communities, they can often help. Check online, as most tribes keep websites and some have moved some records online. Other places to look include the Mormon Church database, which is quite large, ancestry.com, and other research institutions and archives.
Why is that picture End of the Trail so popular in Indian country?
I have often wondered the same thing myself. The picture shows a half-naked, feathered Indian slumped over his horse, as if defeated and emotionally devastated. I never identified with that image or message. But the artwork became extremely popular in America in the early 1970s.
End of the Trail, original sculpture by James Earl Fraser
Dee Brown’s famous book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), was one of the first published histories that was truly sympathetic to Indians. It covered the most famous stories of Indian military defeat and massacre in the American west. That book, and the statements it quoted from Black Elk Speaks, grabbed the attention and inspired the empathy of many Americans about Indian history. Indians were fading into the sunset. And the End of the Trail image seemed to capture the popular sentiment well. So it went up on posters and postcards across the country. Why Indians like it so much is still confusing to me. I think Indians were desperate to find something native for their walls, and this image was readily available.
Regarding casinos and treaty rights, I’m not racist, but it doesn’t seem fair to me. What’s wrong with that line of thinking?
The world is not a fair place. It never has been. But any benefit that any tribe or tribal member gains from casinos or treaty rights pales in comparison to privileges white people enjoy every day in the form of economic, educational, and political opportunity that Indians typically do not receive. And the disadvantages that Indians have growing up in many places where the unemployment rate is 50 percent or higher completely overshadow any advantage that many might receive in the form of different dates for their hunting season. In a couple of Indian communities, casinos have provided a truly outsized benefit for tribal members, but those are the exceptions, not the rule, for 99 percent of the tribal population in America.
In addition to the fairness barometer, the legal underpinnings of treaty rights and Indian law are so deeply embedded in the American legal system that changing the status of tribes as nations or abrogating their treaty rights would involve revisiting the U.S. constitution and the treaties that gave America to nonnative people. The financial and political cost of such an undertaking overwhelms any benefit gained by tribes or their members. Tribal benefits and sovereign status are part of the price America paid for the land.
I’m not racist, but it all happened in the past. Why can’t Indians just move on?
Historical trauma is a complicated subject. It’s kind of like this. Someone was hitting the Indian in the head with a hammer for decades, and it did a lot of damage. Now the government is (for the most part) done hitting the Indian in the head with a hammer. But there is still all this damage that takes a very long time to repair. And the government is not interested in repairing the damage—it all happened in the past. So Indians are left to heal themselves. Language and culture loss, many health issues, substance abuse, the educational opportunity gap, lack of economic opportunity, and many other problems in Indian country can be directly attributed to specific government policies. It’s easy to push people into a pit, but it can be very hard for them to climb back out.
Another way to look at it is this. If a husband cheats on his wife but then decides he wants to reconcile the relationship and make it work, he cannot say, “It all happened in the past. Just forget about it.” Making peace has to start with him saying, “Hey, I did you wrong. I am sorry. And it will never happen again.” Then there is a chance that they can reconcile the relationship. That is a fair analogy to what happened with the U.S. government and the Indian. Instead of cheating in a marriage, the U.S. government used genocidal warfare, residential boarding schools, suppression of religious freedom, and a host of pernicious policies against Indians. But the government has never even said that it was wrong, much less apologized, much less tried to make things right. And every time the government comes up with a new English-only law, or ignores the 50 percent unemployment rate in some Indian communities, or allows a state like Arizona to ban the teaching of ethnic studies in public schools, or tries to renege on or renegotiate a promised treaty right, Indians see it as another hammer blow to an ancient wound. The historical baggage and the ongoing damage make it very difficult for Indians to move on, discard anger, forgive, or heal. And the fact that most Americans have no understanding of this dynamic makes the struggle all the more frustrating.
Why do Indian people often seem angry?
People in pain are rarely happy, and Indians are in pain. Chronic unemployment and poverty, pervasive substance abuse, and lack of economic and political power plague many native communities. The situation would be bad enough if it were just bad luck or circumstance, but we know that the source of a lot of the problems in Indian country can be traced to specific government actions. The U.S. government carried out a systematic effort to politically and economically disempower Indians and to eradicate Indian culture. Genocidal wars, residential boarding schools, and many other policies did tremendous damage to native communities. That makes people angry.
And many of the most pernicious policies are not so ancient. Circular 1665, which was used to actively suppress tribal religions, was in effect until 1933, within the living memory of many tribal elders today. Most of the grandparent generation carry vivid memories and emotional scars from their experiences at residential boarding schools run by the U.S. government. Anger from such experiences does not fade overnight. And on top of it all, most American people do not understand Indians or their experiences very well. The curriculum in most schools still gives candy-coated versions of Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving, when Indians know the history was far different from what is often taught. Being imagined and misunderstood breeds anger, too.
Anger is not a healthy emotion. Many native people challenge themselves and others to convert that understandable feeling into positive action, but there is not always much help from the outside. Curriculum reform is slow and often resisted. Politicians are more likely to pass a bill requiring that English be declared the official language than to support tribal language and culture revitalization. All of that serves to stir up the hornet’s nest. It’s an uphill battle.
Do Indians ever work together?
Yes, Indians work together, and sometimes with great positive effect. There are national and international indigenous organizations tackling issues from environmental protection to political and economic reform. At the tribal and grassroots level, there have been many efforts to address health, education, economics, and language and culture revitalization. Some have been incredibly inspiring.
What are some good books to read about Indians?
Many great books, documentary videos, and websites have been produced in recent years, and I’ve listed some suggestions for further reading at the back of this book. There are several things to remember as you read. Writers of all races and genders have points of view, so you have to be alert and understand that when you see it. You can’t judge the accuracy or authenticity of a book by the race of its author. Indian writers can get it wrong; non-Indian writers can get it wrong. Both can get it beautifully right. And it may sound odd to say it, but also keep in mind that even the most authentic works of fiction are not history.
Are there any good Indian movies?
I like some of the old spaghetti westerns because the Navajo extras they hired spent the entire time talking smack about the actors in the Diné language. With proper translation, it’s incredibly entertaining. Hollywood has a really hard time getting away from creating a white character who is better than the Indian at being Indian, like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. A lot of Indians loved that movie, by the way, simply because the Indians didn’t all die and a lot of native actors played parts. Many Indians favor independent films like Dance Me Outside, Powwow Highway, and Smoke Signals. But movies are entertainment, and if you want genuine understanding, the list of documentaries and published works in the back of this book is a better place to look.
Have you ever been the object of direct racial discrimination?
My experiences are like those of many other Indians, but the pain at the time was all my own. In first grade, I had long hair, and my teacher dressed me up like a girl in front of the entire class, complete with barrettes and makeup. She and everyone else in class had a good laugh at my expense. It was completely humiliating. When I was in seventh grade, I sat in shop class with three nonnative kids who were horribly, deliberately racist. They spent the entire class saying that Indians were all drunks and I would be a drunk too, that Indians were a disgrace and shouldn’t be allowed to live in America, that Indians were all on welfare and sucking the country dry, that Indians were responsible for all the crime in the area, and that tribal governments designed license plates with numbers that were hard for cops to read so Indian criminals could escape. I told them they were wrong, but they insisted that their parents told them it was true and I was wrong because I was a dumb Indian. I confronted one of the kids before school, telling him it had to stop. He pounded my lips onto my braces, and the comments and snickers continued for the rest of the quarter. Usually racism is subtle, but these encounters with its overt forms left some very deep scars.
I also experienced forms of racism so common they are clichés. As a teenager and as an adult, I was sometimes followed around stores by clerks who apparently thought I was likely to shoplift because I am identifiably native. A couple of times when I was shopping, the clerk at the checkout asked me to present my EBT card (food stamps), apparently assuming that all Indians paid for their groceries that way.
You’re a testament to your race. How did you turn out so good?
Be careful. For one thing, I’m really not that good. But more important, stereotyping is highly problematic, and you can never judge an entire race of people by the actions of one person. A statement like the one above suggests a negative stereotype of Indians—that a good Indian is atypical. Indians are diverse and complicated. Not all white people are the same, and not all whites have the same beliefs. It’s the same for Indians.
How can I learn more?
In addition to consulting the list of resources in the back of this book, I encourage people to open their minds and hearts. Seek out Indians for answers about Indians. Attend a powwow. Go to a tribal language table. Join your area race relations task force. It always amazes me how many of the books and resources about Indians had no input from Indians. Tribes and tribal people are getting better at reaching out and developing more resources online and in print. Seek out those things, and don’t be discouraged. There are still a lot of Indians who are understandably angry about a lot of things, and they can be discouraging to others, even those engaged in a genuine quest for understanding and a desire to help. But it is only through the combined efforts of a great many native and nonnative people that we will make it easier for Indians to be understood rather than imagined.