I Am What I Am

h i! i don't have a name like spotted eagle or walks tall, but i am at least 1/8th american indian. i have cherokee and choctaw and my family walked the trail of tears. my g.g. grandmother and g.g. grandfather were forced to leave their home in the mountains in north carolina and had to march all the way to oklahoma. thankfully, they survived and here i am!! i can tell you that everyone that sees my mother and my grandmother (when she was still with us), immediately knew they were indian. but for me, because of my genetics, i look just like my mother with the facial features and body, just blonde hair and hazel eyes. when i am with her, people don't question me, because they can see it when i am next to my mother. when we're not together, people think i am lying!! my family did assimilate into the white culture because of the stigma associated with being indian at the time. but i remember as a child how my grandmother and great grandmother would take me and my brothers and sister into the woods and show us what plants were used for medicine and what you could eat and what you couldn't. we grew up eating fry bread and corn bread and using bacon grease as flavoring for our greens and just things like that. i found out that my great great granparents' indian names and for her it was living brittle...i knew nothing of the white side of me because my mother left my abusive father when i was a baby, so i only knew of my mother's family. it just irritates me when people question me about my "indianness" and i tell people all the time that it's not what you see on the outside that counts. it is what is in your heart that matters. i am very proud to be part indian, and i wouldn't have it any other way.