Untitled

and people only associate you with the race you look more close too. I’m MIXED or multi-racial which ever term you before to use. Don’t associate me with just one race. I hate that so much, especially when you also associate me with the stereotypes that come along with that race.

What? I…what?

I am sitting on the bus (why do people with bizarre ideas about culture always find me on the bus?) and a young man sits down next to me with his girlfriend on his other side. She leans over him, smiling earnestly, and says “Oh, wow, I’ve never seen a blonde Native American before. What’s your Indian name?”

I am too stunned to say anything but “Um.”

Her boyfriend cuts in. “Don’t, baby, that’s rude! It’s like a secret thing.” He looks at me and smiles awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

There are a thousand things wrong with this exchange.

1. Do not assume you know a stranger’s ethnic identity (how the hell can anyone tell I’m Indian, anyway? I’m White-colored).

2. I am not an anthropological exhibit. Please do not reduce me to the level of a curiosity in public.

3. “Indian names” are not “secret”. Where did you even get that? My great-grandmother was born on rez, and her grandmother was a Choctaw slave. I am a Black NDN. She named me Hashininakhapih when she saw me as a child, because I was so round and white and she liked my smile (this is what I’m told). It means, roughly, “salt moon”. So I am Salt Moon. It’s not a secret.

4. Don’t apologize for your girlfriend, baby. That’s rude.