My Life as a Fake Native American

I am unsure if this counts toward my final tally of blog posts but I wanted to share it with the class. This is an excerpt from my Autobiography assignment where I talk about how my nickname came to be “Chief,” and how I am often mistaken for a Native American. It may look a bit lengthy online but I hope some of you will find it to be entertaining. Enjoy!

Ever since I can remember, people have been asking me what nationality I am. When I was younger I would feel a little uncomfortable and just tell them what I was. But now I like to have a little fun when I am asked the question. Now I turn the tables and reply, “What nationality do you think I am?” Usually, the person who gathered up enough courage to ask me in the first place becomes the uncomfortable one and tells me he or she was just wondering. End of conversation. The reason I like to play around with this question is by no means because I am ashamed of my heritage. Instead, it is because I have been trying to keep a mental tally of how many times I am mistaken for a Hawaiian/American Indian.

I acquired the nickname, “Chief,” when I was in junior high. At the time, I was unsure of the moniker’s origins and assumed my friends called me “Chief” because they thought I was a great leader. After all, I was pretty physical on the basketball court back in my day, a spiritual leader by example one might say. It wasn’t until I saw the film, “One Flew over a Cuckoo’s Nest,” years later that I discovered the birth of my nickname. Apparently, my friend’s father had attended one of our park district basketball games and saw me grabbing rebounds and playing solid defense like I was Dennis “The Worm” Rodman. He also noticed that I was a pretty stone-faced fellow who didn’t talk much. These same characteristics are shared by the Indian Chief who plays basketball in “Cuckoo’s Nest.” Add to the mix we both have brown skin and my friend’s father started calling me “Chief.” The nickname spread like wildfire and pretty soon, the whole school, even opposing teams, knew me as “Chief.” I can’t complain though, at least it’s better than “The Worm.” That was the beginning of my life as a misunderstood fake American Indian.

I can remember my senior year of high school football. All of the friends I grew up with attended my rival high school because I was the only one who grew up on the west side of the district border (WEST SIDE!). The week that our schools played one another I called my best friend who played defensive line for the other team. He told me that during their film scouting session, one of their coaches told the team that “Stagg (my high school) has this guy named Chief,” and they should watch for him. I’m not trying to boast about opposing schools thinking I was good, in fact, I hate the spotlight, but I am just trying to illustrate how it is safe for me to assume that anyone who knows me as Chief will most likely think I am of Indian descent. With all of this being said, I am extremely unfamiliar with any type of American Indian culture or tradition. I have of course been exposed to many ignorant stereotypes society has about American Indian culture, such as the time in junior high when my childhood enemy told me to go back to my tepee and inform my mother that he had a wonderful time doing whatever it is they did together the previous night. In his eyes, I was in fact an Indian, which meant I undoubtedly resided in a tepee hidden away in the forests of Worth, Illinois.

Of course, this kind of ignorance should be expected by children in junior high. The amount of ignorance being displayed should reduce as a person gains more life experience and education, right? Well, I am guilty of giving in to stereotypes as recent as two years ago. This is when I saw the film, “Dead Man,” starring Johnny Depp as a fugitive cowboy who meets an Indian named “Nobody.” Nobody is the stereotypical American Indian. He speaks very few words, conducts strange ceremonies, and is obsessed with trading his goods for tobacco. I thought he was the coolest character back then. But it is only recently that I realize how demeaning this portrayal of American Indian life is to their history and struggles. I am somewhat ashamed by how much television and pop culture has shaped my ideas of American Indian culture. Although I don’t think I am the only one poisoned by the media, I want to wipe my slate clean. The documentary on John Trudell we watched the other day really opened my eyes to the complete disregard in which the larger American Indian population has been treated since the arrival of Columbus. I am intrigued and inspired by the revolutionary actions Trudell led and I really hope that we delve deeper into American Indian activism.

Native American Wrestlers - Tatanka

We have had many discussions in class regarding Native American mascots. It seems like there are two sides to this debate. One side believes some mascots are preserving Native American culture and tradition while the other side believes that the Native American is being used as a caricature of sorts. Now, I know it is not as black and white as this, but I haven’t been able to figure out what side of the debate I am on. That being said, let me share with you one particular example that I’m having trouble decoding.

Growing up, I was a big fan of professional wrestling and the WWF. One of my favorite wrestlers was a Native American named, Tatanka. A biography of Tatanka can be found here. Basically, “Tatanka” translates to “buffalo,” which seems like it makes sense for a wrestling alias. Here is a short forty second clip of his entrance music/video just to give you some perspective.

Now, I can’t decide whether I think Tatanka is exploiting the stereotypes of Native Americans as “savages,” or if he is truly trying to celebrate the traditions of his ancestors. In the biography I linked earlier he states, “I will represent all the tribes, and I have hopes that one day in the future I will lead a new Native American nation in the W.W.F. I will be victorious, and I will dedicate my victory to all Native Americans of all tribes." This may be what he genuinely wanted to accomplish, but I can’t help but think he is using the stereotypes we have of Native Americans for personal gain.

For example, his finishing wrestling moves are called: The Papoose to go, The end of the trail, The Tomahawk chop, and The Indian death drop. The rhetoric of all these names make the Indian appear dangerous and savage. Although, I will say that I think “The end of the trail” is clever and ironic. In addition to his finishing moves, Tatanka was also famous for doing a war/rain dance in order to taunt his opponents in the ring. All of these signs indicate to me that he is playing the role we want/expect him to be in order to gain popularity. Even so, given the forum he was in, professional wrestling, maybe he had to conform to a stereotype in order to become a role model in the first place.

So if you are reading this, what side of the debate do you fall on in regards to Tatanka? Was he really just celebrating his heritage and trying to inspire younger generations of Native Americans? Or was he capitalizing on Native American stereotypes in order to gain popularity?

"Indigenous" - An American Indian Blues Band

If you enjoy Blues music or anything that sounds like Stevie Ray Vaughan, then you should check out this video. I discovered this band while doing research for my Native American Figure presentation. They are an American Indian blues band that call themselves “Indigenous,” and are comprised of four family members. They have a blues-rock feel to their music and you can tell they have been heavily influenced by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, who were amazing blues guitarists.

The sound quality isn’t the best and the performance is a tad sloppy at times but it is still pretty rocking music. Here is a link to their MySpace site where you can listen to more of their songs. I hope this resonates with some of you because I discovered them a couple months ago and have been listening to them non-stop. I grew up listening to the blues and jamming on the guitar with my dad so this stuff runs deep within my blood. A few weeks back, “Indigenous” played a show at Buddy Guy’s Legends, which is a blues bar downtown. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but I definitely plan on seeing them the next time they come around Chicago. This band is just another awesome discovery that has come from taking this course and I wanted to share it with all of you. Rock on!

Joy Harjo's "Raining in Honolulu"

One of my favorite poems in Joy Harjo’s How We Became Human was “Raining in Honolulu,” on page 194. Before I get into why I love this poem, I want to point out a quote that struck me from her introduction. She states, “This earth asks for so little from us human beings.” This is very true. We exist because this earth supports life, bottom line. All we have to do is avoid destroying it in return (which isn’t working out so well). Anyway, this line got me thinking about colonization and how it relates to Harjo’s poem, “Raining in Honolulu.” The last six lines of the poem are as follows:

Rain opens us, like flowers, or earth that has been thirsty for more than a season.

We stop all of our talking, quit thinking, or blowing sax to drink the mystery.

We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing.

This is how the rain became rain, how we became human.

The wetness saturates everything, including the perpetrators of the second overthrow.

We will plant songs where there were curses

I just love how she creates the image that we, along with the earth and everything on it, are drinking the same water. The earth and humans are both living organisms that need water to survive. I also love the second and third lines from above because we, humans, stop whatever it is we are doing and drink water every single day. We stop communicating and thinking for those brief periods of time when we are drinking with the earth. This poem really makes you stop and think about the little things that can be taken for granted very easily.

Yeah, water is water and it’s there. But we drink it and it keeps us alive which is mind blowing when you think about it. Why earth? Why us? Also, I love the “we listen to the breathing beneath our breathing” line. I interpret this as being the wind, which is always there but rarely appreciated. Granted, I don’t know how one can appreciate wind without feeling a little bit foolish. But just the fact that it is there and we feel it is a miracle in itself.

I know I have been rambling with this post but I was kind of blown away with this poem. The last two lines of this poem evoke the colonization of America and theft of American Indian land. The non-violent tone Harjo takes by saying, “We will plant songs where there were curses,” is very admirable. Harjo has a right to be angry and I don’t think anyone would blame her if she vocalized her rage. Yet, she remains an optimist and chooses music to spread her message, which is kind of an organic life form in itself. This is a fantastic poem that I am definitely including in the lessons for my final project.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns (a.k.a. The Truth About Stories)

Since I’ve been reading Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, there has been one particular line that has stayed with me. I have literally lost sleep thinking about this. The line is on page 98 where King talks about how many stories were lost when the libraries of Tenochtitlan and Alexandria were burned. He states, “Though it doesn’t take a disaster to destroy literature. If we stopped telling the stories and reading the books, we would discover that neglect is as powerful an agent as war and fire.” I found this to be a truly profound statement because King is passing on many stories within this very book. He ends each section telling us that we have heard the stories. Now it is our turn to pass them on. As a future teacher, I feel a great sense of responsibility to pass these stories on. I know I have talked about this in other posts, but growing up, I feel like I was screwed out of learning about American Indian culture and the struggles they have been faced with simply because my teachers never spent much time on the topic. The reasoning for this may have simply been caused by time constraints or lack of relevance in the curriculum. But it is also possible that the stories were neglected and therefore never passed on to another generation.

My goal is to never neglect what I have learned this semester and to pass these stories on to future generations so they can continue to resonate with people and live on. This is what I am trying to accomplish with my final project. I have loved the poetry from Trudell and Harjo we have read this semester and I am attempting to write a week-long poetry unit geared for a junior or senior high school class. My hope is that I can actually use the lessons I create in my classroom one day so that my students can become aware of the great things being done in the American Indian community, just as I have.