“My Grandmother Was a Cherokee Princess”
A poem about America + resources
"my grandmother was a Cherokee princess."
The girl with a fake feather says
as if she has never seen the red handprint
I've almost grown numb from holding this pain
One foot in
One foot out
This identity isn't entirely mine
but it was my bloodline tells a larger story
a story that cracked me open
forcing my eyes to see that which history seeks to hide.
Halloween no longer feels fun
When "the Cowboys and the Indians" show up
I'm not white enough to enjoy
Their display of racism
Mocking this pain
The stolen sister's names lodged in my throat
The pain that rolled down my family tree till it came to me.
I am white
I am white
but I wasn't fully raised like everyone else around me
From Mesa Verde to pow wows
to tearful hands held
I’ve been allowed to look at life across reservation lines.
Their joy, love and commitment to something better
while new being deceiving about the truth of this world
has made me defiant at every turn.
I do not celebrate Thanksgiving cus fuck the pilgrims
I scream fuck Christopher Columbus
and all the names of Europeans who willingly committed genocide.
People get angry, and people get mad when I tell them I won't crave a turkey,
I won't say thanks on the 3rd Thursday in November.
I'll sit, and I'll grieve those I've known and those I never could.
This isn't virtue signaling this is growing up.
I learned to hold tight to what remains always treading on the outside
knowing it's not mine to claim
but still, it belonged once to my family and that feeling is allowed to exist.
but…
So little remains to what they once had Native culture forced into corners
unless they can be a shaman or a sexual fantasy or a Halloween costume
on a girl I know- I don't know how to speak up when I see it.
Words I lack…
My hurt won't be taken seriously because so few know
the horrors I speak to that have never stopped.
It's sticky trying to tell these others the truth
I don't want to cause a scene
But I do
god I do
I want to scream
I want to remind them of all that was lost
Their costume isn't fun
it's a knife in my heart
How can you get drunk with fake moccasins on and tell me about your cowboy fantasies while communities lose more people daily;
sisters to murder
young brothers not even 15 to suicide
and so many more to the resources the government has denied
my heart is cracked open again this pain intertwined
this blood it bleeds is not mine but does it need to be shared
to awaken some sense of caring?
Isn't this tragedy something we all should feel pressing down on our chest till something finally gives?
How much more must be lost to the curse of willful indifference?
A Note About This Poem
In the United States Of America, everything related to the Native, First People, and Indigenous experience is very complex and hard for many to understand.
The violence and oppression of native people has never ended it has only taken on new faces and tactics.
Growing up, it was always known that my great-grandmother was a full-blooded member of the Chickasaw tribe.
This information about her and life outside of the white history books was vital to my development as a human.
I have volunteered with different Native-run organizations in my adult life, educating me on current events, laws, and injustices.
The point of this poem is less an attempt to claim any rights to a native identity that I, as a white person, do not have.
Instead, it is meant to showcase how, despite my privilege, the pain of this experience can't be easily avoided.
The title of the poem is meant to speak to a lie and white persons I have heard my whole life, especially from folks who want whatever false perks they think come from being native without ever having to feel the grief.
Further note, my family and I have not celebrated or participated in Thanksgiving in many years.
While I have attended a few select Friendsgiving, I have always been mindful of the spaces and tried to use them as an opportunity for education.
Which is the goal of sharing this piece. You can step away from this with a new insight and, more importantly, a reminder of life outside your bubble.
Information on ways to help
New Stories