My Grandmothers Granddaughter Indigenous Resilience

i read this quote recently that said

we are our grandmother’s granddaughters

how many of you grew up closely with

your grandmothers

if you did you might have grown up kind

of like me

i grew up watching soap operas like the

young and the restless bold and the

beautiful referred to collectively by my

grandmas as the stories

and when i went away to college i wasn’t

watching the story so much anymore and

so i remember

coming in once and looking at my grandma

and her eyes were filling with tears

and she said brittany did you hear that

victor got kidnapped

and i was like oh my god grandma no

victor from church

and she just looked at me like i had

lost my whole mind and said no crazy

victor from the stories as if i was

supposed to intuitively know that her

tears were induced by the kidnapping of

a fictional character

that would be like me saying oh my god

did you hear that harry’s parents died

grandma

and they are asking me who baby and me

saying harry potter

i mean come on granny but the stories

though

were so ingrained into my life that even

when i play

with my barbies as a child it wasn’t

malibu barbie let’s go to the mall

it was malibu barbie we’re about to go

kidnap victor are you in or are you out

i think a lot about stories like that

but i especially think about my

grandmothers

all of the fire they gave me and all of

the quirks

my maternal grandma she never made it

past the sixth grade in school

in education we refer to the students

who are the first in their immediate

families to go to college

as first generation sometimes though

i wonder if they were the first who did

go or the first who could

my mama was that person on her side of

the family but for her mama

college was not an option she was a

sharecropper

and that was the only option i think

about all the times she prayed for me

and one of her most fervent prayers was

for me to get an education

and i am the product of those prayers

my grandma never got to go to college

but she got to see me go

twice she planted the seeds so that i

could have the flowers

and i am my grandmother’s granddaughter

so when i went away to school i went to

duke by the way hold your applause out

there

i really felt like i was doing something

i mean honestly you could not tell me

nothing and my mama can attest to that

don’t nod too hard out there mama

but i didn’t know that my whole world

was going to be drastically altered

so i’m a member of the lumbee tribe of

north carolina we are the largest tribe

east of the mississippi river and the

ninth largest tribe in the nation

we’re very proud of that so when i went

to duke which is only about a

hour drive from my home in my tribal

territory i was shocked at the ignorant

comments that people made to me about my

indigenous identity

they’d ask me stuff like this what part

native are you

and in my mind i’m thinking all parts i

guess if i had to choose one it’d be my

mouth because i’m very sassy

others would say things to me like do

you live in a tp

can you speak your language for me do

you just feel so connected to nature

are you sure you’re native or my all

time favorite my great-grandma was

a cherokee princess others were just

perplexed that i could be

so blessed country they would say things

to me like

how are you so southern i thought that

indians are supposed to sound more

mystical

i wanted to say well bless your heart

honey we are the south

and in the words of lumbee historian

melinda maynard lowry

we were here before something called the

south ever existed

some of these comments might sound funny

and some of them were but there were

others

like the time i was working at my job on

campus and a security guard who i knew

told me that he had read all about

lumbee people

and he read that we have smaller brains

than the rest of the population

yeah that one got me and this kind of

commentary has not just been from people

at universities

i began to realize that americans in

general learn

very very very little about native

history

think for one moment about what you

learned for most people it goes

something like this

columbus discovered america though there

were already people here

then thanksgiving happened and the

pilgrims and indians had a nice little

meal together that wasn’t nice

and then there was the trail of tears if

you learn about that at all and that’s

it a recent study by sarah sheeran

colleague shows that 87

of all native content taught in schools

occurs from a pre-1900s context

so people have a very basic very

stereotypical very antiquated

and often very false view of native

history that does not allow for the

authenticity and complexity of

actual native identity and some people

actually don’t even know that native

people still exist

i met a lady recently who was a teacher

for years in a nearby county

she was interviewing me for a

scholarship and she asked me the

questions often

asked in scholarships and one of them

was what is your passion

and i became really nervous because to

some the truth is controversial but i

thought here goes

i started to talk about how the school

system perpetuates egregious lies about

the founding of this country

and the genocide of native people and

then i began to talk about christopher

columbus and how he did not discover

america but was instead an evil rapist

murder

and she looked at me and said really

i’ve never heard any of that

and internally i was thinking well

buckle up patty cause boy do i have

about 500 years worth of stories for you

her name was not actually patti by the

way and i did not get that scholarship

but talking to not her name patty and

people like her makes me think about my

own position

at this university so at this university

there are 1073 doctoral students

one of whom is native american and that

one is me

there are 1 169 professors and lecturers

one of whom is native american and that

one was also me

i get told regularly that this is so

unique and so special

unique though is code for lonely what i

would give

to have another native in my phd program

or a native professor’s class to take or

if a native student would enroll in one

of my classes

and then that happened i taught a social

work class on campus for the past two

years and last summer

i was reviewing my class roster for the

upcoming semester and i saw

one particular student’s name and

immediately knew that she was lumbee

there are about 10 very common lumpy

last names and she had one of them

and i hollered a friend came running in

the room thinking i was suffering from a

heart attack until i delivered the news

i was getting my first native student

and my first lumbee student specifically

since i’ve been in my phd program which

is hopefully my last degree

i came to the realization that i have

never

and i will never have a native professor

during my entire collegiate experience

not an undergrad

not in grad school and not now i have

been subjected to so many

microaggressions

over the course of my college career

that i had basically resigned myself to

the fact that

universities though marketed as these

beacons of scholarship and genius

can really be places that are incredibly

lonely

and harmful for native students

but this was my beacon of hope i will

never

have a native professor but i get to be

one

this time i get the seeds and she gets

the flowers

perhaps those who come after her will

get the garden

i cannot escape all the unfortunate

comments

that people will make to me about native

people and neither can my student

but we can make it easier for those who

come after us

and that is the blessing to pave the

path

our people cleared for us to live our

lives towards the goal of becoming good

ancestors

my research in my phd program and my

work in the classroom

focuses on doing that by undoing the

harmful stereotypes about indigenous

people that we have all internalized

native and non-native alike and to show

people the undeniable

the unending and the innumerable

contributions of native people to

america

your rivers are named after us your

towns

your counties your states your

government is based on

our governments we’re not to blame for

that one though

we are enmeshed into your everyday

realities

we were here before america ever was and

we

are inevitable to all my native people

out there listening

you already know what i’m talking about

your lives are representations of this

resilience

this inability to quit this vivacity and

this spunk

to all the non-native people listening

there is much work to be done

for example right now do you know whose

land you’re on

if you’re listening from charlotte do

you know that you’re on catawba land

for those listening from all across the

state do you know that you are on halawa

kohari guacamole saponi okonichi maharan

and lumbee land

those beyond north carolina’s borders do

you know anything

about the people on whose land you

reside

even if that land is no longer in their

possession

it is your responsibility to know from

whom it was stolen

that is a truth that cannot be stolen

that is a reality that cannot be moved

my grandma used to sing a song called i

shall not be moved the lyrics go

something like this

i shall not be i shall not be moved

i shall not be i shall not be moved just

like a tree

that’s planted by the water i shall not

be

moved how true those words feel to me

today

i give this talk in part as a gift to my

family

i lost my maternal grandmother in 2014

but my paternal grandmother passed away

this past november

my father’s mother she was so many

things but she was especially funny

she was one of those grandmas who makes

inappropriate jokes so sometimes

we would all gather to take a picture

instead of cheese

she’d say everybody say sex

she was fiery vivacious spunky

hilarious sweet thoughtful

wonderful powerful and unstoppable

if we are our grandmother’s

granddaughters then i thank god that i

am mine i am thankful that they were the

seeds to my flowers

i am thankful that they helped me bloom

i am thankful that my life as an

indigenous woman is not

a series of compromises but a

recognition that sometimes

it is necessary to be immovable like the

song my grandmother would sing

i am thankful for grandmothers who

taught me how to plant my feet

just like they planted seeds within my

spirit

we grow where we are planted and i thank

god for the grandmothers who planted me

thank you