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