USA

4lizzy@gte.net

Who Am I?

When I was nine
kids called me nigger
chink
or liver-lips-lizzy.

my broad face, full lips,
coupled with my dark olive skin,
and almond eyes
= easy target.

Later,
are you Filipino?
Hawaiian?
Eskimo?

My ancestry created conversation
“No,” I’d say.
“I’m Native American.”

At the age of twenty and at thirty
the questions stopped there.

But...
Around age thirty-five and the year 1995
suddenly my looks took on new dimensions.

“You’re Native American,” they’d squeal with delight?
“What tribe?”

They wanted to swallow me whole in their New Age frenzy.

Choctaw
Chickasaw
Great, great grandmother full-blooded
Grandpa was called chief.

I’d never even set foot on a reservation
A trifling 1/4 percent.
That didn’t matter.
DNA linkage was enough

to them, I vibrated spirituality
“You’re soooooo grounded to the earth,” one woman said.
So began my feather, beads, and drum period.
I wrapped myself up in the artifice
I puffed out my chest with “Indian” pride.
I learned all the buzz words
red road
beauty way
white buffalo woman
interconnected
spirit
medicine wheel
four directions, wind, fire, earth and air
sage and tobacco--offerings
smudging--clear negative energy

It felt good to be accepted. “I was in the ‘in’ crowd, finally.”

Then around forty I realized I was ripping off a culture,
not my culture.
I’m Wonder-Bread white and Hostess Cupcake mentality
red, white, and blue as they come...
shaking rattles and pounding drums couldn’t alter my upbringing.

I was in collusion and perpetuating the continued debasement
of the original “Americans.”

Me, we, us, they-- hungry ghost searching for answers,
looking for soul food.

gobbling up
like trolls
anything coming over the bridge.

Now, when people ask,
I tell the truth

Pure Mutt.

© Copyright 2001, Elizabeth Anderson.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.