I am sitting in my bedroom in a small 2-bedroom apartment, playing with my tiny china animals. The grownups who come to visit know that I love making these animals come alive and sometimes I am given another one to add to the family. I can hear my mom in the living room but cannot see her. She sounds so angry - I don't know if she is talking on the phone or if she has company. I don't dare to poke my head out into the hallway to see what is happening, so I better be quiet and just listen. "Columbus! Columbus!", she shouts, "we were here first, he didn't discover anything!" I'm not completely sure what these words mean but I can tell from the tone of her voice that this must be very important. (It might have something to do with the fact that we live in a mostly Italian neighborhood in Philadelphia). Then she goes on and I hear her say, "...Savages!..Scalping!..the French and English taught us about scalping!" I sort of remember those words from a movie about cowboys and Indians with John Wayne being the big hero. I know I hate Tonto and The Lone Ranger - Tonto talks funny and doesn't seem very real and hangs out with the wrong people who don't like us Indians.

I hear her continue as I am listening again..."...Treaties...every treaty was broken...Liars!"

Sometime later... I'm in school and the teacher starts talking about Columbus and the "wild Indians" he found. I lower my head and feel ashamed, angry yet proud but I'm afraid to speak up. I want to raise my hand and say, "It's a lie, we were here first and we are good people". But I have learned that it is safer to be quiet and I don't know if anybody else is Indian. I look around.....no one says anything. I feel my face is hot, I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I'm afraid that if anyone finds out about me they will say I'm bad too and most of the time I try to be invisible.

Sometime later.... Recess - I'm on the playground - it is concrete and I'm always falling down and scraping my knees. I don't like the way it feels and wish it was soft. Everything is concrete- the sidewalks and streets are very hard. The sidewalks are hard to skate on too. A boy comes up to me; I am standing alone. "What are you?", he asks me. "Huh?", I say. "What are you...I'm Italian" he says. I proudly say, "I'm Cherokee Indian and Spanish and my daddy is Czech". The boy steps back and makes whooping sounds with his hand over his mouth and he runs away from me. I can tell he is making fun of me. I am surprised and feel sad and remember those sounds in the cowboy and Indian movies on TV. I look around the playground - I look different and feel different from the others, like I don't belong and I feel very lonely. Mom comes to meet me after school and the kids say "Is that your mom" and I say "Yes" and then I hear, "Whooooo". I feel ashamed, why do we have to be so dark I wonder. We don't look like the black people and we don't look like the white people either. I don't see any yellow people here. I'm afraid to tell my mom, she might get mad and march over to the school and get after that teacher... she might "go on the warpath" (that's my daddy's saying about mom when she is very angry. Sometimes I'm real scared of her 'cause I don't know what is wrong, why she is so mad and unhappy most of the time.)

My mom's mom has a different way about her- she is soft spoken, pretty and a bit protective when she comes around and mom gets mad at me or someone else. I don't like to be pushed from behind, something wells up inside me when mom pushes me or a kid pushes me. I just spend a lot of time in my room, listening while I make my animal family come alive and I watch the ants on my window sill looking very busy. I also spend a lot of time downstairs with Rosita. She and her husband, Manuel, are from Puerto Rico I am told. I like them. My mom likes them a lot, too. Our neighbors don't like them - I hear words like "spic" when they talk about Manuel and Rosita. I'm sure that is a bad word. Rosita teaches me lots of things and talks to me in Spanish and English. My favorite dish is fried dough with tomatoes which she makes when I come down to visit. They had a beautiful baby girl and moved back to Puerto Rico. I really miss them.

....Sitting in front of the TV in my yellow rocking chair my grandmom gave me. I see John Wayne say words like "redskins...savages" and he has a gun in his hand....Oh look! Indians are coming down the big hill- there are those strange mouth sounds again - one by one they get shot and fall from their horses. I'm afraid and it hurts my heart, I'm sad and confused. Why are they doing that to our people? I am silently wondering. Mom is in the kitchen cooking dinner. She makes such good dinners; she makes magic in the kitchen and doesn't seem to hear anything going on around her. I never played cowboys and Indians; I knew what would happen.

"Mom, where does our family come from?" She answers, "North Carolina"... "Where is that?" I ask. "Far from here, down South". "Oh", but I don't know where it is yet. She becomes quiet. I better not ask anymore right now, she seems sad.

Eleven years old... we move to New Jersey in the "boonies". So many birds singing and mom tells me their names. I wonder to myself how does she know all of their names and their songs...we saw only sparrows and pigeons in the city. She spends hours in the garden and shows me what to do when planting and weeding and shows me the herbs. I hate the mosquitoes- they eat me up alive! My dad says, "they like you because you are so sweet". I miss my grandmom - mom had another fight with her. When this happens, mom won't speak to her and of course, I don't get to talk or visit with her. I wonder why and what happened.

I'm now 12...grandmom comes down to 'Jersey, I can hear her in the kitchen, but mom didn't tell me she was coming. I run out and there she is. I'm so happy to see her, she is so beautiful, but she has something on her face that I didn't notice before... I think it's called "pancake" and it makes her face look lighter. She has on a shiny satin white blouse with pearl buttons and her wavy black hair is cut short. I compare my height with hers, "I'm almost as tall as you" (She is a little over 5' and is a little round). Music is playing and she starts to dance and I join her. She says, "I just love to dance"..."Me too, grandmom". Mom is standing at the other end of the kitchen - silent but watching us. My mom loves to dance too - it is in our blood, I'm told. We stop, and I say, "Grandmom, I know we are Cherokee". She looks over at my mom and replies, "Yes, we are", but I see my mother glaring at her and I don't understand what is going on between them. Grandmom continues..."My father... but he is gone"..."What was his name?", I ask. She says something but I can't understand what she says, then there is silence again. I begin to play with the buttons on her sleeve and I ask, "Grandmom, how do you stay so pretty (I don't see any wrinkles and I think she is old, 56 to be exact.)?" She says, "Never use soap on your face; I use Noxema." She sounds like the commercial on TV. But I smell it all the time she lives with us and she shows me how she uses it, the Noxema in a blue glass jar. She also wears perfume called "Evening in Paris" and it comes in blue glass.

Mom and her had another fight about my dad's drinking - Grandmom doesn't like it that my dad comes home almost every night late from work and drunk...I don't like it either because there is always an argument and mom takes it out on me. I don't have kids come from school much because he is embarrassing and the noise is terrible. Mom got real mad at her mom and kicked her out of our house...Oh no, this is for real; I thought they would make up. I didn't get to say good-bye since mom told me to stay away. I wanted to run after that taxi and go with my grandmom but I was afraid and knew that my mom would hit me again and again. She is so angry. I never got to see my grandmom again; she died a year later. "No, you can't go to the funeral" mom says and I'm left alone until they come back that night from the funeral. She was angry with her brother for buying nice flowers for grandmom's viewing and funeral. I don't understand that either. I spent silent time remembering grandmom and me sitting at the table saying words over and over again after she had the stroke and one side of her face drooped. She would get frustrated but I would make her laugh and we would practice again and again while we held hands. My mom laughed too and she seemed to enjoy watching us "play" together and she had seemed happy at the time.

I knew that I was more like my grandmom, than like my mom. She told me stories about having a "Speakeasy" in New York during the Prohibition. I later discovered that there were a number of American Indian entertainers who would dance and sing in these Speakeasies. She was quite a business woman, kind of unusual at the time and she refused to marry because she said, "No man is going to tell me what to do". Of course , her having two children by two different men brought embarrassment to some of her strict Episcopalian family members. She later had a luncheonette in Philly with a separate room with pinball machines. She kept a wood box in that room for me to stand on in order to play. But my favorite place was her office where the sun always shined and it was filled with birds - parakeets and canaries, who sang and talked and there were always baby birds too. I would spend what seemed like hours in that room, drawing on her "special paper" and listening and talking with the birds. Grandmom and mom would take turns peeking in on me and I would tell them I was having fun, which was even more than that. It was a way of being safe and connected with my grandmother and the wonderful winged ones. I really treasured being there as it seemed more sacred than the Catholic churches I was attending while I was in parochial school. I was able to see life in everything and I would look up at the clouds and say, "Look, they look like cauliflower!"

I also got to spend time with Aunt Martha and Uncle George in 'Jersey. They were elderly Southern Baptist ministers from Georgia. They took children in who were either homeless or had parents who couldn't take care of them. My mom and her brother lived with them for a while and my mom always visited them after she grew up. The story was told to me that Aunt Martha was raised for awhile by my grandmom's mom and she was helping my grandmother in return when she couldn't care for my mom and uncle. I got to meet some of the grownups who had lived with them as kids. One of them was Miguel, and he said to me once, "I was almost your dad" and I thought, I wonder if he drinks. He seemed really, really nice and was handsome too. I could tell that there had been a special friendship between him and my mom, but I was later told that he liked boys better than girls. I spent time on Aunt Martha's homestead - she raised her own food and chickens and she made the best pies I ever had. I saw her kill a chicken once and I was really scared and felt bad for the bird. She said " this is for supper." That night my mom came for supper and fried chicken, with collard greens and apple pie were on the table. I said I wasn't hungry, and they thought I was sick. I just told them I didn't feel so good. I remembered that chicken trying to get away and I wanted to help it escape from Aunt Martha. Aunt Martha made the best pies in the world and my favorite was her sweet potato pie. I would sit in her kitchen and she would give me pieces of dough to make my pies. I was better at making mud pies and she always made a fuss over them and would say "...mm. .mm..good" (To this day I can't make pie crust to save the world; I used to rant and rave in my kitchen because the crust would always split apart and my husband would call from the living room, " are you making a pie?") Aunt Martha was quite a preacher and got a bigger church. She would sit my friend and me ( who had the most beautiful cornrows I had ever seen), in the first pew because we would play too much in church. I couldn't keep braids in my hair because it's too wavy and curly. When we got a little too noisy, she would look at us with her stern black eyes and we would shut up real quick. There were lots of "Amens" and "Hallelujahs", and hand clapping and the ladies always wore the most big, beautiful hats I had ever seen. They were dressed up bigtime. People would come by busloads to Atlantic City for the services and supper would be served afterwards in the big hall downstairs. They all called each other brother and sister. I thought they were a really big family. I think they had all come from the South too. This church was sure lively compared to the church I had to go to where everybody was quiet and a priest was in the front and you couldn't understand a word he was saying- they called it Latin, but it didn't sound Spanish to me.

Uncle George had a gravelly, raspy voice and I loved to hear him talk. He didn't preach as much as Aunt Martha. He looked like coal and he always smelled of wintergreen alcohol because of his aches and pains. Once I asked him if he got burned to be so black and he said that God made people in all shades of color. They had a lot of love in their hearts, even though some of their sermons made my eyes get as big as saucers. Aunt Martha was strong, independent and was admired by the people who came to see and hear her preach. They gave me wonderful memories and taught me a lot. I was very quiet, didn't ask too many questions but kept my eyes and ears open. I was supposed to be seen and not heard and was taught to always respect my elders, no matter what and to never talk back. They were good lessons.

When I grew up I had to find myself and find out more about our people - what I learned initially was clear cut racism, especially when I went to college. I was the first one of my family to go to college. I learned that people saw the world only in black and white and there was a belief that we were either all dead or "out west on reservations". I had not been on a reservation yet and I knew that we weren't all dead. I found out that when people at the college spoke about "minorities" (including the faculty of color), that people of the red nations were not included. Yet I had been chosen to be on a special project for minorities who were interested in mental health and the school received a special grant from the National Institute of Mental Health ; I was a statistic which made them look good. I was the only Native American in that particular graduate school. However, I was treated like the two white students on the project; we were the only ones who did not receive a graduate stipend from that 5 year grant from NIMH. The other minority students received grant funds every month. Wow, now I was "too white;" that never happened before. I threatened to report the project coordinator to the Dean because someone was "pocketing" funds which were supposed to be allocated in an equitable way. The white students were afraid to speak up; I wasn't because I knew I had 15 years of loan payments to look forward to and I was going to be paying it out of my own future wages and this was classic racism. I didn't go to school looking for a handout; I was selected to be on this project because I was interested in mental health issues and because of my heritage; the university received additional federal money because of it. I later enrolled in a class "Ethnic and Racial minorities 1800 to the Present". When the syllabus was handed out I noticed that Native people were not listed along with everyone else. When I asked the professor about it, his reply was that American Indians would have to be a course of its own and that "we" were not going to cover " them". Why should I have been so shocked and disappointed? I began to understand my mother's anger as I began to really feel mine grow inside of me. At the same time, I felt alone in this struggle and turned to drugs and alcohol for false comfort. But I graduated with honors in spite of it; I was determined to make it. I owed it to my ancestors.

I received a special gift from the Creator and Nunehi. I became allergic to alcohol and would get massive, painful headaches when I would drink. I also remembered the pain of my father's alcoholism and his self-hatred. I did not want to end up like him and knew that it was a strong possibility and probability that I could follow in his footsteps. He passed on at the age of 51, having refused to seek help, no matter how many times I contacted AA and pleaded with dad to go to meetings. I had to do a lot of recovery work and healing from all of the "stuff" I had locked inside- things which I had been mostly silent about. When I finally arrived at a place of resolution, more lessons and instructions came to me in different ways- very powerful and sometimes scary ways but, most often in the dreamtime or in visions and premonitions; I knew I wasn't hallucinating. It took a long while to accept things which I had not understood as "normal" to our people but accepted it when it was explained to me. Grandmom had been born with a " veil", and I was told by an Elder that I had as well. Then things began to make sense to me. "Paranormal" was a European concept and foreign to us. When my grandmother appeared through the scent of her perfume after she passed on to the spirit world, I became terribly frightened as I knew it was her but did not know how she was present. No one had explained it to me as yet. I finally told my mother and she was fully aware of her mother's presence as if it was "normal" and we talked about spirits and life forms, death, premonitions, etc. I began to understand why I was always drawing a large eye in childhood - it is an ancient symbol of our people and it represents seeing, perception, and intuition. These are abilities and gifts which everyone has, especially children.

Walking the Red Road is not easy- it is difficult, painful, but wonderful at the same time. Like honoring all of my ancestors and those yet to come. When I dance, especially at Pow Wows, I dance for my ancestors and pray that my mother will heal from her own pain and bitterness. It is important to be grateful for all of our blessings given to us by the Creator no matter how down and out we may find ourselves. I believe that we have a responsibility to each other and to our Mother to honor our original instructions, to support our cultural integrity, to learn our native languages in order to pass it on to others, to share our private stories and the true histories of our people; and to share knowledge and wisdom with others. To resolve family discord in whatever way possible whether directly or indirectly. To hold on to anger and bitterness is self destructive. The traditional Cherokee way of forgiving one's enemies and praying for them is a healing way. To know that obstacles are doors to opportunities to learn and grow and to understand that much of the information that we may be so busy looking for from others, is encoded in our DNA, genetic memories from our ancestors. All we need to do sometimes is to be silent, to listen and welcome our ancestors and others into the dreamtime and into our wakeful hours. It is also helpful to understand that we also carry traumatic memories of the experiences of our ancestors. We can be supportive of one another and help in healing. We are all survivors. We have not disappeared, maybe we are invisible at times but we are a strong people and have much work ahead of us in order to help heal Mother Earth and her people. I dream of peoples of many colors coming together in peace to join together to change the negative forces which have destructive effects on all of us. We have been given the responsibility to caretake our Mother and each other and generations to come.

I now live on the homeland of the Abenaki people, Ndakinna - Dawnland. A people that the federal government and state governments still say don't exist and many schools and libraries refuse to acknowledge, even today. Another invisible people to those in political power. But they know who they are and where they came from. They have been here for thousands of years and have survived the invasions, the planned genocide and being pushed around and scattered. Many different intertribal groups of people live here too and I am thankful that I am welcomed to reside here among my other relatives. I know that if it is meant to be that my relatives from North Carolina will find me or I will find them. I will keep searching. There is a saying which many people understand: "To be a descendant of a removed tribe is to be homesick for a place you've never been." In the meantime, I am thankful for living among "The People" on this journey.

Acknowledgments: I want to express my gratitude to Elders, young and old who have shared their wisdom and knowledge along this journey:

First and foremost, my parents, my maternal grandmother and her father who gave me instructions on fulfilling my responsibilities to our people; to Aunt Martha and Uncle George; Octavia; Jules Straight Eagle, my loving husband, life partner, friend, brother; Tracy; Donna and John; Doris; Zeebeanz; Nanatasis; Mali; Dhyani, Aunt Evie and Uncle Sonny, Brightstar, Donna, Buffy Red Feather, Gentle Bear, Wilma; Gisela; Maia; Mitchell and Marie; Rosita; Little Arrow ; Larry; Marco; Distant Eagle; the winged ones; four leggeds; tall people; plant people; crawling people and stone people; the star beings; Nunehi, and most important of all, The Creator.

Copyright © 1996 Pond Lily. May reprint with permission from author.