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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>This
is a selection from Carol Snow Moon Bachnofer (pp. 141-147); she is Abenaki,
and lives in New England, where I was born. Watch what happens in this
selection in her interaction with people in the “unnamed category”.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>But I
am still discriminated against at every turn. Four years ago, I was registering
at a local college for a couple of classes I needed to complete a degree
program. I dutifully and proudly checked the box “Native American Indian”
and presented the forms to the lady at the registration window. She took and
eraser and unchecked the box, checking instead “Caucasian.” I must
have checked the box in error and she had fixed that for me. I told her I had
not made an error, and she said, Well, you don’t <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>look</span></i> Indian.” No beads, feathers, or
hooked nose: obviously not Indian. I offered to go to my car and bring her my
Jay Treaty papers, to show here that the United States government had admitted
that I am Abenaki, authentic as Sitting Bull. I told her I smoked a pipe like
my great-grandmother and that I didn’t wear y feathers around campus. My
level of sarcasm was rising by the minute along with my level of hurt. She
grudgingly changed the form. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Now
in graduate school, I am planning to write my thesis on the Native poets of the
northeastern tribes. I want to show that they are not second-class citizens in
the world of literary accomplishment or talent. This school is prestigious and
is located in an area fairly near where the Abenaki live. It amazed me,
however, that no one there seemed aware that there are any Indians anywhere
close by. In fact, the former governor of Vermont had recently asserted that “there
are no Abenakis in Vermont today, only Vermonters.” His weak and
demeaning remarks may be interpreted by some to be generous and inclusive. But
they are the same disclaiming and wounding remarks as ever. They are remarks
that serve to wipe out a culture. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Despite
the proximity of this college to tribal lands and Abenaki people, and despite my
assertion that I have a responsibility to my culture,, of the college I attend,
the faculty adviser to whom I first mentioned the proposed topic failed to see
its importance or seriousness. He attempted to hold me off from getting started
on it, and referred to it as my “little Native American project.”
At one point he actually told me that I didn’t have a proper grasp on how
to write within the culture, suggesting changes that made the poem distinctly white
in outlook and style. Age fifty-six and still the discrimination, the cultural
genocide, continue. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>I can
also share my person experiences. I am Eastern European Jewish and Irish. Lots
of people like to think that the Irish and Jews are “white”. I don’t
ascribe to that, because I don’t like being co-opted. Also, it was my
father’s desperate wish to be “American” that caused me not
to learn my grandmother’s Eastern European languages. The battle wasn’t
won easily: At 3 and a half, I stopped speaking to my father for four months. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>When
I came to New Mexico, I was stunned that Diné and Apache people couldn’t
create modern documents in their languages because there was no support in
terms of easily accessible fonts, or spell-checking or grammar checking, so I
started developing the technology. My department, which like I said is famous
for its Critical Pedagogy, has sent “messages” to let me know that
my moral and intellectual character are suspect because I work with Indian
tribes. New Mexico is 55.5% non-White, 10.5% Native American, 42% Hispanic,
less than 2% Black, and less than 3% Asian/Pacific Islander. In this
state, with this demographic, in a land grant institution, in a department
famous for its Critical Theory, I am pressured to ascribe to the ways and means
of the dominant WHITE culture. I don’t THINK so. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Does
any of this help, Annie? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Really
going now, <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Mia<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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