Whatdoyouwanttobe?

I was looking at a site that asked a question about
Wannabees, about how non-Indians want to be Indian and
also how Indians want to be White. It was also
critical of mascots, and the line was drawn, either
you are for it or not with no middle ground.

I read the post and it brought to mind what I have
been thinking about for a little while. I went to my
nephews wedding reception yesterday, my sons and
daughter went as well. He is marrying a girl from
Seattle. There was a bunch of people there, most of
them young college kids who were their friends. School
is out and they were married yesterday morning and had
the reception in a public park.


My oldest son and his wife graduated yesterday from
school, Utah State in Logan, Utah and we went up to
see it. After that we raced down to Provo, where my
nephew goes to school at BYU.


He is a young man, his mother stood at the overhanging
pavilion and shook everybody's hand that came up. My
nephew and his bride stood near there talking to
everyone that came to eat something.


His mother she was smiling. She is
quite tall for an Indian women, and a Chinese woman,
her mother is from China, her father from Hopi Land.
The father was sitting at a table resting from the
long day, he is Ute, and a little Shoshone and
Commanche as well.


I went up to him and he sat with his brothers, who
were there as well having travelled many miles to get
there.


My oldest son came up and sat down with his wife, and
new little girl. My son's wife is White. I often
wondered what they saw in each other, they are
different people. Her family is tall and she stands
6"2" the same height as my son. She comes from German
roots I think.


My nephew's wife is from Portland, she is White as
well. As I sat there, it was not a traditional Indian
wedding, there was no semblence of this at all. It
came to me that somehow they found each other, That
the differences in their backgrounds, way of life and
features also created a wanting to share a life and
that all of what they were would be woven into it.


I stood off a little ways and wondered about the
future for them and my own children, when one of the new
in-laws came up to me and she said. "You must be Ann's
father in law". I listened to her as she explained
that my children, my son and his wife Ann, her
children, and my nephew and his new bride would get
together at her house and play games. All of my son's
cousins would get together there and play, visit and
talk with one another on Friday and Saturday nites.


My children have gone on to live in their own places,
to go to school, to work and as I listened to her, she
knew them by name. I could see them, my sons, my
daughter, their cousins and their friends getting
together. Some are Hawaiian, some Navajo, some Ute,
Some Hopi, a greater number were not Indian at all.


My kids have taken a little of me, of myself, my
family, and my people and gone out into the
world to taste it, to live in it and to make it their
own. As I stood there I could hear my son speaking
Spanish to a couple from Bolivia, who are their next
door neighbors who don't speak English too well. They
came with them to the reception. My daughter in law
speaks Porteguese and French. As I stood there I could
see a mixture of many people, from different places,
countries and peoples all laughing and talking. How
would it be to know this kind of experience all the
time.


They are my children and I like to hear them
laugh...so life begins anew and with it, the voice of
my father from Navajoland came to me..."What are you
going to be when you grow up, Sonny?"


"Whilla ( I don't know)"


"What ever it is, make sure it speaks well of us,
Dine!" he would say. "Now go on inside and eat and eat
till it's all gone."


"Ako'shilah! (OK!)"

rustywire