My contemporary struggle with cultural identity began with my husband and ended with my vacation to Europe. Over the span of nearly four years, I examined why my now-husbands proximity to his (Native American) culture evoked jealousy behind the gratitude I felt for his happiness and sense of identity with his tribes and with the earth. I wanted an identity with the earth. I wanted to be close to a rooted ancestry group. I wanted what he had - but not exactly what he had. No matter how much I wanted, pleaded or begged, I wouldnt be allowed in anyway. As I began to learn more about the paths and histories of the Native American tribes, the answer was clear: to fully respect them is to leave them alone.
While pining after an adopted new identity additionally felt like both a callous waste of time and a dishonest path to the truth, I began to wonder where else to look. Of course, what Buddhism teaches, to look inside oneself for all answers, didnt seem obvious at the time, but it came out eventually. And the Q&A was simple: What are you? This How did you get here? Sex and boats. Hm.
Those boats; from Europe. But before that, where were these people? Were they migratory? Where they indigenous? Im not anthropology expert, but they had to have come from somewhere. And Europe has been settled for tens of thousands of years. Those people, my ancestors, migrated as tribes to Europe and settled in to cultivate the land - or to raid the settlements of others, much like other tribes that still carry tribal identity.
We are all indigenous from somewhere. Some places those folks have brown skins, but in Europe those people have white skins, like me. And theyre still there as well as over here.
Identifying myself as white has always echoed in memory the least savory aspects possible of cultural identity. Aryan raiders, American white settlers who ravaged Native American tribes and lands (and later bought and sold Africans as slaves), Nazis, Klan. [I think] these folks identified their whiteness as superior and that was part of what drove them to kill, pillage, and worse. Thinking of myself in a group among these people and trying to be proud of my world heritage are completely mutually exclusive.
While other peoples enjoy and celebrate their heritage, folklore, culture, and identity, white Americans have roughly a 200 year settlement history marred with brutality and prejudice, but still a few mainly military and government history holidays that we manage to celebrate. There are also Christian holidays that are widely celebrated for some folks more than others.
Despite the long-ago Roman empire takeover of most of Europe that planted churches just about everywhere, holidays of pre-existing religions and worship are still celebrated today. These holidays combine very old mythologies with the change of the seasons and the behavior of the earth both on the surface and in space. These religions vary in their current names and some, like Wicca, were persecuted. Each one was a system of belief for a small group of people in a small place. They evolved in small quantities and many joined forces for underground survival during various times of persecution, melding deities, holidays, rituals, and more.
My own personal heritage is Norwegian, Swedish, British, German, and possibly Romanian. Yet it was this latest vacation to France that awoke me to the notion of blood-line belonging to a place on Earth. During many visits to small villages, farms, and homes, it gently occurred to me that I was meeting people whose first ancestry in their region or country might be completely lost for thousands of years of age. Even if a grandfather came from nearby Italy, or further Poland, there would be other ancestry that went further back than that, locally. Even so, the distance from Warsaw to Paris is only around 850 miles - less than the distance from New York City to St. Louis. No matter what arbitrary divisions are created for the sake of government, language, or currency in this region, the fact remains that this tiny region of the world is where I am from, even as an eighth generation American.
Coming back to the states where everybody, it seems, is ethnic but the whiteys, was a true realization that I dont fit in to that mould. I am ethnic. My skin is white, and my hair is blonde, but I am indigenous to Europe and that is a simple fact. My blood lines have been here for 300 years, but they have been there for thousands of years, and they still are there.
I am a Native European.
I think Im going to start to use this on forms where they ask to profile me. Ill choose Other, and if necessary write in Native European. After all, what convention about being native to Europe has allowed us to drop mention of our continental heritage in profiling? Native Americans, African-Americans, Asians all have this privilege. It says to me that the creators of these conventions are naming the differences compared to their own population, and furthermore We are normal, you are different. Id rather be different. I didnt just pop out of some white gelatinous mess to be in-line with a history of oppression. Im from somewhere with a rich history, and whether or not they tell me that I have it, I do. And I can find it.
Meanwhile, feel free to think of yourself as Native European or European-American, if this mould doesnt suit you either.
