I am Native American.
I am a part of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.
I am proud to be Indigenous.
Growing up, many of my peers continued to ask ‘what I was,’ and instead of waiting for my answer, they decided it for me.
Throughout my entire life, I’ve swept it under the rug and assumed it was solely me who got asked this question. But, throughout the years, I’ve found unity through my family and friends who’ve received the same question.
“They said they couldn’t figure it out, what I was,” Fayelene Locklear, my grandmother, said. “So, they came and asked me.”
She used to be a teacher before she retired, and she recalled a time when one of her students’ parents couldn’t figure out her race.
“She asked her kid what her teacher was like, said, ‘she’s not white, she’s not black and I don’t know what she is,’ so she came to see me,” Locklear said.
She said it hurt for a while, but there’s certain aspects people notice when they think of an indigenous person.
When I told people I was native, it was always followed with, ‘but you look white,’ which is not incorrect.
My mom is fully native and my dad is fully white.
Throughout my entire life, it’s been a push and pull from both sides on what my ethnicity is.
When applying for scholarships, my parents’ advice was to check the mark that I’m Native American. But when it became time to apply for jobs, I felt the need to check the mark that I’m white.
We’re living in a world where being white gets you more jobs than being part of a marginalized racial group.
The same world that judges you based on your skin color.
I even felt a sense of imposter syndrome, because I didn’t match all of my cousins’ skin color.
I struggled with it for years, so I kept quiet about my heritage because I was tired of hearing the same line and the stereotypes behind it.
The stereotypes that I get paid for being native, that my tribe has a casino, that my family abuses alcohol and that I’m ‘just like Pocahontas.’
My brother, Oliver Harmon, identifies as two-spirit which means they identify as an individual who carries masculine and feminine spirits. He shares similar experiences about a delay in sharing their identity with people.
“I don’t want anybody to look at me and assume stuff about me,” Oliver said. “That being said, I know I’m white passing. I know I have white privilege, as evidenced by the looks that I know my family members and loved ones get sometimes compared to me in Walmart of all places.”
He recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, with a focus on Indigenous studies and gender studies.
“I feel like I’m special,” Locklear said about her favorite thing about being native. “Everybody you ask; they got a piece of Cherokee in them, whether they are or not. They want to be part of us too.”
The Lumbee Tribe became federally recognized this summer. The tribe has been around for hundreds of years, but just now became recognized on the federal level.
I’m lucky to call myself Native American.
I’m happy to call myself Native American.
I’m honored to be a part of an ethnicity that’s been around before the settlers came to the United States and thought they were “saving” the Indigenous peoples.
Prior to the tribe’s federal recognition, the Lumbee Tribe had been recognized by the state of North Carolina since 1885.
The sole reason I attend school in Michigan is because of the Michigan Indian Tuition Waiver, which funded my college, my mother’s college, my uncles’ college and my aunt’s college.
“Well, my kids got the tuition waiver, because living here we couldn’t get it in North Carolina,” Locklear said about how her heritage has shaped her life. “They benefited financially and they learned to appreciate their heritage.”
When I decided on Central Michigan University, I was worried I wouldn’t find a native community that I connected with.
But I was lucky enough, in my first week on campus, to meet my best friend who is also native, Jada Mitchell. Even though we’re not from the same tribe, she has encouraged me to learn more about my heritage.
Because of Mitchell, I’ve worked at American Indian Health and Family Services and learned more about Indigenous peoples.
Being a proud member of the northern Cheyenne tribe, Mitchell has faced many challenges related to her race. Beginning with the social welfare system, she was adopted outside of her race against Indian Child Welfare Act laws.
The law protects the best interests of native children and sets Federal standards for the removal of native children and placement of such children in homes which will reflect the unique values of Native American culture.
“Growing up in a prominently white community, I didn’t have a lot of cultural relations often making me feel left out,” Mitchell said. “A lot of the racial slurs I got came from my high school; I was one of the only minorities. Not only did students make racial jokes, but parents became a custom as well.”
In middle school, she received an award for being the “favorite Native American” on her basketball team.
Throughout the rest of her life, she had many people come up to her and ask her what her ethnicity was, and if it was okay to make racial jokes.
Going into college, being Native American helped her with applying for scholarships, as most of the ones she applied for were for underrepresented communities.
She shared similar struggles as me when applying for jobs, as she was unsure how an employer would perceive her ethnicity.
“For dominantly medical schools, I put Native American on everything, but when applying for serving roles and things outside my profession, I had to put white,” Mitchell said.
She still feels a strong connection to her ethnicity, even though others put her down for it.
Not only has she encouraged me to learn more, but she’s also made me feel seen on a campus of around 14,000 students.
“We deserve a world where we don’t have to worry about assumptions, racism and discrimination,” Harmon said. “But that’s going to take a lot of work from everyone, which I just don’t think is possible yet in the society that we live in.”
My ethnicity and heritage means the world to me, and even if I don’t “look the part,” it’s still the part of myself that I will forever cherish and hold closest to my heart.
