On Second Thought...

Reaching way back into the recesses of my mind, it feels like I have lived a very long life - thought my body does not have very many birthdays (yet!) to support this notion. Subtle substance lies beneath the coarse and obvious events. So, there it is: there is more to existence than just experience. No big revelation.

The same can be said of my own personal experience as a Native American living in Oklahoma: there is more to ‘it’ than just being Caddo. It is said that being Indigenous is a “negotiated status,” meaning that actually being Native is in a constant state of flux, continually pulled between self-identity and the external identification.

Am I Indigenous solely due to biology? I am enrolled with and identify predominately with the Caddo Nation, but my DNA also contains elements of Cheyenne-Arapaho and Lakota ancestry. Due to several generations of broken families, many of my questions about family and heritage went unanswered. A feeling of isolation and self-imposed emotional exile (seemingly-universal among my family) grew from this early cultural confusion. Years of research and investigation into my family lines have borne many fruitful and interesting discoveries in terms of my ancestors are and what place they hold in the web of family connections. Yet, notwithstanding my limited or expanded hereditary knowledge, I am still Native.

Does cultural involvement make one more Native? Over the years I have been fortunate to become more and more involved in Caddo “doin’s”, and though I am not yet as involved as I would like to be, I am no more or less Indigenous because of this participation. Additionally, being able to share what limited cultural knowledge I have with my family, while supremely rewarding, does not make me feel more Indigenous.

While I am, among many other things - male, husband to a gorgeous and tiny wife, father to two beautiful children, good dancer, comic book enthusiast, great kisser, martial arts student, proponent of meditation, decent singer, motorcycle owner, (video) gamer, artist, and author, with ancestors & relatives that include, French, Mexican, German, Prussian, African-American, Irish, and (yes) Native American -

I am simply me.

Though I have and continually changed, I remain myself at the core…for whatever that is worth. My experience as an Indigenous person has not only continually changed and evolved over the years, it will always continue to change, much as I hope to continue to do so. The interiors of my mind offer little supporting evidence for more discussion than this. The long and short of it is this: “being me” makes me human (surprisingly so), just like all people, Native or not.