Saturday, January 30, 2010

I Am a Native American

Tonight I found myself confronted by the same darned problem -- a discussion about "Native Americans." I never know how to have this conversation without sounding like a bigot. The problem is, at least as far as I see it, the topic doesn't have an easy answer, and everybody seems to think there ought to be. The problem in this case is the issue of "Native American" people and the reservation system.

My problem starts with linguistics. I hate the term "Native American" -- it implies that in order to be a native to the United States, your ancestors have to have lived here prior to the immigration from Europe. That might have made sense when the average individual could trace their ancestors to an immigrant with in one or two generations. It makes absolutely no sense to me; I'm born and bred state of Montana, which is located in United States of America on the North American continent. My identity is Not based on my European ancestors or where they came from. I don't doubt that my European heritage is strongly influenced how I think of myself etc., but I define myself as an American and one native to this country at that. So if we say that someone is "Native American", we are effectively saying that I am Not native to this country. I refuse to cooperate with a system like that -- I am a native American. I'm proud to be an American, and like the generations before me, I consider myself to be a native American. And I am offended when people imply that I am not.

And that leaves me with the problem of what word do I use to refer to people who call themselves Native Americans." They don't want to be called Indians, says the term really refers to the idiocy of a man who didn't know what continent he'd landed on. I can't say as I blame them. My personal term for them would be "Tribal People." Problem with that term is that I'm sure somebody will object to it. I suppose I could use the term "First People" but I don't happen to believe that there's any evidence currently sufficient to support the use of such a term. Scientifically, it would be possible to determine if the people living on the continent at the time of its rediscovery by the European explorers were in fact, evolutionarily unique to this continent. However that's never going to happen thanks to legislation that prevents us from using any human remains found that are old enough to be considered as part of the "Native American" peoples.

And so, despite all of its potential for being politically incorrect, I guess I'll write the rest of my musings on this topic using the term "Tribal People." My apologies in advance to those who it offends, and I'll accept yours for the offence you cause me every time you imply that I am not native to this country.