#first nation

I am from recycled goods, bus passes, and borrowed books,
walking in the canyons, biking in the woods,
reading about places I want to visit,
hearing about people I want to meet,
riding the bus alone.

I am from homes with no electricity and hauled water in containers,
brilliant night skies, ambrosial petrichor,
cutting wood for winter, baking bread for dinner,
watching bootleg movies on a duct taped television,
hitchhiking to get to the city.

I am from game stews, bowls of mush, squash and frybread,
sweet mush with clumps when my mom makes it,
mush plain with black coffee when my father makes it,
blue corn mush with juniper ash when my friend’s mom cooks it,
“What is mush?” off the reservation.

I am from “What are you?” …never who,
“I thought all you guys were dead” and
“Well my grandmother is a Cherokee Princess,”

I am from “Be Proud of who you are,”
I am from places and cultures that seem worlds away sometimes.
I am from Irene and Ambrose and a cobbling of friends,
a patchwork of people met along the way,
Elders words and oral histories,
traditionalists and rebels,
caring people whose toil is quiet but the impact deafening.

-Robin Máxkii 

A graduate of Diné College and Salish Kootenai College. This poem is inspired by George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From.” Originally published in Tribal College Journal

Please don’t ask someone ‘how much Native’ they are. I am not a dog. You are not entitled to check out my pedigree. If you must, ask the person what tribe they are. I say American Indian/Native American as a default, to avoid overwhelming people who are not familiar with Indigenous americans. If you seem interested I usually break it down further. If you are Native, I break it down to tribe/region. If you are from my tribe, I break it down to clan/fam.

Please stop using the word ‘pale face’ to describe yourself in jest. Just don’t. I don’t use it. I don’t know any Native that uses it. But I see a lot of people using it in jest online and have run into people who jokingly refer to themselves as it. I find it offensive because it is a stereotyped patois that is based on a stunted form of ‘tonto-speak’. This also includes words like “squaw” “fire water”.

Please stop asking me about sweatlodge. Chill out. Go to the sauna at 24 fitness if you want to feel dry heat. You don’t ‘need’ to experience an ‘authentic native ceremony’. I will invite you to something if I want to or am allowed to. I don’t have an obligation to expose every part of my life to you. I don’t constantly ask hipsters I have just met to take me to Urban Outfitters or brunch at a microbrewery.

Please don’t act like I am your personal historian/expert on ‘all things Native’. It isn’t my responsibility to educate you. Asking is different than expecting.

Please stop asking me what my thoughts are on the ‘reds**ns” or “#nodapl” when you first meet me. I understand you might be trying to demonstrate an awareness of Indian Country (thanks!), but you don’t have to feel like proving it to me. This makes me feel like you are being super conscious of my ethnicity and not of me as an individual.

Please don’t ask me if I know “John, he is like Cherokee or Chickasaw or something”. We don’t all know each other.

Never, under any circumstances, call me: Squaw, Thunderbird, Indian Princess, Warrior, Chief, or any other racial slur that you find cute. Don’t. 

Understand that if I don’t want to talk about something, it is my right. I really enjoy talking about my culture and sharing it with others. But sometimes I don’t want to discuss certain topics. Asking me about alcoholism on reservations while I am trying to chill out at the pool or prompting me to discuss land rights during intermission at the Symphony is weird.

Which reminds me, please don’t assume correlations based on stereotypes. If I tell you I don’t want a drink, do not automatically assume it is because ‘I am Native”. This seems so outlandish - yet if I had a quarter for every time someone has said this, I could probably afford to separate my laundry at the washateria.

Please don’t compliment me with a “for a Native”-qualifier. I love compliments! But when someone tells me “I speak really well for a Native” “Smart for a Native” that hurts on a lot of levels. You are basically saying you have lowered expectations of me and my community while having the gall to patronize me with your unwelcome approval.

Be aware of your own culture. When I am being nice enough to share stories of my culture with you and you automatically respond with “that’s so weird!” think about what you are saying. You are calling my culture weird because it is not your culture. It’s a default of a lot of people to assume that their culture is the ORIGINAL! AUTHENTIC! OG BEDROCK! culture and that everything else is backwards or a subgroup.

Also put some thought into your questions. When you say something like, “Why are reservations so poor?” “Why don’t Natives get jobs?”. You are basically assuming that these are issues we don’t discuss ad nauseum on the rez. You are also showing off your ignorance of basic American History and Policies, like the Indian Termination Policy and historical oppression.

Please don’t immediately ask me about casinos. Not all tribes have them. It is just a stereotype. Don’t ask me about ‘free money’. Not all tribes get per capita payments. It is just a stereotype.

Please don’t feel the need to ‘top my nativeness’. When i tell someone who asks what tribe I am, and they reply ‘Never heard of it’ and then proceed to continue with “…But I am a Cherokee Princess”. I don’t know what you want me to do, Congratulate you on something impossible? Genuflect?

And this is more personal and perhaps it is just indicative of the phase of life I am in right now, the annoying ‘opinionated-Tribal college-educated-politically active’-phase, but people using the word ‘savage’ bothers me so much. I get that it has become super mainstream slang and it is not uncommon to see sorority girls with “savage!!!! <3 <3” captioned all over their instagram. But I find this usage so offensive. If your people were never considered ‘savages’, if you have never been called ‘a savage’, if it is a slur that has never been applied to you, don’t suddenly reclaim it as a positive word.

I attend a Tribal College in Montana and parts of the film were rumored to be shot within the region. When the movie was released a large group of us (students) went to go see it at the local theatre (which only has two screens; so to even be screened at the theatre, there has to be some sort of demand). I can’t speak for anyone else, but I really liked the cinematography. I thought the story itself droned on at points and I always get a bit uncomfortable watching violence (whether it bear or man or bear and man).

…but I feel like your question is really asking about representation and I will bite.

I appreciated the fact they actually hired Native actors and conducted an actual casting (thanks Michelle Shining Elk), rather than relying on the standard Native standby actors that seem to populate any mainstream Hollywood film that deals with Natives. I did have an initial kneejerk reaction where I feared the Natives in the film weren’t going to be fleshed out and instead just treated like scenery or props. I also find myself conflicted about the larger issue of media representation for us being incredibly limited and when we are depicted it’s often in a historical context. This creates an incredibly distorted view of our culture. We either become historical relics, savages, or else ‘not real natives’ because we don’t act like the Natives in cinema and run around in buckskin, shooting arrows, and live in tipis. Instead, we might go to Universities, wear jeans, write code, read quora, etc. and are fully individualized people just like anyone else. But because Natives are rarely shown doing these ‘modern’ things, we aren’t always thought of as capable - if we are even thought of at all.

Overall I didn’t watch this film because I thought it was going to be about my culture or important to my community. I watched it because I like Alejandro González Iñárritu.

I think I developed more of an interest in the film when Leonardo DiCaprio used his Academy Award acceptance speech to namecheck our respective communities. That speech clip was passed around by my friends on snapchat, facebook, instagram, and even discussed in class. Other than that, the few times the film has come up with friends it’s we mostly talked about the bear scene, or how so-and-so’s Uncle was an extra, Tom Hardy, or arguments about filming locations.

Now ‘Ridiculous Six’ on the other hand……..#$@!