My status as an Aboriginal has always been for the purpose of exclusion. I have been considered white or Native depending entirely what would serve the other persons ends, never my own. Once in grade 9 on a late Friday night I was walking home from a friend’s house. A truck with the cab and box full of drunken high school “”jocks” roared past me. They yelled “Fu-ing Indian” as they slammed on their brakes, piled out of the truck, and chased me down. I took a few hits and kicks before I was able to escape and jumped over a few fences, running through people’s yards. I made my way home by going through fields and parks trying to avoid road ways. I emerged from the last field a block from my house. As I passed the ally, a Blackfoot man named Darcy came out. He called me a “fu-ing whitey” and punched me a few times. As I was already sore, I ran. This night is just the most extreme case of a pattern that has followed my entire life. I was excluded from Whites along with the other Indians; and excluded from the Indians for being white. My high school friend, (name removed), finally told me she couldn’t be seen with me anymore because her other friends were accusing her of becoming an apple like me. An apple was someone who was red on the outside but white on the inside. The connotation was someone who had turned their back on their culture. Even as I was saddened, it was the first time I had felt included. At least they were able to see I was red.
I don’t feel white on the inside. I was just raised outside my culture. The only story I have to connect me is one my grandmother tells. She was adopted by a white couple and raised on the prairies. 70 Years ago the Indians would still occasionally go past with their travois. She tells me of how her mother would hide her in the cellar or a closet for fear that they would try to steal her back. Afterwards her mother would tell her about how they were bad people. And point to the fact they never took care of their horses properly. When she grew up she started trying to discover who her birth parents were. After years of looking, she hasn’t been able to find the truth. She’s been told the microfilm that the adoption records were put on to in the 60’s or 70’s have a thumb print distorting the area containing her information. She’s scoured old newspapers, taking clippings and trying to compare information. There are theories and speculation, but she remains a woman with no history.
On school records and government forms, they ask if you want to be recognised as an aboriginal. The next box asks for a status number. If you leave it blank, either your application disappears or you receive a phone call asking you for proof. The nice lady eventually offers to just “whiteout your mistake” and check the other box. You say “thank you”. And spend the rest of the day avoiding road ways, looking apprehensively at alleys.
They can’t steal you back, But your still locked in the cellar.
