Details

Storyteller: Deanna
Tribe: Red Lake Band of Ojibwe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: Anishinaabe was placed on the planet by the Creator and given a sound. That sound is today now referred as the Ojibwe language. My ancestors lived, died, and survived genocide for countless generations upon Turtle Island before the day I was born on January 25th, 1979 in Minneapolis. My seventeen year old mother Carmen was born on the Red Lake reservation and my nineteen year old father Steven was born in Minneapolis. My bloodline comes from the Anishinaabe people, as well as the Oceti Sakowin. My grandparents are Elaine Dahmen from Grand Portage, Arnold StandingCloud from Red Lake, Thelberta Lussier from Redby and Walter Graves from Ponemah. I am eagle clan and my existence is the confluence of chiefs, medicine people, artists, orators, scientists, midwives, dancers, singers, and leaders. My birth was a subtle reminder to my family of this legacy, but it was not yet prominent enough for my family to claim it. 

I grew up in south Minneapolis. Our neighborhood was a high concentration of Native people. Minneapolis was not officially a relocation city during the "Relocation Era" of the 1950's, but it became a special place for Native people to build their lives off the reservation. Minneapolis became a place for the birth of many activists movements in response to police brutality against Native people on Franklin Avenue. I was born right in the middle of this movement. My parents were teenagers when I was born. My birth rerouted the trajectory of my entire family, but still the party life was a residual part of life for my young parents and grandmother. Growing up in the 80's, things were simple, we were all there for one another, as an extended family. We lived in our grandmother's house with aunties, uncles, and cousins always there. We cooked meals together and lived a decent life because my grandmother was a nurse and they learned how to sell marijuana for extra money. We always had food, pop, frybread nights, and the television was always going. Within 2 years of my birth, my sister was born, so I had a partner in crime. My parents maintained their own household for a short time, but could not make their relationship work. My mother married a man from the Lower Sioux Indian community. He was an amazing human being. Although he and my mother had a son, he always loved my sister and I so much, even though we were not biologically his children. He had a playful, beautiful spirit, and took care of our family very well. A few weeks before my 9th birthday, I woke up on a cold Saturday morning in December. My mom and Rick Dad went out the night before. They must have had an argument that night, so he had been in the garage. It was the beginning of deer hunting season, so there was a place to hang up the deer in our garage. City Indians still hunted up north, you know. His friend gave him some kind of pills. I remember being in the house and watching my mother run screaming from the garage. My "Rick Dad" had committed suicide. This event changed the rest of our lives together as a family. My mother has never been the same since. 

As a result of colonization, I was not exposed to much of my Native culture as a child. Although I attended a couple pow wows and my family would use sporadic "Indian words" like "gaawiin" and "peji", I was not connected to my culture. I attended Upward Bound Vision Quest in middle school and had the opportunity to learn Ojibwe. But because I did not know how important this was at the time, I didn't listen. As a high school student, I was struggling with school and home life. I had the opportunity to move to the Salish/Kootenai reservation at the age of 17. This was a dramatic shift in my life path as it opened me up to new experiences. This led me to becoming a participant in a program to develop tribal leaders in Albuquerque after graduation. These experiences began to uncover so much of what I was not taught. When I returned to Minneapolis after my program, I soon became pregnant with my daughter. This changed who I was as a person forever. I was still very young and on a path of learning and eventually enrolled at a tribal college. I began learning about the history of Native people, which made me angry, so much anger, that it gave me enough fuel to propel me into the next decade of self-discovery. I became involved in my community, learned as much as I could, and although it took a few years to detox my own body of drugs and the chemical abuse lifestyle, I made it to the other side of sobriety. 

Every experience I've ever had has given me a lens through which I see the world. I've come to learn that what manifests in my life depends on my own outlook. Much of what has helped me through this process is learning my language and cultivating my spirituality. Through my life experiences, I've felt hopelessness, anxiety, dependence, sorrow, inspiration, creativity, joy, happiness, and abundance. I've made it to a place where I can see the beauty in my path and how far I've come. I am Anishinaabe, a daughter, an auntie, a sister, a friend, a warrior, and a mother. My ancestors and grandchildren live through me in this very moment. Miigwech bizindawiyen.