Details

Storyteller: Jess
Tribe: Chickasaw
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: My siblings and I are all adopted women of color, and my parents and their families, who are all white, did the best they could to protect and guide us all out into the greater world after we left our small town. I was the only one born in the United States. My own Native heritage was not discovered until I was in my mid-20's but leading up to that time I was loved and supported. My late uncle Dougie was especially passionate about telling me that I had to continue to sharpen my mind and sense of ethics, as he said I would be a bringer of justice to whatever community I joined. He passed away when I was a teenager, but these words came back to me as an adult. When I learned that my heritage was one long story of injustice. I knew then Dougie was right.

I often get the standard “Where are you from?” question.  I grew up in rural Minnesota, but have lived in Los Angeles, briefly Italy, Mankato MN, and now Saint Paul, MN. These places are so different that each experience lent something very unique. In rural Minnesota, I was often called racial slurs intended for Hispanic people and was usually deemed "Mexican." The majority of people in that community were of German descent, like my parents, so it was a complex discussion every time we went into town.

In Los Angeles and Italy, so many more people I met looked more "like me," and it was easy to feel pride in my appearance/heritage, regardless of my lack of clarity of its true origins at times. Mankato, Minnesota felt pretty similar to rural Minnesota culturally, and I was often asked to clarify my ethnicity. St. Paul has been the most positive place so far for my girls and me, I have felt a more universal sense of unity among different cultures and neighborhoods, and I feel more welcome in different diverse neighborhoods throughout the city. It was in Saint Paul I was able to start my own endeavor to fight for justice for people of color who didn’t have the many privileges my sisters and I grew up with.

Those experiences that shaped me most were my family's providing me access to art and nature. I was given a great parochial education, but I feel that my family's choice of living a more rustic lifestyle in a very wooded area had a huge impact of my perspective of the natural world.

My sister Jayleen and I both studied classical music, and that made me feel the beautiful and even sublime elements of our human nature could be shared by all- what a gift we had, making our own music under our cathedral of oak trees.

My adult life has required me to live though abuse, loss, and injustice, yet continuing to spend time with creation, and learning to be a creator myself, has been the key to saving my life and my children. They have often been the leaders in this, dragging me outside, regardless of the temperature.  They always claim, “It’s not that cold out, mom, you were just born in Texas.” I’m not sure if any of that can be backed by science, but they do have a point about perspective.

I feel the blind spot most people have regarding the ethnic identity in America is that there is any one kind of person. Yes, my identity is very strongly tied to a culture, or even several cultures, in which I share commonalities with my neighbors, but every Native person--every Minnesotan --every person--I meet comes into describing their identity in such a personal way. I think the biggest misconception I've found is that there is one story that can be attached to a people or ethnic group, that learning “Where they’re from,” is going to tell you all you need to know about them. But is anyone from a place and time so simple that that alone defines them? Or are we all coming from a new place every day, a human place, that enables us to give grace and kindness to those who may have come from across the world, or maybe from next door?