Details

Storyteller: Jill
Tribe: Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe
Created: 2018
Location: Duluth, MN
Transcript: I didn’t know we were Native until we moved from Kenosha, Wisconsin to Duluth. I grew up and lived in Kenosha, Wisconsin & had no clue about our ethnic background. We were the minority in a mostly populated area of Mexicans that came up to farm so many months & go back in the winter & African Americans.

We moved to Duluth, my mom got us involved in learning about our Native culture. I took a class through Amelia LeGarde when I went to Denfeld High School. It was eye opening & impressed me very much. She made our history come alive and told us always to be proud of where we come from and who we are. She made me want to keep learning of our ethnicity.

My mom put us in Indian club and received help through the Fond Du Lac reservation and sent us in the summer to Indian camp. We learned a lot during that week of traveling the Brule River and portaging, eating what I felt were rations. I remember being so hungry and lost weight during that week. It felt like hard work paddling all day setting up camp, making food, and feeling exhausted under the beautiful stars. It made the day all worthwhile to go to sleep in such a peaceful environment and then wake up and do it all over again! That week was long but short at the same time - wanting to be with your people but knowing you have to go back and be another person. My mom was never allowed to talk about her Native culture. Her grandma was told by her mother not speak the Ojibwe language because of her experiences being placed in a mission school. It was taboo to use the language and use their traditions! We learned very little as children. The knowledge came as we became older and more so as we became adults. 

My mom lives on the Fond Du Lac reservation. She grew up in a huge family and is one of eleven children. My mom is one of the oldest. All of the siblings listen to her and follow her lead in many areas! She was the one that brought the culture back into the whole family even though her mom was told not to ever live like that! It is a great gift! We learn from all the elders and always to listen to them and respect them because they are our storytellers. I participate in many things that go on at the Fond Du Lac reservation with some of my siblings and know many of our people! It feels good and right to be amongst them all!! I have been working with some of my siblings for years to try to get us enrolled but to no avail! My mom calls us the throw away children. It is really sad to be more or less forgotten. Some of my cousins are enrolled and some are not because the tribe put a cut-off date down for the enrollment.  

My sisters and I feel our culture is a great honor but my brothers do not go to any cultural events or talk out culture with us. They live in the white man’s world and don’t have any time for our culture, much alone family. My twin brother always asks, “Why is Jill Native and I’m not?” I’ve told him it’s all what you put into your life and experiences. My mom always tells him that you are Native no matter what!