Detribalized

So...this is the post that was eaten by the internet when I tried to post it from the ITouch last week. I can't promise to be able to recreate the emotions that finally drove me to write it. It may come out more clinical that I had originally intended. End of warning note.

I have been meaning to write about filling out the census form for a while, but it just never happened. Then a few weeks ago, I went to a talk titled "critical issues roundtable" -- it really a presentation from someone working on their dissertation ... but it does bring up an issue that has either become central to one's work or that has been nagging at you. I found myself at the talk out of solidarity on the one hand, and because she mentioned a favorite book of mine in the description, Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dune. Truthfully neither is my favorite of her work, but I love me some Leslie Marmon Silko.

In this case, it was an issue that was nagging at her ... how is it that Chicano (Latino, Hispano, whatever you are calling yourselves today) don't partner more, from an academic standpoint, with Native Americans. She called out Chicanos, in particular (it's ok, she's family), for creating a fantasy heritage rather than engaging with our not always happy "convivencia" with Native Americans. She mentioned quite a few conflicts between Mexicans and Native groups and said that we tend toward the ease of just "belonging" to the Aztec nation ... as though it were possible to magically trace all of our ancestry there. She didn't talk about all the issues of being more involved with the Spanish side of our history -- necessarily because the Spanish did all they could to erase our indigenous roots ... to dirty them and force us into solidarity for political and economic reasons with the rapist/conqueror. But, she could have...

These are just the issues I had been confronting at the beginning of the month as I stared down the census form. As a Chicana, I could choose from the "races" available: white, black, Native American, and various Asian nationalities. Let us set aside the idea that one gets to CHOOSE his/her race which exposes the extreme ridiculousness of the entire enterprise; how is it that we have two colors, then Native American and then Japanese, Chinese, etc... as RACES. I have never had to fill out a census before. I don't know where I was in 2000 that I didn't fill one out. In 1990 I was in college, so I have no idea if I am in a census count somewhere. I know that I have never had to distinguish my RACE from my ETHNICITY on a form like this before. There are lots of other issues with the form, but that was the principal thing that kept me from readily filling it out.

Before I ever got the form, I had already been admonished by fb friends that the proper way for Latinos to fill it out was to choose Native American and in the space for specifying tribe, to put DETRIBALIZED (hence the title of this post) if you could not precisely identify your lineage. Not only did this trouble me from the perspective that I don't necessarily conceive of myself this way, it also felt like grasping at a culture and identity that is "exotic," "in vogue," whatever you want to call it. It is like suddenly rooting for the winning team and turning your back on your home team. But what is my home team??

The fact is that races are a socially constructed label ... and that if it weren't for the fact that people come in different hues, we would not necessarily be labeling people this way. When I was doing the trail of Grandma a couple of years ago, one of the things that came up for me was that there is a good chance that my great-grandmother was a Native American ... albeit of the Mexican variety. It is something that I think my father has long suspected, but it is not always clear what his motivations for feeling that way were. If it were true, would I suddenly become Native American? More than anything else, I am an American ... a mutt, that is what we are. People who have come from disparate parts of the world to join together to make something new. I am not Mexican, when I have lived there, they have made sure to let me know that. Of course, the most cogent identity I can describe for myself is Chicana. But, how many people really know what that means when I say it? In fact, I double that it would mean the same for someone else who said it. Identity is personal, and the census is political.

On some level, for Native Americans, particularly those who were not raised on a reservation or with limited ties to their culture, they are Chicanos, too. That is in my way of being Chicana. So, what to do. I am not white, though my birth certificate certifies my inclusion in the Caucasian race, my younger brother and sister, born in the 1970s, are Hispanic. The one thing that I am not sure of is that I am not white. White carries with it, even for the poorest most backward white person, a privilege that I have never enjoyed. Every white person who has ever looked at me knows that I don't belong to their club. People of other hues might inquire "what are you?" as though I am some kind of zoo exhibit, but white people don't ask, they assume: NOT WHITE. After that for them, who cares what I might be. So, I could not choose white. I am not black either though I would honestly love to be part of that club. I am also not Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. regardless of the shape of my eyes.

So, in the end, I did choose Native American, and for tribes, I put DETRIBALIZED and I checked, other race, and wrote in MESTIZA. More than anything else, I am a mixture of many people, cultures, at this moment, classes, and perspectives.

What are you?!