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Pain and Honor…and More Pain
What does it mean to be Cherokee in the 21st century?
When I was growing up, it was the 20th century and where I grew up, I was surrounded by Indians. Mostly Creeks. We were a minority, but there were more Indians than blacks. White privilege permeated the air we breathed and the drinking water, but we had a status above blacks if not equal to whites. It was a pre-existing caste system for those of us born into it. You don’t have the equipment to question such things right away.
My family had the good sense to not put my Cherokee name on my birth certificate. I can’t imagine what the white kids would have done with Ginatiyun Tihi; what they did with the English version, Stephen Teehee, was difficult enough.
I was grown and gone before I made any effort to sort out whether my lowly status was a result of my name or a result of my grandparents having no money. If you know where you stand, then how you got there is not something important unless you can change it.
I could change my class status by making money and I could hide my Indian status by getting rid of “Teehee,” at least among people who did not already know me. As it happened, I did both. I also landed by choice in a milieu as liberal as my birthplace was conservative and everything about my status changed.
