Blond Native American

As a child growing up in Ann Arbor, I liked to tell other children that I was part Native American. My mother was studying multi-cultural studies. She wrote her Ph.D on the Trickster myth. This was back in the 70s, when long haired, pot smoking hippies weren't an uncommon sight on campus.

We didn't have much money. I had a pair of pants with bulbous, worn out knees. I was also probably the only girl in the class with sweaters knitted by her great-grandmother. Our Dodge Hornet was rusting from the bottom out. Kids at the rich school I was bused to were snobs, but I survived. I attribute part of my ability to survive to my days as a child in Ann Arbor. It gave me a sense of security I've carried around with me all my life, even as I've longed to return to there. It had a special kind of flawed perfection.

One day my mother invited all of her Native American students to our wooden row house for a party. Someone baked a muskrat, and brought that along. I remember that the fur was still on, and it had an unusually pungent smell. They also brought a case of Budweiser. Even though my parents were Mormons, and didn't drink beer, they accepted gracefully. I'm not sure what they did with all of that beer. We all had to go to bed, and weren't allowed to witness all of the festivities.

I'm also not too sure why I told the kids at school that I was part Native American. I couldn't have looked more Swedish, blond, white, with light blue eyes. I wonder if any of them believed me.

Perhaps it was a need that I had to distinguish myself as unique, special, among the rich girls in their nice clothes that made me tell them I was part Native American. I also just thought it was cool. It might also have been a way of telling them that they might be rich snobs, but that I had something they could never have. My blood really ran red. I was part Cherokee, or Chippewa, or whatever. I was genuine. It was a subtle line of defense.

Toward the end of my stay in Ann Arbor, I started hanging around with girls from other cultures. Girls with dark skin, and thick, silky black hair. They were the new girls, probably also bused from outside of the rich areas.

I've always easily identified with people unlike myself on the surface. It never mattered to me. I didn't make those kinds of divisions. Skin color, accent, broken English. None of that ever mattered to me. I could have friends from all over the world, and I did. That was the America that I knew, valued and loved.