About a month ago, my husband and I took our sweet daughter to see the bright lights of New York City. It was our first official "family vacation." Statue of Liberty? Check. Times Square? Check. Broadway show? Check. American Museum of Natural History? Reality Check.
Kids ask interesting questions. As we moved thru the dinosaur bones, Annie would ask, "Are these animals dead?" I replied they are extinct, and that means they used to live on the Earth and now they are gone.
We made our way to the third floor, home of the Eastern Woodlands Indians exhibit, thinking it would be cool to take her to see an exhibit highlighting the lives and practices of the early Cherokee and other tribes similarly situated before European contact. We trekked thru reptiles, mammals, birds-- getting closer to our destination. But first, we had to go thru Primates before we could get to Indians. To whatever white guy designed this exhibit, I guess we were logically moving up the evolutionary scale. That's a whole other blog post with another set of implications... but I digress.
We took her thru the room, looking at pottery, blowguns, clothing, stickball sticks, and a diorama of a Creek Green Corn Stomp Dance that looked similar to a Cherokee Stomp set up. She was very quiet taking all this in, and eying the hundreds of NYC school kids who were taking notes and asking their teachers questions. I tried to engage her, asking about the Stomp Diorama, and if she could name me the seven Cherokee clans represented by the seven arbors that surround the fire and dance grounds. She quietly sang to me, in Cherokee, a song she knows that tells about the seven clans.
We walked around a bit more and then decided to take a break on one of the benches in the Eastern Woodlands Indians room. I had noticed how withdrawn she'd become and I asked her what she was thinking about. In response, she held out her arm and looked at it from several angles.
"No one in here knows who I am." No, we aren't from here, we don't know anyone.
"No, Etsi. No one here knows that I'm CHEROKEE. What do they think I am?"
In that moment, my heart broke a little bit, a lot really. I tell her if someone in this room who didn't know her were just guessing, they might think she is Hispanic because there aren't a lot of Cherokee people in New York. And no, that dark skinned girl over there probably isn't an Indian, but I couldn't say for sure.
She sat there for a minute, looked at those school kids with their faces pressed against the glass peering in to see the Indian relics, and whispered, "I feel like I should tell someone."
That's all she said, but there was so much behind the statement that her little seven year old brain didn't know how to say or process, yet I could see her feel it. An adult Annie might say to those school kids--You're looking at something old behind glass but I'M RIGHT HERE. I'm not a relic; I'm not extinct!
I hope she always knows that I see her. I know who she is, where she came from and she is heir to a rich, living, breathing community that, despite my ancestors' best efforts, couldn't be snuffed out and whose best days are not contained behind thick museum glass.
