The Two of Me

My parents always told me that when it came to my Scottish side that with only a drop of blood I am what I am. With that blood in my veins I am a Scot and no one would think to deny me of that. I can be proud and chase my heritage and my roots that live on that side of me. I can have claim to that part of me.

When it came to the other side of me, I learned from a young age that many would not accept me. That I would be denied my Gitxsan blood because to some of them I am too white. I have never been discriminated against by a white person. I have however been discriminated against by many Gitxsan people most being my extended family.

My father is half Gitxsan, naturally you would assume I am a quarter. However taking an ancestry DNA kit and a deep dive into my genetic make up I am closer to a third than I am to a quarter sitting around 30% indigenous. 

In my past as a child I was excited to embrace my culture; to be Gitxsan. I would proudly tell anyone who would listen about how my dad was a member of the Frog Clan. I wanted to attend feasts and learn the old ways to learn a language to connect me to my ancestors. Unfortunately that was not in the cards for me. 

Any time I would enter the feast hall I would get dirty looks. "Who is this little white girl intruding on this event." "Someone deal with the amxsiwaa" they would say with disgust. 

Amxsiwaa, their word for white person. 

My mother would watch as they treated my brother and I with disrespect, half the time we would just ignore it. We were usually there to support our dad as he paid respects in the feast hall. I would try not to let it affect my love for the culture as a 6-8 year old I usually fell back in love with the Gitxsan Culture when I would return to my cultural awareness class in elementary school.

Cultural awareness class was all about the Gitxsan Culture. We would learn some of the language and some of the oral history. The clan structure as well as the feast meanings were also discussed. What I learned in class rarely translated to my experiences in the feast hall. The paying of respect and the celebration, the banding together in times of hardship; none of this was my lived experience.

The final straw for my mother was when my father's grandmother died and we went to her feast. Notice I didn't call her my great grandmother. At the time I loved her, I mourned the loss of her. I didn't have a grandmother growing up and she was the closest thing. I wanted more than I got out of that relationship. Looking back now I guess my mourning was more the loss of what should have been rather than what was. 

I was still young when this happened around 8 years old. My father had to work the feast as it was a frog that passed away. My mother took us as my brother and I were great grandchildren of the frog that passed away. It is normal no matter what clan you are in for all grandchildren to be acknowledged. 

It was hard to see all of my cousins cared for and sat in an area where they could be a part of the feast. To see all of my cousins, who I loved dearly, separated from me while I was pushed into a corner facing the wall. We were all mourning a loss but my brother and I were not acknowledged at all as even being related to my great grandmother. 

My mother ended up taking us home before things finished at that feast. She couldn't sit there seeing the hurt on my face. The feast hall was very busy and by the time my father noticed something was wrong it was too late. I had watched all of my cousins celebrated and named and I was a worthless white girl. I was just some Amxsiwaa.

This is where my love for my father's culture and my love for myself took a lot of damage. How those people treat me today doesn't matter to me. However how they treated her back then bothers me. I was just a kid, I know it still bothers that little girl. The adult me accepted a while ago that my father's culture ends with him. That little girl though, she still believes in a lot of ways that she is a worthless little Amxsiwaa. To protect her I haven't been in a feast hall since that day.

The thing about childhood wounds is they don't stay in childhood. The beliefs of that little girl followed me into adulthood. That moment shaped the questions I ask about myself. Do I belong? Am I enough? Am I worthy to claim  these parts of me? For a long time I believed these were questions about being Gitxsan. Looking back now, They are more questions about being loved and accepted. This starts with me, showing that little girl that I can love her and accept her when those people couldn't. 

My father has been gone for almost three years now. When he passed his house (Frog Clan) held a feast and wanted my family to go. None of my immediate family did; they held a feast for my dad without his wife, his kids, or his grand children. That is unusual but it shows that my father's culture largely ended with him. Not that a little girl didn't want to embrace it, not that she didn't want to love it. For the fact that her skin colour was not the same as he father's.

Grief has a way of making us revisit our past wounds. To really begin to understand what is underneath. Losing my father did not just mean losing my dad. He was the one person who connected me to a heritage that I, at one time, wanted so desperately to reach. He never looked at my skin and decided what parts of me were real. To him I was simply his daughter. 

Next year I go to Scotland to find my roots on that side of my bloodline. There are people waiting to meet me there, people who have never questioned whether I belong. Part of me is excited for that journey.  Although I still know there is a little girl sitting in a feast hall somewhere, wondering why she was not enough. 

Those are the two of me.

One is still learning how to let go as she mourns what could have been. Still trying to figure out how to fit pieces of herself together. 

One is strong and steady, she learned to let go. She wears a Scottish Family crest with pride, sure of where those pieces of her belong. 

-With care, S