The
church was full. I sat next to my
husband on the back pew and opened my hymnal to the designated page. It was the Sunday before the Fourth of
July; all the hymns were patriotic.
The crowd
stood and sang. My husband stood
in silence. I tried to sing along,
but my heart wouldn’t allow it.
They sang of liberty, of gleaming alabaster cities, and of gold refined. They sang of pilgrim’s pride, the
noble, and the free. Thoughts
flooded my brain about my Cherokee ancestors and how their way of life had been
ripped away, their land stolen, all to give this new nation its “freedom.”
A memory
came to me. It was my
grandmother’s voice breaking as she told me how her father’s Indian land lay at
the bottom of a man-made lake, taken for the greater good. My great-grandfather moved the school
house he’d built with his bare hands, piece by piece, to another location
before the water took it all.
I thought
about how I had been pulled out of line at London-Heathrow airport and asked
what kind of name I had. American
Indian, I replied, hoping, knowing in my heart those words might work better
than trying to explain my Choctaw name.
A man ushered me to an area where I stood next to a woman wearing a
burka and waited my turn. They
searched my luggage and then they searched me. I had been profiled for bearing my husband’s name –
Hoklotubbe.
I wanted
to scream that my name is a proud warrior name, a name that existed before the
United States was even a country.
I wanted to tell them that Hoklotubbe means “to listen” and “to kill” in
the Choctaw language. But I
didn’t. Instead, I submitted, just
as my ancestors did so long ago to the invading Europeans.
Gingerly,
I closed the hymnal and placed it back in the rack. As the others celebrated songs of Independence Day, I
silently mourned.
I tell
this story with mixed emotions. My
father was white; my mother was Cherokee.
I am proud to be Cherokee, but if the white settlers who raped the land
and herded the Cherokees away from their homes in Georgia and Tennessee hadn’t
eventually migrated into Indian Territory, I would not exist. Or if I did, I would not have my
father’s freckles and his hazel eyes.
I would not have his love of music or his storytelling skills. I would not be me. Why, then, is it so painful to sing of
pilgrim’s pride?
Perhaps
it is because Americans have conveniently forgotten the Native holocaust that
gave birth to this country. Today,
the uneducated public describes treaty obligations as government handouts. The government requires that we possess
Degree-of-Indian-Blood cards to prove we are Indian, much like a show dog must
have pedigree papers to prove its noble bloodline. Native owners of restricted land, original land allotments,
are required to seek permission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to lease
their land, and then the money is squandered by that very agency.
Quiet
indignation stirs inside me. It
lives in conflict with how blessed I feel to live in a country with political
and religious freedom. My father,
my uncles, and my husband are all combat veterans. None of them were flag-wavers when they came home from their
respective wars, yet my heart is full of gratitude, knowing they fought for my
right to voice these very words, however blue and unpatriotic they may
sound.
The Best
in Show winner of the recent Five Civilized Tribes Art Show was a striking clay
sculpture by Troy Anderson titled:
"Halfbreed -- Am I Red and White or Am I White and Red?" This piece of art spoke to me. I identify with my mother’s Cherokee
heritage and can trace our lineage to before the removal. Yet, I cannot deny my father and his
white ancestors. They are part of me;
I am part of them.
I’m glad
the Fourth of July is over and those patriotic songs have been put away for a
while. In the meantime, I remain
Red and White . . . White and Red . . . and Blue.
Copyright © Sara Sue Hoklotubbe
Copyright © Sara Sue Hoklotubbe
Visit Sara Sue on the web at: www.hoklotubbe.com
