Thought for the day

April 23, 1999

We received this message in a feedback form today...

> on Friday, 4/23/99, bubba@d200.macnet.com (Phil Matheny) said:
>
> Hi Mike,
> I have a question bothering me that maybe you can help
> with; Just what exactly is a "Native American"?
> How many years, decades, centuries, eons, does your
> family group, tribe, clan have to occupy a land before
> they are classed as "Native"?
> My first visit to your site. (it's been kept hidden by
> a conspiracy) and I find it refreshing.
>
> Thanks Mike for finally sharing.

Here is my reponse...

Phil,

Thanks for visiting our site, and for sending you question.   Mike's off tonight, I'm his brother, Daniel.

The term "Native American" was given to the indigenous peoples of the North American continent after it became too insulting to both the European immigrants and the natives themselves to continue calling the people "Indians."   Columbus was so ignorant that he thought he was setting foot in the country of India (even though he should have been able to tell from the type of culture that these were not people of India.)   Anyway, by the 20th century, "whites" (another poor label) got kind of embarrassed for continuing to point out how dumb Columbus was by carrying on his mistake and somebody came up with another (supposedly less offensive) term.

Is "Native American" less offensive?   That's open for debate.   We certainly don't intend for it to be taken in an offensive manner.   The people to whom it refers are actually hundreds of very different peoples (tribes) and are as different as Japanese and Hawaiians.   So lumping all the tribes together and calling them "Native Americans" isn't much better than calling everyone from the Western Pacific Rim "Asians" (yet, in our attempt to label everyone, we do.)

How long do you have to live somewhere to be considered "native?"   According to my Oxford dictionary, it's not the length of time you live somewhere, but whether or not you were born there.   So, if you were born here in the United States, even if your parents swam across the border just in time for you to be delivered, you would be a "native" of this country.   Frankly, I'm very disappointed that you didn't know that.   Where did you go to school?

Of course the term "Native American" is a whole different matter.   It's a term that outsiders made-up and stuck-on to the survivors of the pogrom against the many tribes that dared to interfere with our manifest destiny.   No matter how many generations of immigrants are born here, they will not fall into the category of "Native Americans" (as we now use this term.) Perhaps, in a few years, there will be another term in general use.   Maybe it will be "tribal" or "indigenous peoples" or maybe we will use the correct names for each of the tribes (like Hopi, Souix, Chumash, etc.) Who knows? linguistics and cultural self-image are strange things.   Did you notice that whites used to call one ethnic group "niggers?"   It later changed to "coloreds," "blacks," "African-Americans," and now "people of color."

Most of my family group immigrated to the United States around the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth century.   All of my living relatives were born in this nation and we are proud to be native citizens.   Some of us descended from the people who were here before Columbus and so are ALSO called "Native Americans" by the government and others who must label people.

Your message to me was very short, and as is often the case with e-mail, may have been misunderstood.   It came across fairly snide and your question seemed rhetorical, as though you thought you already knew the answer.   If I have mistaken your brevity for bigotry, please accept my apologies in advance.

Thanks again for visiting, I hope the "conspiracy" doesn't prevent you from visiting again!