I am an indigenous person.
My mother called us Indians.
So did my classmates.
In the pecking order that existed at my elementary school that fact put me squarely at the bottom until the first black people came to our school. At that point I shared the bottom of the order.
Being Indian was lower than being a poor white person.
Meet my grandmother.
She was sent to Carlisle Indian Boarding School with her siblings. They were all tough as nails.
She didn't stray far from the reservation again after she made it home.
She did live with us one summer.
All of my cousins came with.
She taught me that life was too short to waste it hating the people that hated us.
Instead she taught me to write poetry.
The Wailaki people were almost exterminated.
But not entirely because here I am.
She would have been amused that we have Indigenous Peoples Day now I think.