Being Brown Today: An Alaska Native’s Perspective

“I have a real fear of losing you and my son if we travel South. What if they take you away?” Words from my white partner (father of my two children) as we plan an extended road trip to visit the National Parks. My two-year-old son and I share my brown complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. My five-year-old and his father share his white complexion, blond hair and green/blue eyes. I am half Tlingit Indian and a quarter Yup’ik Eskimo and have always been proud of my Alaska Native Heritage and brown skin. Now the very thing I am proud of is dictating our future travel plans to a certain extent, and I can’t even begin to express the appalling irony in this entire matter. It strikes a nerve.

First and foremost, I can’t blame my partner for this fear. I’ve read some terrible things about families being separated, mass trials, and people being wrongfully deported out of the US. My complexion just might make me a target and, worse, my son as well. Though I’ve always wanted to visit Mexico, I have to give this one to my partner. The trauma of our family being torn in half is a risk we are not willing to take; be it big or small. It’s an unfortunate timing and yet another challenge of my heritage. Living in Alaska, we have been mostly shielded from being directly affected by some major events happening in the world. Putting ourselves in a position of being directly affected isn’t something we are fully prepared to do, especially since we have children that can get caught up in the mess.

Then, I think on this matter a little further and can’t help but be angered. Native Americans had their land, their families, their culture, their language, their identities stripped from them with colonization. It was the outsiders that came, dropped their flags and swept us out. It’s a difficult history filled with struggle, agony, and despair. I’ve always held great gratitude for my ancestors. The ones that would suffer another day simply to survive. It’s because of their sheer will to live and keep going that my Native sisters and brothers even exist today. I can’t imagine their strength. I can’t imagine their suffering. It’s something that is conveniently forgotten by many.

Certainly, my ancestors have a difficult and grim history, but even the elders I knew as a child suffered. The ones that do speak tell stories of when the Dleit Kaa (white man) came to our tiny village on our Southeast Alaska island. Elders that were still alive when I was a child experienced some of our horrifying history, deemed necessary and acceptable to outsiders. How long ago does something have to happen to be classified as “history?” The elders spoke of being forced away from their hunting, gathering and crafting and put into school. They spoke of being beaten if they dare speak our Native tongue at school. Our totem poles were burned. Our dances banned. Our regalia destroyed. Our culture was practically wiped out. Even today, the Tlingit language is still recovering. This was at home. If I were alive just a handful of generations earlier, I would have been directly affected.

I’ve also learned of my Aleut brothers and sisters being treated worse than war prisoners during WWII. Soldiers set up their posts and camps in the Aleutian Islands. These islands were already inhabited by the Aleuts and their homes. The Aleuts were simply shipped off to live in an unfamiliar territory and left to fend for themselves. The thing about Alaska is, it is a huge territory with vastly different climates, terrain, animals and plant life. Medicinal and edible plants in one area may not exist in another. This is what the Aleuts had to face. Many got sick, many starved, some froze, and many children and babies didn’t make it. When what was left of the Aleuts were finally able to go back home, they found destruction. Houses filled with bullet holes and in a drastically awful state.

We have a difficult history. I may not be Aleut or from a tribe down South (the lower 48) that was directly affected by colonization. I may have only experienced a fraction of direct discrimination as compared to my ancestors and great grandparent’s generation. Memories of being called “Filthy Natives” on a junior high basketball trip come to mind. Junior High! This still doesn’t compare to what my elders and my Native American ancestors had to experience. So when people today are treated in similar ways — looked down on, spit on, belittled, and made out to be lesser of beings — it strikes a nerve. It’s as if I can feel the ancient pain, torture, agony and sorrow bubbling up inside the memory of my heart and spirit. There is more to our story than taught in schools, and information has to be sought out specifically.

Yet this is the world we live in. People always say “history repeats itself,” and I live in dread for what that could mean. We, as a family, have to take certain precautions that others might not. We discuss potential destinations thoroughly. Mexico is off the list, as far as the rest of South America. At least for now. This does go both ways however. My white partner is always a little apprehensive to visit my hometowns where he would be the minority. Mind you, he doesn’t have any prejudiced for Alaska Natives, that’s silly. It’s that some of the natives in small towns may have prejudiced towards him, the Dleit Kaa. Granted, the history is a difficult one… my partner not only understand the somewhat unreasonable prejudiced he might receive, he has what he calls “white guilt.” There are some villages that do not welcome the Dleit Kaa. My home villages, both Yup’ik and Tlingit, are not one of them. People are received well and treated with respect. This is our way.