xp_communication | Email to Dani (Reply)

To: [Moonstar, D.]
From: [Forge, JH]
Subject:

Look, I'm really tired of the whole "our people" thing. I understand that you identify yourself as Cheyenne, and that's fine. It's how you were raised, it's how your parents were raised, and so on.

But that's not me. And no nicknames or insistence is going to make it different. I tried, you saw that. I tried to learn the language, learn about the traditions, understand the culture - but there's no connection to me.

My father grew up on the reservation. And he left. I never had to live on one, I grew up in the suburbs and the city. You call it "the white man's world", but the rest of us just call it "the world", because that's where everyone lives.

My father's family was Cheyenne. It's the traditions they followed and the life they led. They led, not me. It's like I told you at that powwow - for as much as you find peace and meaning in the traditions and the beliefs, they're beliefs that still perpetuate stupidity like "stupid Pawnee" and "the evils of the white man". Those are chains I don't want to wear. They're traditions that refer to people like me as O'xevé'ho'e, "half-breed". It's a world I don't belong to, nor do I wish to.

This is the world I live in. If I have any "people", it's mutants. If you have to put a label on me, that's the one I choose. Not to make myself better than other people, or to set myself apart - it's how I see myself. It's who I am. I get to decide that, not you or anyone else.

You've met my parents, my mother and my father. My dad hasn't tried to push me into "acting Cheyenne" and my mother hasn't pushed me into "acting...", Dutch/Irish, I think. They accept me for who and what I am. People here, like me or not, at least accept me for who and what I am. If you can't do the same - then at the very least have the decency not to try and turn me into something I don't want to be.

JHF