"'For a White Girl,
Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 09:08:30 AM PDT
you know, you have funny eyes.' I was shocked he said that to me, Mom, really surprised by that."
My 25 year old daughter came over to my place so we could watch the David Wilson film on MSNBC together. Suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of a conversation we had never had before.
J has hired a nicely diverse group of workers while in her management capacity. She told me last night that they have started to refer to her as "the white girl." She said that they make many assumptions and cliches about her and her "privileged" upbringing. She then confided in me that it is painful to her, but she tries to respond in the spirit of good humor, despite the ache in her heart. J went on to say that it bothered her they would presume certain things because of her white heritage from me, things that were not true, but it bothered her even more because it denied utterly her paternal heritage. You see, although I'm of Irish lineage and, yes, white, her father is a Native American.
J's paternal great grandparents left the Reservation with other members of the family and went to the hills of West Virginia. The family became a part of the coal mining community there, a difficult and harsh lifestyle back then. Years later, her grandparents were starting their own family and wanted a better life for their young children. They came to California where her grandfather found work in a lumber mill. Although illiterate and unskilled, the family managed to make a living and raise their five children. To their great pride, two of their children grew to graduate from college and all completed high school. The family was not well-to-do, however, they had a much higher standard of living then that they had left behind.
As J grew up, her grandparents would tell her the tales of her family history and show her the few photographs in their possession from the "old days." There were images of tall, proud Native men, some with hair neatly plaited, lined up next to mining equipment with very solemn faces. Her grandfather explained why there were so few photos. It was the early day of photography, so not common, and typically the men were in the mines before dawn and did not leave until after dusk. They rarely saw the sun. Most died young, with damaged lungs as a by-product of the coal dust. In return for these labors, they were given a shack to live in and some meager food supplies from the company store.
Even as a little girl, J loved visiting her grandparents and was always content at her grandfather's side as he again recounted the family history and reviewed the small assortment of family momentos and photos. Her grandfather instilled a great sense of pride in her regarding her family and their history. Her grandmother was a quiet woman, but sometimes would tell her own stories. Her tales were more of the hardships the women endured. Tales of giving birth and raising children in an isolated and poverty stricken home. She told J how her Uncle David had to help her deliver her Uncle Gerald, a five year old alone with his mother as she labored in the scant light of an oil lamp. She told how it took months to find a doctor to issue a birth certificate, and that was why they had to estimate the birthdays of the children to celebrate annually as they grew.
To J, these tales, these photos and momentos, were her family treasures, her inheritance, and even her identity to a degree. These proud people, their labors and struggles, their hopes, desires, willingness to risk all on the chance of attaining more, came together in a way that made her the person she has become. They are a part of her, inextricably interwoven with her own life experiences and inseparable from her character. These people, these places, these events are so much a part of her that she cannot imagine a life absent this rich history. So when her assistant manager said "For a white girl, you have funny eyes" she was taken aback. At first, unsure of who he was speaking to; and then suddenly feeling adrift, as if her entire history, indeed her very self, had been swept away in the tide of a simple statement.
I was surprised when my daughter told me these feelings, and grateful to David Wilson for opening a door that allowed her to step through and share these hidden thoughts. After she left I continued to muse over our conversation and I wondered how many of us make such statements in off hand manner in unthinking conversations. I wondered how many people feel their selves and their history questioned and swept away, devalued, by these statements. Black, Asian, Native, Hispanic, whatever our ethnic or cultural background was, it is a part of us and brought us to who we are today and who we will be tomorrow. To each of us, our history and lineage is a personal and often powerful heritage and when diminished, even subtly, the wounds are real.
In the busy pace of our lives, particularly faced with so many serious issues as a failed government, tanking economy, and a shameful military aggression, it's easy to get swept away in the larger issues. We have so many substantive matters to be concerned with, so many important points to be considering, that sometimes what we consider to be less pressing is forgotten in the moment.
I hope that we can all take a moment before we speak to others and remember that words do matter and should be chosen wisely, with empathy, and with respect.
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