Identity Please Come In
"It’s hard when being Native means different things depending on who’s asking and why,” he says.
“And to some people, you’ll never be Native enough,” I add. Page 55, Fire Keeper's Daughter, by Angeline Boulley.
Identity is like coins. It has two faces, the interior and exterior. The interior is the most important. It’s the foundation, the bullet proof vest or winter coat. The exterior is how the outside world sees you.
Having said that, we must admit that the exterior can be a blizzard that threatens to erode the foundation. Time and place. We are born somewhere but might end up living somewhere else.
The question of interior identity vs exterior identity doesn’t come up when you are surrounded by people who look like you, talk like you, respect elders like you, live with grandparents like you or have pets like you.
It becomes an issue when you move away from the center to a ballpark where people see race first, before you say hello. ‘Natives’ are like this. Africans are like this. Blacks (African Americans) are like this. Japanese are like this. They all look the same (Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese). Indians in India are like this.
Stereotypes determine how strangers treat you. You know who you are, thanks to interior identity, so it doesn’t bother you. Sometimes people get scared when I enter public spaces like washrooms or the elevator. It’s a public electrical thing that goes up and down collecting the world. I’m part of the world.
Exterior identity. It is bad news when it engulfs the interior, totally erasing it. Kids will think they are ugly when they are not. They might deface their hair, face and speech.
Who are you? You should define yourself. They have a problem, not you.
This is another ‘written podcast’ by Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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