Imparting Cultural knowledge-Driving blind

[justusinhere]

I come from a very ethnically mixed family and while I am dealing with it through exploration and education I wonder how to help my young niece. One day she will be old enough to understand that she looks different from the people in her class or even members of her own family and I want her to love those differences not fear them. Her maternal grandfather is Blackfoot and her maternal grandmother is Black/Caucasian American, and her paternal grandfather is Black/Cherokee and her paternal grandmother is Blackfoot/Eastern Band Cherokee/Irish/French/Black (my parents). This level of mixing is due to outdated social laws among Black Americans that mandated that light-skinned blacks marry only other light skinned blacks. Where we live being mixed does not exist, you are either black or your not. To even consider embracing all of your ancestors is to deny that you are Black first and most importantly. I want to take her with me to celebrations and cultural events but I'm not sure if it will only make it harder for her in the long run

[(deleted)]

`Hello Justusinhere I have read your post and I have to say that it would be far worse for your neice if she didn't know, if she was left ignorant of who she is. She has a right to know about all of her ansceters. Being taught about that will not make her embrace one part of her ancestry over the other no matter who says that. But it will keep her from confusion about who she is, especially if at some point she feels in her heart that there is something missing, that there is a part of her she doesn't know about. No matter what anyone in your family or anyone else for that matter says, she has a right to know about all of her people, all of the cultures that she is a part of. I think that it is a great idea to expose her to all those cultures and take her to the events you want to. Even if in the end she were to identify more with the Native side than anything else, that is her right. I mean all that should matter is that she is happy. Withoholding things like this can sometimes create problems. You touched on it when you said that at some point she will notice that not only is she different from her classmates but also even her own family. That is bound to create some confusion. Better that she knows and understands now about all of her ancesters, than to have her come home from school one day and ask those difficult questions. Worse still to come home crying because she'd been made fun of or because she knows that something is missing, but she just doesn't know what it is. I do have friends that have Native blood but that knoweldge was withheld from them. Both knew that there was something different about them, one insitnctivley knew they were Native, the other knew there was something missing just didn't know what. She also knew that she was different from not just her classmates but also the entire starte in which she lives. At some point they both found out. One went in search of his birth parents and found them the other as she was not adopted went straight to the library to find books on the Native American people. She went there as that's the only way that was available to her to gain any sort of understanding. Now she is still trying to find out more about the people her dad is from. She has been told that she's not Native by those she sought knowledge and help from, and that no one would talk to her. Yet it is very plain that she has Native blood. Anyway my opinion is talk to your neice about who she comes from, and take her to those events and cultureal based activities at every opportunity. I hope that this helps. Good luck.

[justusinhere]

`Thank you horses06 for your knowledge and advice. Knowing that it could be harder to not tell her makes it easier to know what to do. I too feel that she will be better off learning to embrace all of herself and am planning to take her with me every chance I get.