It is hard for me to understand why I would care about connecting to the Native American network. Back in the olden days, 100 years ago, your passport said that you were a native citizen because you were born in the United States. But nowadays, with the advent of this term "Native American," we are not sure who we are anymore. Does the term "native" suggest a Patchy DNA chart? But the term's opposite designation for the foreign born, "exotic," doesn't really fit me either. The term "exotic" would seem to require a mysterious past and to speak with a heavy accent, among other things. So if I am neither a "native" nor an "exotic," what am I? I fail to sympathize with the "Native American" plight of Sylvia Walker, who attributed her high cheekbones to a Cherokee ancestor. I don't see that I have any high cheekbones or any other evidence of "Native American" ancestry, although I have never taken a DNA test. If were anything of that nature, it couldn't be more than a trace amount, but I really haven't taken the test. Anyway, I don't see any political advantage to claim for myself, even if there were some strange anomaly in the DNA test.
Yes, I do remember the example of my mother's Cousin Graden, who offered himself as the model for the creation of a statue of a "Native American," based on my great-grandfather's idea that he had some Cherokee ancestry, even though I really don't see it. The statue was installed at a fountain somewhere in California but I have never been there to see that for myself. And anyway, it's all so vague.
Yes, how nice that Cousin Graden's daughter is an accomplished artist painter and married to some creepy Frenchman who goes around spreading disinformation all on her behalf, all at our expense.
Even so, we well remember it being said the Cousin Graden was a seeker but not really a finder, always seeking never finding. I really have no idea why this matters now. I really don't care. Let them have the statue matter, ask them about the statute. The statue is not our problem.
