Rediscovering My Indigenous Identity

Over the past few years, I have taken it upon myself to understand my roots and where I come from. This has been a topic of importance to me since I was a child. Having come from a family that is not native to the land that we’re on, I felt that I needed to know my roots. As years pass and the older generation die off, learning that information takes a lot more time. Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, it has become a lot easier to find a lot of that information without digging too much. However, the down side is that when you are brought over to a foreign land without any records, your own indigenous identity comes into question.

The majority of the people in the United States are not originally from here. The only people who can claim this land as theirs and they are indigenous to this land are Native Americans. That poses the question as to whether those who are born and raised here truly indigenous. My own indigenous identity is one that is made up of several races and from different parts of the world spanning across three continents. This was not information that I have known all of my life. Within the past ten years, it has become affordable to figure out your ancestry by way of DNA tests. Using this method, I was able to understand what my lineage is.

Although my indigenous identity is made up of several races and cultures, I will always be identified with one regardless of how I change. The United States has always been hypodescent and regardless of the lineage of two different parents, the child will always be labeled as the same race of the parent of lowest status (Omohundro, 2008). The makeup of what makes me who I am is much more than a race or where I am from. There are a lot more things to look at considering the uniqueness of my position living here in the United States.

When I look at my own indigenous identity as being born and raised in the United States, I have to look at several things. One of the main things is to look at who I am from a cross-cultural perspective. The people I identify with, the activities that I partake in, and how I was raised play a part in this. I also need to look at the regional culture. I was raised in the south and therefore I identify with being southern. There are cultural perspectives attached to being southern regardless of race or origin.

Lastly, religious makeup also plays a role in my own identity. Religion, like culture, consists of systematic patterns of beliefs, values, and behavior, acquired by people as a member of their society (Mesa Community College, n.d.). Even within religious beliefs, despite the fact that several groups of people can ascribe to the same beliefs, there is not homogeny within them and there are different interpretations to principles and meanings. The way I was brought up, the beliefs and values that were instilled in me, and what I eventually chose for myself is all part of my identity.

References

• Mesa Community College. (n.d.). Religion and Culture. Retrieved from Mesa Community College: http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/religion/
• Omohundro, J. T. (2008). Thinking Like an Anthropologist. McGraw-Hill. ↩