Learning traditions

My experience as a Native American was shaped long before I was born. It began among the Cherokee and Kiowa tribes, into which my grandmother and grandfather were born, but it radically shifted when they were sent away from their families to government boarding schools. That is where they met. But it is also where they were stripped of their language and their customs, during a time when white America wanted to “civilize” Native people and force them to assimilate to Euro-American culture. Those schools are the reason I grew up with none of the Native traditions my grandparents experienced when they were children. With the exception of occasional visits to my relatives and our annual city powwow, we didn’t celebrate our Native heritage. In my home, there were no drums for dancing; no basketry, bead working or pottery; no ceremonies; no healing traditions. They were wiped away not just for my grandparents, but for my father and for me. <a href="https://aftvoices.org/learning-traditions-7d9b66d904f2">Read More</a>