Striving to Remain a Native American in America: Resistance to Past and Present Injustices (Letter to My Son on the Day of His Second Piercing)

Abstract

As a Native American, I wrote a letter to my grown son, recalling the onslaught of overt and subtle prejudices he endured as a direct result of his honoring traditional Native American ways. I focus primarily on my son’s unique heroic struggle in an oppressive and highly racialized society, but make glancing references throughout about Native Americans’ current intolerable predicament in the United States. I remind my son of lessons taught in tribal ceremonies about transforming the passionate aggressiveness of the warrior into a compassion that accomplishes lasting change. I write these things with my son’s permission.