So this has been on my mind a lot lately. I want to comment on this, and I ask that the person reading this have an open mind, heart, and be willing to confront historical trauma that is not the fault of the individual, but to those who held hate in their hearts once upon a time in our history.

I want to write about this because I want to be understood. I want the respect that Indigenous people deserve. I want the recognition of our histories and unique cultures. We are NOT the same. We are STILL HERE.

As a Navajo, cisgendered, heterosexual woman of a middle class family, who was raised on a reservation, and who is attending a university - I have confronted and accepted my privilege as such. I will attempt to exercise my agency to write about why I am tired of proving myself to people who have not taken the time to understand me before they pass judgment onto me and people like me.

Indigenous peoples have lived on this continent long before any form of settler-colonists arrived here: white, black, brown, anyone who did not migrate here is a settler. Before anyone came here, my people were here.

We had different languages, groups, cultures, epistemologies, ontologies, and knowledges that were specific to the region we inhabited. We're humans so we weren't perfect. Evil and ugliness existed before colonization, but then...

Indigenous native peoples were forced to conform to a larger Euro-American imagination and system. The east was heavily colonized and the eastern Natives experienced the (for lack of a better word) "culture shock" first. It was NOT a friendly and peaceful encounter. Maybe at some point it got to that point, but it was full of curiosity and trust that eventually led to deception and greed.

As settlers moved further west, they became disillusioned by the greed of people is authority to take from people that they did not see as human. In fairness, Natives were killed by foreign diseases, but that does not justify the CONTINUED GENOCIDE and forced removal to expand further.

You cannot argue that was not what happened. Rather, genocide continued until either one of two things occurred:

1. Move to insufficient land that does not hold sacred meaning (i.e. Reservations) and assimilate.

2. Die

And it CONTINUES so much has happened since contact and the effects still continue and affect Native people until this very moment.

I want you, the reader, to imagine growing up in a small house full of loving family and hearing a language that literally calms your soul. Imagine waking up early every morning and getting ready without running water. You wash up with some Irish spring soap and water in a bowl then get dressed in your older siblings' or cousins' old clothes. You go feed animals before you get food, if you get food before walking to the bus stop. You do this until you're a senior in high school.

Throughout those years you see so much good happen in ceremonies. You grow up around both miracles and tragedy. You're used to long drives to the nearest small town, which is 1-2 hours away, for groceries. You think college is the solution to helping your family, extended relatives, and your entire people and when you get to the college you always imagined attending... not a soul understands you, unless you have other natives there.

You'll be in class one day and the slightest Native reference the whole class turns to you and ask you to educate them on why you're the only one in the class to begin with. Some may students may assume your tribe has a casino that gives you free money. They assume you attend college for free. They assume you can give them a spirit animal. They assume you whole life.

The worst part? They think they're right no matter what you tell them.

Anything you say to show that you're who you say you are, they're response is, "prove it." What do you want me to do? Show you my tribal ID? My certificate of Indian blood? I don't see you asking any other student in here to prove their ethnicity, race, or identity to you.

I am who I say I am. I am Native. I am Indigenous. I am more than you will ever know. I am who I say I am.