“What does that mean to keep my identity?”
Wil Chuch and Karennahawi Barnes Talk Growing Up On-Reservation, and Off It
By Karennahawi Barnes ‘24
He lifts his small, blond, blue-eyed daughter, Capi, onto his shoulders. “How was everyone's week?” he asks. His voice is calm and affirmative. Each member of the Native Affinity Group takes their time to list off the positives and negatives they've encountered in the past week. William Chuch, religion teacher, coach, and our group leader, listens closely as he lifts 3-year-old Capi off his shoulders so she can run and sit in my lap.
Our group consists of three Mohawks from Akwesasne, three Navajo from New Mexico, and another White Mountain Apache staff member. Since there are only 6 students and 2 staff members, we consider ourselves a family, small but close-knit, always looking after each other.
Chuch is a member of the Potawatomi Tribe, located in Oklahoma, but he was never a part of it until just a few years ago. He only knew of his affiliation with the tribe because of his yearly visits to see family on the reservation during summer. He was never taught any of the customs and practices. By definition, Chuch is considered a “City Indian.”
In contrast to Chuch’s experience growing up, I grew up on my reservation my whole life before coming to NMH. I’ve been surrounded by my culture my whole life and I still am. I go to Longhouse and ceremonies every break from school and learned to incorporate my culture and beliefs into my lifestyle at school.
Chuch and I talked in the library. Our conversation has been abbreviated and edited for clarity.
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Karennahawi: So can you talk a little bit about when you first left the reservation and what that process was like for you?
Chuch: My mom's whole family's history is on the reservation. So the reservation was part of our history, but not part of my lived experience. My mom had experienced some pretty horrific things growing up, and so the way that she viewed being Native or living on a reservation was very much a negative thing. When I was brought up, living off-reservation, I didn't know much about my culture or my people. I knew that I was Native, and that was about the extent of it. I very much felt like an outsider for a long time.
Karennahawi: So were you born off reserve?
Chuch: I was born off the reservation. The only reservation experience I had was going there every summer and being there with family. Our reservation was in Oklahoma, but I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area very much intentionally ostracized from my community, by my parents.
Karennahawi: So I know that you are learning the language of the Potawatomi. How did your mom feel about that?
Chuch: When I was in late middle school, early high school, I was expressing a lot of interest. My mom would give me her short answers. And then the internet became a thing, and she realized, like, “Oh, crap, like, I can't just hide him from this.” My mom and her family were involved in a lot of pretty horrific crime and violence. My mom's dad ended up on death row. My mom, growing up, equated reservation with violence, sexual violence, physical violence, and she eventually equated Natives with that. And she's like, “I don't want to be a part of that.” It's a super common story for reservation Natives. And there's a distinction between me, where like, I'm more than half Native, right? Compared to, someone's like, “I'm 0.001%.”
Karennahawi: Native princess. [Chuch and I are referring to when people with zero or very little Native ancestry take on a full Native identity. A saying that’s most used is, “My grandmother was a Native princess.”]
Chuch: Like my great triple-aunt was queen or whatever, right? You've heard?
Karennahawi: Yeah.
Chuch: So for me, it was kind of toeing that line, and this is one of the hard things for the affinity group, and being part of the faculty of color here is — if I wanted to — I could very much pass as just a white dude. I'm aware of the fact that I can be this guy who just gets tan during the summer. It was this intentional thing [for me] to lean into it. And for Native folks, as far as passing goes, that was always the goal from the American government: to try to make it like, “No, you're just American, you're just white, that's all you are.” That in-and-of-itself is part of that act of rebellion and redefining who the hell I am, and that's true for so many off-reservation Natives who have legitimate history among their tribe and yet are just cut off from it.
Karennahawi: ‘cuz I know, especially for me back home, there's a lot of negativity on our reservation surrounding City Indians because, well, that term has a lot of negativity around it.
Chuch: On the West Coast, the term is “Urban Native.”
Karennahawi: Basically at home, it's like, [City Indians] left because they wanted to better themselves. And then when they come back, it's like, they're all "whitewashed." They're not connected with their culture. So it's seen as a negative thing, because it's like, “Oh, well they left because they didn't want to be Native.”
Chuch: And it's a trap, right? That's this fear of like, “Okay, if I try to do another thing, then I'm betraying my people, but if I stay among my people, then I'm being limited or perceived to be limited.” So what the hell are you to do? I mean, all y'all that chose to come to an American boarding school are very much living that experience of like, “I'm leaving home, I'm leaving that culture, but also, there's a lot of benefits to this. What does that mean to keep my identity?”
Karennahawi: Yeah, and I think that was a big thing for me, especially because I grew up very traditional, like I went to a longhouse all the time, I still do, but I didn't want to lose that part of myself. Because I never really understood why we view those City Indians as bad people. They wanted to better themselves. Why would we get mad at them for it?
Chuch: Totally. It is such a messed-up mind trick, right? I remember my first Faculty of Color meeting here, there were several faculty, who aren't here anymore, who were very much like, “What the hell are you doing here?” It's like, well, “I'm Native, this is my lived experience.” It becomes this other version of, not racism, but race relations. I'm allowed to still be who I am, even if you don't perceive me the way that you think that I am perceived.
Karennahwi: Yeah, exactly.
Chuch: I don't visibly present as Native, so I have the luxury—or the curse—of being able to be in a room and choose not to engage with my Nativeness. For a lot of our affinity groups, that's not the case, right? As you walk in, Desahyne walks in, it's like, “Oh, there's a Native.” I've chosen to always engage with it. But [making a choice] is nothing that you could have ever done unless you start dyeing your hair and dressing differently and talking and doing everything differently, right?
Karennahawi: Do you ever, because me and Deshayne are very involved, and Niayla, do you ever really feel like left out?
Chuch: Yeah, I mean, I've got a degree of jealousy almost. I don't have that access point to my culture that's connected for millennia. My access point is me doing research and trying to learn about meeting people on my reservation and doing these courses. That's also tied in with a lot of like, guilt or shame, where there were benefits with how I was able to be raised that maybe I'm taking for granted, and I'm like, “Oh, I wish I could have [been raised in a traditional setting], too.'' Because that means a whole different life change, this weird balance.
Karennahawi: Yeah, and this is what makes me mad with people who are trying to be Native. It's like there's these different good aspects, like, sure we get a lot of funding when we go to school, but you don't deal with being followed around a store.
Chuch: Oh, totally.
Karennahawi: Do you think that you would like to involve Capi with this stuff?
Chuch: Totally. So Capi is intentionally in our meetings all the time, right, to see we have a community here, we're part of something else that's more than just this preppy, white boarding school. My goal and hope is to continue to educate her on Potawatomi stuff as best as I can. I know infinitely more about it than my mother ever did. I hope that, if Capi so chooses, for her to feel the same about me. Like, “Yeah, Dad tried, but I have a better concept of this.”