Hi,
I bumped on this thread while googling, I read it and I joined this forum so that I could post....
I am not NA, I am not even American and dont live in the US.
But you know, that stereotype of the "indian" that os often comes across is what I grew up with, and is what I learned to admire.
I read a lot of comments by people who were pissed by the stereotyping of NAs as people with long hair, dark skin, living in the nature and so on. I also read that a lot of people say "I recognise my own, how can you not tell us appart".
Well, here is my story. I am Greek, born and raised in Greece, and I moved in London 2 years ago in order to continue my uni studies. So did my sister. We are both very light skined, we both have dark brown hair and I have green eyes.
The English stereotype for Greeks is that we are "olive skined" what ever that means.... Well people obviously have no clue what olives and olive oil looks like obviously, because olive oil looks green (when good) and dark gold (when not so good) and olives look black or green. So unless we have a green, black or golden skin, we pretty much do not deserve being called olive skinned, and I dont get that.
Everytime an English person meets us, and we state that we are Greek, they will go like "but you are not dark". Its like they cant compute. They have been told all greeks are dark and oliveskined, and cant believe we might be Greek.
A romanian guy once told me "you cant be greek... you dress like them [the English]". (!!!! :O)
Well, on the one hand people cant believe we 're Greek, on the other hand whenever me and my sis are riding the tube (the metropolitan train that is) whenever we spot another Greek in the crowd we just look at eachother and whisper "he 's one of us". And a few minutes afterwards his cellphone might go off, and he ll start talking Greek for instance.
We can tell our own appart of course. Ocasionally we might mistake an Italian, or less often a Spanish one as Greek, but usually we 're spot on. On one ocasion I even mistook a guy from the US as a greek one, but his facial characteristics were so strong Greek, I believe he had roots he did not know of.
So what is it that makes you "know your own"? I think it has to do with bone structure, facial characteristics and of course sense of fashion. I mean, Greeks and English and whatever other European, we all shop at the same multinational companies of H&M and Zara and so on.... But the way we choose, and mix and match clothes, I believe gives a national stigma in a very peculiar, discreet but obvious -to our own people- way. (Hence the comment that I dress like the English).
I find profiles of faces to be very characteristic among nations as well. There are certain "noses" and "lips" and "foreheads" that are kind of tell signs, and the proportions and the symetry of a face, can give me the evidence that someone is Greek. Of course I can know that because I have been immersed in the Greek environment, and for 30 years I have been seeing how Greek faces are "constructed".
I do not expect an "outsider" to be that able to tell us appart. So I find it normal that NAs can tell when someone else is "blood" (I believe that was the phrase used) and the rest of the people have no clue.
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Regarding the NA stereotype.
First of all I find it shocking that a lot of New Yorkers state that they have never met a NA.
This is evident of how the indigenous population was brutally massacred, and I feel this is an unspoken genocide, an holocaust that has no universal memory day and so on. 19 millions, they were, and I dont know how many there are today. Would love to find out.
Anyway, I believe that the thing an "Indian" represents -in the european mind at least- is one ideal.
Freedom.
Freedom, equality (although I do not know how historically correct this is) and living in harmony and in accordance with nature.
I believe that all the indian tatoos on white skin, are there to represent these 3 ideals. At least from my experience, this is the case.
Of course we think of "Indians" as people with long braids, beads, and wonderful feathery head pieces.
Of course we do not believe today's NAs dress like that.
I have seen several interviews of NA actors saying that they grow their hair long as a way to honour their heritage.
I understand that this might be the case for some, but not all can be like that.
I for instance, cannot go around in a white sleeveless gown made out of crushed fabric, honouring my Greek heritage, I would freeze to death in London. Nor can I wear a t-shirt with a picture of Acropolis or Parthenon on it, I think it is bad taste. However this is what most foreign people depict as "greek heritage".
I do not believe that there are reservations with tipis today (sadly, since my childhood dream was to grow up and move to the US so that I could live in a traditional reservation-might not have been a great idea though, given that I am a couch potato, adicted to my computer).
I see a lot of women online looking for native american men.
This is one of my fantasies as well. Again because Native Americans, they represent freedom, and being wild at heart, and being honest to people, and being with good intentions and trusting, and living in a respectful manner, doing good and protecting mother earth, having a spirituality that can beat most well-established religions and so on.
Is this a stereotypical & fairytale idea of what the Native populations is like today? Perhaps. Most probably. I do not knnow, and I hope it can be true to some extend.
I read a post where somebody said "you ll never find NAs because you are looking for the wrong reasons".
Yes, maybe romantisizing about what the NA heritage is, is wrong.
Yes, probably today's NA run casinos, are computer techs, and do sound engineering or whatever. Maybe they have cut really short their hairs, so no mohicans, and no braids.
And defenetally they wear jeans and t-shirts, maybe a hoodie and a coat.
Still I feel that the collective unconcious of a NA would make him/her have a somehow "free" job. Cant imagine a golden boy working 20hrs a day "for the man" being a NA.
It is like .... Johnny Depp.... Yup, recognised, yup posh job and all... but still... he is a rebel, still he is wild, still he has long hair :P and I think its because of his Cherokee blood :P
I know I shouldnt speak, like I said already, I am a Greek girl, who never set foor in the Americas.
And one that loves the fairytale of the perfect and harmonious life the indigenous people were living before certain ships arrived. Please allow me not to say the "whites". There are all sorts of "whites". Not all are invasive and massacring imperialists. Some "white" nations are really mean. I feel that I am one of the "other kind of whites" anyway.
And yeah, a fool as well for thinking about the fairytale... but in the end the First nations, the Native Americans, the Indigenous population, the "Indians"... call it what you like... they are a leggend.
A legend we look upon, we admire and we day dream about.
And as all leggends... most of the things they are given credit for, come from the sphere of fantasy, aint it so?
All my love to the First nations people... no matter if the grow long hair or shave, no matter if the work the iron, the earth or they are yuppies, no matter if they honour their roots, or try to hide them...
You are the descendants of a great civilization, and the crimes against you, made your light shine all the way to the other side of the world, your cries have moved and have shaped the youth of nations that you do not consider "your own", yet we somehow, even though white and ignorant, feel a special bond with you.
Have a glorious day
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