Part of my continued project /writing/practice prompted by Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, looking at my family tree.
When I was a 7th grader at a small Catholic school in Queens, the class was assigned a project on Native Americans. Each student had to give a five minute speech about a specific nation or tribe. I think we were probably studying US history but I can’t be sure.
Choosing what I was going to present felt easy. I remembered my great great grandmother, or rather stories about her, and even writing this I can feel the embarrassment fill up in me because of the whole cliche of white women claiming Native ancestry based on an ancestor they never met- but here I go anyway.
I remember stories of my great great grandmother, India - Taina - according to my mother and in my pre-teen mind I romanticized her - because everyone in the family called her Ma Querida - beloved mother- and my mother remembers her in Puerto Rico with a long braid - now that seems stereotypical but could it also be true?
So back to the classroom in Rego Park when I decided that I was going to do my project about the Taino - my people- I proudly thought. I was going to show that I was more than this light skinned Puerto Rican girl with an Irish first name.
But Researching in the local public library- a place I thought of as safe and magical- going through books and encyclopedias left me feeling confused . Everything I read said that after he, Columbus, came - it was a short time later that the Taino went extinct.
I didn’t know people could go extinct.
with re: this: I didn’t know people could go extinct. Valid point, and I didn't and I still do not!!