Natives were considered savages and barely skimmed by just above black people back then (those not killed off). My kids hate my idea of thanksgiving as I say I cannot celebrate people taught to survive to then stab those in the back. I still cook but give my speech. Thanksgiving is a time for mourning for me as that is what I learned and if you read history it is. Prepare a heart breaking feast.

But hell, Thomas Jefferson has been proven to have black descendants. It was hush hush. So were natives. If you were not white you were a savage and a side show. It is recent in America (last couple generations) that white was not the only way. You hid your identity or hid your wife at home if not white. But now many native Americans try to keep the lines pure too. So just as racist.

I am by all rights white but only because my family buried my past. A common term is you have another piece of wood (dark) in the wood pile.

Just white was the all to be all; all those who took on the exotic look was bad. Thankfully I was born in the now! I went to school and have the same experience my son has. Everyone thought we were Mexican. I have a hard time swallowing racism since it was not until high school that me being thought Mexican came out. I never had a clue people thought I was anything but white until one day... And it was not horrifying, I thought it was funny. I am not Mexican. I started to learn my heritage then.

My best bud is black as night and we make jokes as he has a few white logs in his wood pile.

But here white ruled. Natives and their language is dying out. I do not mind sharing, quite enjoy it.

I will never learn my full bloodline as she died but she died hiding who she was and her husband hiding it. As they were never meant to be without bad consequences, but I know she loved him as I remember mason jars with his cigar butts she saved. I never met him but I remember those cigars in the window. She was a devoted woman I wish I can be like.