I am looking into learning a foreign language. Wonder if it will help. I can online and hubs is gung ho for me to try. I would say Spanish but I think I have enough from being in S. TX most of my life enough it would not be a challenge.

Would this help or has anyone tried it to relieve anxiety? I mean I used to work all the time before agoraphobia. Maybe this can help as a new challenge? I am thinking of finding a local tribe I am not related to (as it may help me down the road here) and do one of the preservation out reaches to save the language. So many native American languages are on the verge of being lost. People of the tribe do not even know it but mainly elders.

I am also like most from here (America) and have the blood lines but no ties as white sides hid it and buried it as it was taboo a couple generations ago. Maybe this would help to feel connected to something?

I am trying to figure out if I should learn something sacred but may prove useless in lifeworks or something like Chinese that may help me land a job when the time comes for me to work again.

I would like to learn the two possible tribal languages I have in my line but they are not spoken here so it would only be for me and no one to speak to. But I could also learn the locals here spoken mainly by elders. Or learn Polish as my grandparents spoke when they did not want me to know what they were saying.

Any input or opinions?

I think that is a really great idea. I can see how it might help in a couple of ways actually....1. Is the obvious - occupying your mind for a while. Particularly important because you are housebound a lot. Limited mental stimulation at home besides the useual types - books, computer etc...lots of stuff to help you veg out but not much to stretch the mind and imagination. To give your brain a good work out so to speak.
2. Learning something new will give you a sense of accomplishment. Something to feel good about. Something that says I can do this. I think too that learning a language attatched to your heritage would be a cool thing. Not only good for you but it is something you can pass on to your kids (I guess that is 3 reasons).

I particularly like the idea of learning a Native American Language. Again for a couple of reason. As you said those languages are on the verge of dissapearing. But also because as you said so many were ashamed or afraid to admit their heritage. My own Grandfather left home and burned his "Indian" papers out of shame and fear. He died a sad, lonely, drunk trying to pretend he was something he was not. A white man. Learning the language of your hidden ancesters seems a fitting way to show respect and appreciation for the ones who came before us.

Learning Chinese or another language that could be used employment wise is more practical but learning about your heritage will be more meaningful.

Blessings,
Jet

Thanks Jet, Hubs is pushing me to go native to reconnect. Down side she (great grams) was rare and it was so buried and hushed there are only rumors but to see her there is no doubt and I thought she was so beautiful even old before she died. My grandfather could not hide it except with his voice, it showed. You look a him and see it before he died too. I am unsure if I can find it as I have seen so many in research are gone. It will take some work but I may be able to find an idea.

I want to learn more than one as my son due to his father has another bloodline from his great grandfather. My evil ex's gramps.

I see blood tests advertised but wonder if they can really tell me what tribes... I have been told I had Comanche or Apache as a great grandmother. My son has mine and with his dad's side Cherokee. My son and I are the only dark haired, eyed, skinned people now but we do not carry the same facial features. Everyone else and the rest of my kids are blonds. It just seem to "pop" out here and there.

I really think there are not many here more than a few generations that are not a bit mutt it is just buried! I just wish it was not so taboo we can not get a clear picture. It is a shame. If more knew their background the languages would not die.

Thanks again, maybe I need to find the lost art.

This is a fascinating post to me, please excuse my lack of knowledge on this, I'm from the UK (stiff upper lippers) so I will probably sound like I'm ignorant or something, but I'm not. Wow... tribes.... that sounds really, really interesting. I really know very little about this, but I'm interested to hear more... why is it a taboo??

I think what Jet said was right, learning something meaningful could be good exercise for your brain, but also good for your soul whereas Chinese is practical. You sound really interested in your blood lines, maybe you could take on a search as well?

Lisa.

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.

Veiled... thanks for explaining a little. Interesting that people thought you were mexican! I don't actually know why Americans have thanksgiving? Is it just Americans, or Canadians too? I think I might have to read up on some American history, I'm interested. In the UK education is only about the UK history. Sad. There's a big world out there. No excuse for me not to read up and find out for myself now though, so I may do this over my summer break.

Race is a really fascinating subject, I did an exam on it the other week. I actually wrote about Thomas Jefferson having children to 4 slaves!! What fascinated me most is that Graves stated that race doesn't actually exist because of mixing way back when people migrated and moved around. If we wanted to find 'race', there would be 2000 races found but that defeats the idea of race as a concept really. There are only 4% of 'unique' genes. Mostly what people consider 'race' to be is actually evolution, which is totally different. The only reason certain 'races' get sickle cell anaemia is because it was an evolutionary adaptation to malaria. Sickle cell anaemia only occurs where people were geographically, it doesn't occur in those who lived high in the mountains as malaria didn't exist in the altitude up there. If 'white' people lived there, we would have the sickle cell anaemia genetic predisposition. It's geographical and evolutionary what society thinks is 'race'. As you said, there are NO 'pure' gene pools. Everyone is mixed. Nobody knows exactly what race they are. I know that I have german, irish, french and english in me but only by relatives who remember relatives. That is as far as I can find out about my heritage. At the end of the day... we are humans. The same species. People say being a person is to be 'unique'... yet society depicts that to be 'wrong'. The obsession of who is better than who is simply ridiculous. It seems society is in competition with the very thing that makes society.

It is really sad and disgusting how society has segmented and categorised people, a lot of the research like the Bell Curve is considered scientific racism. How can people put so much research into something that is still biolgically disputed to exist today? But it is good that I have been taught this at degree level, I learned a lot I didn't even realise. It shows society to be challenging those views which have led to generations of devastation.

I think it's great that you are interested in your heritage, and also in view of history and racism. Where we come from and the lives our ancestors lead is fascinating for a good reason... it's important to learn about diversity of lifestyle. And also the bad side too is important to remember as an example. If everybody was taught the bad as well as the good in History at school, generations would grow up knowing how such narrow minded views are wrong and we would hope that some of those kids in those generations become presidents or prime ministers to ensure it never happens again. But maybe that's idealism.

My mom didn't teach me much but she did manage to get the point across that racisim was really, really wrong. But then again she had a lot of examples and it was important to her.

I knew that I had been successful in passing that along to my son when a neighbor called (he was about 3 -4) to tell me that Jon had been playing with her son (who was half black) when another (bigger, bully type) kid called him a N*****. Jon immedietly swung his little body around and said very calmly...He is not a N, his dad's acestor's come from Africa (they were from Etheopia if I remember right) and they have darker pigmentation in order to protect their skin from the sun.

I don't know a whole lot about the blood test thing either. I have a fiend who is Native and she and her family are connected to one of the tribes out her. Her mom is a nurse at the tribe clinic if I remember correctly. I will ask her - maybe she or her mom would know a bit more and maybe also point to the direction of where to begin.

:tongue: As this thread started...I certainly believe that "exercising" the brain is a good idea....I've read quite a few articles from my wanderings around the www and that seems to be the consenses that I've found!!!! :crazy-eye I've always liked to read and the connection to the www gives me a lot more things to learn on a broad area of topics !!! Just doing the posting here as well as on CHAT has really helped the speed of my typing!! ...LOVING THE PEACE

I agree, learning new things can really help us. I take classes to help me improve at work. As long as I'm careful not to overschedule so I get too overwhelmed, it helps me--gives me something innocuous to focus on and makes me stretch my brain.

Yes, it helps. Its like forcing yourself to read books, or get into an education course. It hurt initially, but once your brain gets into a new routine, it helps you immensely, especially memory function returning.