A Lost Indigeneity

Coming into Muwekma, I was nervous. I was nervous not because of the idea of living with a new community, or meeting new people, or even having a triple :), but rather of having to face the idea of homeland. Of culture. Of one’s people. Of the very meaning of indigeneity. As the descendant of slaves (and unfortunately white men who raped some of my maternal ancestors), I simply do not know where I come from. I do not know what tribe my ancestors were a part of, how they lived, what they ate...anything. It was taken from me and countless others, and frankly there’s not much that can be done to find it again. What I do know, I don’t know if I can claim. I know that I have ties to Togo and Cote d'ivoire, but do I really know anything about them? What connection do I really have to France and Ireland, to the homelands of my forced ancestors? To the Dominican Republic? To the Cherokee nation? Even to New Orleans, where most of my extended family current lives, and their Creole culture? Do I still have the right to embrace any of these ways of life, these cultures, these identities? More so, what would my identity be if it weren’t for slavery? Constantly hearing the phrase “Wakanda Forever” can get annoying, but the movie brought up and recognized a very real and stolen reality of Africa’s unmitigated progression (not to say there hasn’t been progression; simply fragmented). This idea of a lost history has transformed into the idea of a lost identity, something that has plagued my mind since I can remember. Growing up as one of the few Black people in a southern, white, conservative community. I truly didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. My experiences seemed too different from my Black peers and brothers, I certainly didn’t feel welcome in the white community, and I just didn’t know my past. Often I would be too light-skinned for the Black kids and too dark for the white kids.

As I have grown older, however, I have learned to embrace this uniqueness and hodgepauch of ancestries and identities. As I have lived in Muwekma, I have been inspired to try and discover more about these identities and these cultures to help figure out my own. As an art statement to this idea, I have created a collage representing the melting pot of identities that make up me:

Background​ (Left to right): Wakanda and what could have been and what could still be one day, Stanford and my current journey as a student and as a Tree, and New Orleans as my most immediate and obvious point of culture and identity.

Fashion​: a tuxedo to represent my struggles and aspirations to make it as a successful Black man in America, sweat-ridden rags to represent the unique struggles my ancestors had to endure for centuries to allow me to even be here, black and white suit with a trumpet to represent my ties to Black America and New Orleans and my ongoing attempt to connect with that through jazz and music, and a traditional Togan pair of pants and hat to represent my goal to learn about my deep ancestors and to rekindle the connection between Black America and Mother Africa.

- Posted on behalf of Sean Howard