Backfire

by Jeanette DeDios

           Being Native American has always been a struggle for me. I always felt that I had to prove to everyone and myself that I was Native American. Maybe it’s because I had to, officially. Since the day I was born, I was given a document that proved that I was Native American, Certificate of Indian Blood or “CIB” as they say. This document is filled out by every Native parent that wants to enroll their Native child into a tribe. I was given enrollment number 4598, and officially accepted into the Jicarilla Apache tribe by the then council members of our tribe’s nation. ¾ Jicarilla Apache, the document read with ¼ other written alongside Navajo. “DeDios” is my last name, it also means “of God’” in Spanish. Jeanette of God, how ironic and fitting for me. Approved and recognized by both tribal and federal governments alike.  No other race has to prove to their governments how much Indian they are.

           I grew up learning these facts about myself. It was like a list of bullet points I had to remember.

           ●      Jeanette DeDios

           ●      Native American

           ●      ¾ Jicarilla Apache, ¼ Navajo

           My family moved from Dulce to Albuquerque before I was born. The only life I know is living in a city. My parents too would be considered “urban Indians” because they were raised off the reservation for a time before returning and then deciding to move to Albuquerque.

           When it came to my Native American culture, my parents would on occasion tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. We learned as much of our culture from them but it wasn’t much. The little we did learn were tales of omens; if we saw animals like owls and coyotes, it was said to be bad luck that could shorten our life. If we saw, touched, or ate bears and snakes, we were told we would get sick. Our parents would say we couldn’t face our beds to the west, because the dead lay that way. There were also times when our culture was used to ward off evil. If we had a bad dream, our mother would come in with ashes given to her from a medicine man and draw a cross on our foreheads. The ash-drawn cross was said to protect us from bad dreams. Why it was a cross? I don’t know, it just was. When asked why we couldn’t do certain things, we were given the same response, it’s against our culture.

           I grew up learning how society saw Native Americans through classic Western movies that stereotyped Native Americans as dark-skinned, with long black braided hair. Someone who hunts, fishes, and speaks their own Native language. Seeing that reflected from a television screen, I knew I couldn’t be farther from this depiction. I’ve never hunted, nor am I good at fishing and I don’t speak my language. I was often teased by my family of how light skinned I am and kept my hair rather short. I knew I was Native American— but was I?

           Growing up in the city is different then living on the reservation. On the reservation I would have been around mostly Native Americans, but in the city I grew up amongst different races, mainly white people. At first, this didn’t seem out of the norm. It wasn’t until I started questioning the world around me that I began to see things differently. It started when we lived in an apartment across the road from a church. Most of the time, I’d play outside the apartment complex with my toys, or ride up and down the road on my bike. Sometimes I’d simply gaze at the white building across from me with a bell on top and wonder. What was this building for? What did people do in there? Why was everyone dressed up so fancy?

           I began asking, pleading with my parents to take me there. I wanted to go to a service. I wanted to fit in with my friends and classmates that went to church on Sundays. Hearing them talk about it made me even more interested. I felt like an outcast, someone outside the circle. I needed to know what it was all about. One Sunday morning, I got my wish. My parents told my sisters to take me to the church so that I could see it first-hand. I was so excited, I didn’t ask why my parents didn’t come, or why my sisters were angry for taking me. All I cared about was finding out what lay behind those church doors.

           What I remember most is what I wore: a white dress with embroidered flowers on the frills. Wearing uncomfortable white tights that forced me to pinch my legs to get them to stay in the correct way. But it didn't matter, I was finally going to church. I wore my best dress-up shoes; they had a few scuffs, but still good enough to be worn. I sat on the carpeted floor while my mom braided my long hair into a braid. She would scold me and force my head in the direction she was braiding every time my head began to wander. She did the same to my sisters, as I waited for them to get ready. Then, we walked next door to the church, and I began to see a couple of people in the distance dressed in their Sunday best. I finally felt like I belonged because I too was dressed nice and could almost mirror them.

           When we walked in, a few people were seated in the pews that faced the front. I started to walk towards the front, when I was pulled to the back rows by my sisters. I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to get a better view; but I didn’t protest. I was surprised when I found books in a holder in front of us. I quickly grabbed one and opened it. The pages were very thin and I could make out only some of the words.

           “I wonder if we can keep these?” I said to my sisters.

           “Shhh! Put that down!” said one of my sisters.

           They glared at me and I moped because my sisters weren’t being enthusiastic. I put the book back and slumped down. We could hardly see anything from the back, as more, and more people arrived. The minister began to talk and, after a few moments, everyone stood up and began to repeat the same words. My sisters and I were confused. Everyone stood up and began chanting. It appeared strange seeing a group of people repeat the same passage word for word. I shrank back into my seat, hoping no one would see us so we wouldn’t get in trouble for not doing the same. People eventually sat down, and the minister talked again.

           As more time passed, I became restless, unable to walk around and look at everything foreign to me. The arches were so high that I felt tiny compared to the church. Sun shined through the colored, stained-glass windows and created rainbows. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the service. It ended and everyone got up. I was ready to run off to explore some more, when one of my sisters grabbed my arm. I tried to loosen her grip, but it was no use. My sisters hurried me to the door without a second thought, and we were outside as the sun blinded me.

           “Aren’t we gonna stay longer?” I asked.

           “What for?” said my oldest sister.

           “To talk to people and look around.”

           “Why? Do you want to be a white person?”

           “No!”

           “Yeah, you wanna be a white person and go to church!” said my other sister. “We can leave you here, and you can go live with someone else!”

           “NO!” I screamed and stomped home.

            I stopped asking questions, I was too afraid or ashamed that I would get teased again. We never talked about it.

           My sisters continued to tease me about the church incident, claiming I wanted to be a Christian, a white person. I hated the taunting, and it made me feel stupid to ever want to know about church at all. I was made to believe that I was going against my own religion by being curious of another. Growing up I could see the stark contrast between my family and others, we never went to a weekly place to worship. If we wanted to speak to God, or who we called the Great Spirit, we simply talked to him out loud or in our heads. We could talk to him anywhere or anytime about anything we wanted. Most of the time our parents would tell us to pray to him for good health and to keep us safe. And so we did.

           One of my fondest and most vivid memories happened when I was seven. My family had traveled back to Dulce to help with a relative’s traditional feast. A feast is a Jicarilla tradition performed in the summers for girls that reach puberty and transition from a girl to a woman. Each girl has their own feast lasting four days. During this time, the girl and a boy (known as a Brave) have food and drink restrictions as part of the ceremony to make them stronger later in life. They also perform rituals and prayers for themselves, each other, their families, and everyone who partakes in the feast to ensure good health and life for everyone. A medicine man guides and shows the girl and the Brave prayers and actions, to ensure that this ceremony is done right. If the prayers are done wrong, it could mean bad luck for both. This traditional ceremony is one of the few our tribe tries to keep alive.

           We arrive at the feast located on our reservation in the middle of the forest and stood near an array of tents, all labeled with Coleman or Ozark brands; the ceremonial tents were made out of cloth, wood and tree branches. As part of the ceremony, it’s required to feed people throughout the day. This represents kindness and giving to others and offers good luck to the girl in doing so. There are designated areas used for people to eat and for the girl’s family to cook. The customary dish for the ceremony is potato-and-meat soup with frybread and fruit punch. It is to the girl’s benefit that everyone who shows up be given a generous amount of food for free. No one is denied, even if they’re from a different race or culture.

           When we arrive, we eat. Afterwards, we meet up with the host family who cooks the food in the back. My parents chat with them and hours pass without hesitation. Then my dad changes the subject and asks if the medicine man is stretching kids today. I curiously turn my head in his direction as I see my relative nodding.

           “Yes, he’s in his tent now.”

           Stretching kids? What?

           My dad looks at me before saying to my mom, “Maybe we should take her over there. What do you think?”

           My mom agrees. I look at both of them in confusion and curiosity.

           “What is stretching?” I ask.

           “It’s when you go see the medicine man in his tent and he prays for you to grow taller, he’ll pull on your arms and legs,” my dad answers.

           “He can make me taller!” I say with excitement.

           “Yes, he can,” my dad says.

           “Okay let’s go see him!” I say excitedly, wanting to be magically taller.

           My parents continue to talk more before we walk to the medicine man’s tent. I’m beaming with excitement.

           “I want you to take this seriously, no laughing. If you want the medicine man to make you taller, you must be respectful and do what he says,” my mother says as we approach the tent.

           In our culture, respect for our ceremonies is important. If you mock it, the spiritual power won’t work. It could even backfire and send you bad luck. Knowing this, I nod in agreement. My father opens the flap of the tent and walks in to talk to the medicine man before gesturing me inside. The tent seems small on the outside, but as I walk in, it somehow seems to grow bigger in size. There’s a small fire but cooled down for the use of the ashes. I smell sage and the last of the smoke from the fire. I look up at the elderly man opposite me as my dad introduces him to me.

            “Hello,” I say awkwardly as I hold out my hand. He looks at me for a moment before a smile appears on his face.

           “It’s nice to meet you. Your dad has told me a lot about you,” he says as he shakes my hand.

           “I’ll be right outside, okay?” my dad says before heading outside. I simply nod.

           I am now left alone with the medicine man. As we sit opposite of each other, he starts to pray in our language, saying things I cannot understand. I take this as seriously as I can. I sit up straight and continue to pay attention to what he’s doing. He sings and begins to mix different clays that look like paint. Earth colors of red, tan, and brown are set in small bowls around him. He begins to mark my face, arms, and legs with clay. I sit still and close my eyes as he continues painting. I feel his fingers drag the clay around my face. He tells me to put my arms forward towards him. Then he grabs one of my arms and begins to stretch the limbs. It doesn’t hurt at first but the pain begins to grow. It soon becomes unbearable, and I feel like I’m about to yell out but I don’t. I want to be tall and strong, so I keep the pain to myself. It continues to hurt, but I do not yelp or cry. He speaks in Jicarilla as he moves on to my other arm and then to both of my legs. It is almost like a chant but all I hear are mumbles of language I don’t know. He does one last prayer, smiles at me one last time and tells me we are done. He motions to the exit and I walk out of the tent. I hope to myself that it worked.

           As I walked out of that tent, I felt something had changed, as the light of the day shined down on my face to greet me back to the world, I felt amazing. I felt like I could do anything. It felt like I was tingling from my head to my toes. It felt like I was walking on clouds, that I could run as far as I wanted without stopping, I felt like I was the healthiest person in the world and I never wanted this feeling to end. That feeling stayed with me but I didn’t magically grow taller that day. But I did gradually grow into the  5’ 11 woman I am now. Fully surpassing both my parents’ heights before I reached sixteen. My parents swear that I’m as tall as I am because I got stretched. It’s hard to deny what happened and even harder to describe how it felt. This was my first real experience with my culture. Everything that happened that day makes me a believer of my culture.

           Years later, I was seventeen and going to Europe for the first time, on my own, without my family. I joined a student program that would take students to England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and finally, a three-day homestay in Germany. The trip was better than anything I could have imagined. I felt lucky to be able to experience different cultures and places.

            At the same time, I still felt I had a sense of home with me, because I had befriended other Native American students that were on the trip with me. We came from different high schools around the state of New Mexico and never knew each other before then. But we soon became friends, this sense of kinship bonded us quickly. We didn’t know each other, but we were Native, and that was enough. We hung out all the time and soon were branded “the tribe” by the other students. Looking back at this, the term does seem offensive and I should have been more offended than I was but as a group it felt like we took the name and made it our own.

           It reminds me of the recent viral trend of how a news station was reporting on racial data and didn’t even bother identifying Native Americans in the statistics and instead saying the racial group was “something else.” There were many ways Native Americans could have reacted to this, the obvious being upset and angry. But like Native Americans often do, they find humor in it. So for months on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, there were an onslaught of memes about the “something else” comment where Native Americans were happy and joking to be “something else.”

            At the end of the trip, we were paired with a German family who agreed beforehand to take us in. I was paired with a German girl named Selena Sydow, who had a sister, Louisa Sydow. Katie, another girl from New Mexico who was white, was paired with Louisa, which I was thankful for because it meant I wasn’t going to be alone.

           I remember being unsure of how to interact with strangers and just tried to be as friendly as I could. The father, Klaus, spoke only some English, which left Katie and I to rely on speaking to Selena and Louisa primarily while they translated for their dad. We gathered all our luggage in the back of their car and we were off. I’ll never forget how stunned I was when Klaus merged into the interstate and completely floored it as the speed increased. Katie and I both looked at each other in shock and all I saw was the big grin Klaus made as he made a big turn to the left and then to the right as he moved along the winding road. Louise said something to Klaus in German and I turned to ask Selena what she said. She smiled and said, “she told him to stop showing off.” Unknown to Katie and I, there are no speed limits in Germany.

           The Sydow family were very accommodating. The first night, we ate out at one of their favorite restaurants that served bratwurst. We sat in a rounded booth with single dim lights overhead. Other patrons of the restaurant seemed to keep to themselves. We made small talk as best as we could before Klaus turned to us and asked.

           “So what religion do you practice?”

           I stopped eating and made eye contact with Katie. She too stopped eating and after a quick second of discovering I wasn’t going to speak first, glanced at Klaus and replied, “Christian.” Klaus smiled widely reacting to Katies’s response. They were also Christian. He looked at me and asked, “Oh, and what about you?”

           Between the time Klaus asked the question and when Katie replied, I was debating on what to say. Should I say I was Native American? Would they know what that meant? Would I have to go through the long conversation I’d had several times about this topic? Would they judge me if I declined not to say? Would they treat me differently if I were a different religion? All these questions swirled around my head. I looked around and everyone was staring at me, waiting for my reply.

           All I could hear was the inner me shouting:

           Say something idiot!

           SAY SOMETHING!

           “I’m Christian, too,” I spat out. I regretted it even before I finished saying it.

           Klaus smiled in approval.“That’s great! Then we will take you two to the church we go to tomorrow for service.”

           His smile caused a chain reaction amongst the Sydows. I gave a fake smile in response. I looked at Katie, who appeared surprised at my answer, but went back to her dinner.

           The next day, we rose bright and early. It was a gray and cloudy day that looked like it could rain at any given moment. It was gloomy, but it didn’t seem to affect Klaus, who talked a lot about the church and introduced us to his friends. I was nervous, because I had only been to church once before. The church was small and not as elaborate or decorative as the first church I went to. This church had normal windows and no towering arches. We took our seats and the service began. We were in Germany, so I couldn’t understand the pastor as he talked. People began to chant and repeat words, but this time I felt even more lost.

           This was my first time back in a church since I was a kid and unlike before, I didn’t feel excited—I felt more uncomfortable, and excluded. I sat there not knowing what to do or feel about what was happening. Towards the end of the service, they began passing around thin crackers and grape juice that represented bread and wine. I froze; I didn’t know what to do. It felt like I was experiencing my own slow death. I watched each person take both items in their hands. This didn’t feel right, what I was doing seemed wrong. I became a participant in this service and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I wanted to leave, to run out those church doors and never look back, but I couldn’t, my feet seemed chained to the floor. I could barely breathe and yet on the surface I was pretending everything was fine. It felt like I was joining a cult against my own will. Yet, it wasn’t against my will. I willingly said I was Christian, and now it was backfiring. Katie was to my left and received the cracker and drink first. I took my own cracker and drink from the tray and simply looked at it. What was I supposed to do with them? I gave Katie a look of confusion and fear as I asked, “What do I do with this?” She told me that I had to eat and drink it. So that’s what I did.

           As soon as the bread touched my tongue, I felt a sense of guilt in the pit of my gut. I washed it down with the juice, but what I really felt was shame rushing over me. What have I done? I could feel my eyes forming tears that fell from my face. I tried to remain calm so that others wouldn’t see my agony and pain growing within me. All I could think about were my ancestors. The ancestors who fought vigilantly against the foreign men who wanted to take their culture and land from them. The ones who never surrendered to the Spaniards, even though other Native American tribes did. All of their sacrifice, all of their pain, all of their loss was for nothing the moment I swallowed the bread and juice. As I sat there, I imagined my ancestors' lifeless bodies all slayed on a battlefield. Men, women, elders, children, and babies, burning teepees, and horses flashed in my mind. The lone survivor was the antagonist, the villain, the one responsible, me. My ancestors were slaughtered a second time. Except this time, it was by one of their own. 

           I was never the same after that and I was ashamed of what I did. I was a teenager trying to take the easy way out of an awkward situation. I held onto that guilt and didn’t tell anybody for the longest time. I was hoping that someday I would forget. That I didn’t need to tell anybody or that anybody needed to know. Who would tell them? Unfortunately that’s not how it works, at least not for me. It’s not like I was thinking about it every single day for years. But it would creep in from the back of my mind every once and awhile. And I would feel the pain, the regret, and the guilt, again.

           Through years of trying to make sense of this moment in my life, I’ve discovered there are times to laugh things off and there are times to speak up. I wish that I responded back to Klaus and said that I was Native American and when he looked back at me in confusion and asked what all that meant, I would patiently explain everything that makes me, me. But I didn’t and I can never change that. I hold this now as a lesson to never dim my light for anybody. To never pretend to be anything other than myself. I wish I would have told somebody sooner. But I feel that I needed that time to come to my own conclusions. Whether I did tell somebody and they told me all the things I wanted to hear like ‘it wasn’t my fault’ or that ‘I wasn’t a bad person.’” I doubt I would have believed them. I realized that the only person that can make me feel better and grant forgiveness, is me.

           I know now that I don’t need to prove to anyone how Native American I am.  This moment has taught me to be grateful of where I come from and to not easily conform to others expectations. Most importantly, it’s taught me how precious my culture is. Native Americans make up a little over one percent of the American population today. In my own tribe, we have a little over 5,000 members. I’ve realized how learning my culture is imperative to keeping our traditional practices alive.

           As a way to reconnect with my roots I’ve been researching on my own time books, videos and archives of Jicarilla Apaches history and culture. Anything that can bring me more information. Looking at archival photographs and seeing the faces of all that have come before me, makes me feel privileged to be a part of something bigger than me.

           I’ve also looked inward towards my family and am more mindful of what they have to say. In the past I would hear the same stories and only half listen. But now I make it my purpose  to listen when my father talks about our tribe anytime moments like this come up, mainly when we're driving from one place to another. Even going as far as recording him on my phone. He is one of only a few people I can learn traditional practices from.

           It wasn’t until I discovered my interest in writing that I was ready to face my demons. I was in college, taking my first creative writing class when that moment came back to me. I’m sure it wasn’t a teacher that proposed the question but I found myself asking what is the most traumatic moment in my life? Something that would turn heads? And that’s when I knew, it’s time to write my story.

           But what I discovered that I didn’t expect was how ready I was to tell my story. Writers, especially nonfiction writers are always met with that question of Why would you want to write something like that? Especially something so personal? To be honest, I couldn’t stop myself from writing. I kept gravitating towards it. This moment took too much of myself and was living within me for too long. Once I wrote it, it felt so freeing. I was finally able to release it, to let it go. It now lives in the pages and not within me.