Our acumen of Native Americans needs to change
By Erika T. Wurth
Courtesy of author
Erika Wurth
Albuquerque has a complicated accord with Native Americans. It's a burghal area tourists and association will watch what is accounted acceptable Native American culture, such as dancing or feasts on adjoining reservations. But it's additionally a abode where, back I aboriginal confused into my studio, my lovely, abundantly affectionate acquaintance whom I'd befriended told me that the alone Native Americans she knew besides me were the ones she saw on anxiety or the ones she saw on the artery who were bashed and homeless. She said this afterwards any acerbity whatsoever and admitting the actuality that we were sitting in a restaurant amidst by Natives who were neither drunk, nor homeless.
It's aberrant how some association in Albuquerque see Natives in general, abnormally back you accede how abounding of us are not homeless, no added bashed than anyone abroad and not active on reservations.
As a biographer who writes about abandoned Native people, it's important to me to accumulate them visible. At the aforementioned time, it's abominable to see how single-faceted the acumen of Natives in our boondocks is.
A cardinal of years ago, I took a cab ride with a man who already lived in Albuquerque. Back I mentioned that I currently lived there, he began angrily advertisement all the times he had apparent Natives bashed Downtown and how he anticipation the acumen it was blocked off on the weekends was because of them. It was adamantine to accept his acumen back there were so abounding added explanations.
My lovely, abundantly affectionate acquaintance whom I'd befriended told me that the alone Native Americans she knew besides me were the ones she saw on anxiety or the ones she saw on the artery who were bashed and homeless. She said this afterwards any acerbity whatsoever and admitting the actuality that we were sitting in a restaurant amidst by Natives who were neither drunk, nor homeless.
What can be said about drunk, abandoned Natives? Because we all apperceive they exist, and they abide in a lot of places. One affair we can say is that they're actuality baffled to death. Recently two abandoned Navajo men who were agilely absorbed their own business were dead in Albuquerque by a brace of teenagers who accept back been appear to accept attacked added than 50 abandoned people. And the way these men were dead was absolutely brutal. A third man thankfully got away, and the teenagers are continuing trial. But this affectionate of affair is not a abruptness back you accede that the commonplace activity for Natives in Albuquerque is that they are bashed and homeless, and accordingly a botheration and a scapegoat.
I asked Beverly Singer, a assistant in Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico, about this issue. Her annoyance was agnate to mine: "[Albuquerque] is amidst by the Native Pueblo communities, but there's little to no appointment or aggregate interests amid non-Native association of Albuquerque with Natives. ... What is so aberrant about Albuquerque is that it is a affair abode for abundant above Native American organizations such as IHS and NCAI and added forums. Then of advance the burghal allowances awfully from the bigger Powwow, Gathering of Nations, back over 30,000 Natives appear to bless and ample up the UNM Pit Arena to ball and be together, as it brings in millions in acquirement for the city. The boilerplate aborigine of Albuquerque does not partake, and I anticipate they act like it's aloof an Indian thing."
What I acutely adulation about Albuquerque is that because of the surrounding Pueblos, the not-so-distant Navajo catch and because abounding Natives like myself accept appear actuality to do art of assorted kinds, there are abounding opportunities to collaborate with abreast Native artists. I accept encountered abounding non-Natives who are allotment of this scene, who acknowledge and facilitate it, like Diahndra Grill, whose JustWrite affairs runs workshops in prisons for association with an absorption in poetry, including abounding Native American people. Or take, for example, Don McIver whose "Sunday Chatter" affairs ties music to the accounting chat and has hosted abounding a Native biographer including myself.
What troubles me is that alfresco the arts scene, some association in Albuquerque abide to apperceive that the "good" Natives, who do nice, acutely Native things from a safe distance, are on the reservation, while the "bad" Natives are the ones active on the streets in the city, drinking. What's missing from this acumen are absolute Natives, bodies who go out for a few glasses of wine with their accompany or maybe accept a quiet beer or two by their television afterwards work; the ones alive appropriate by you in your appointment or architecture armpit or active over their abutting atypical or benumbed on the bus abutting to the day-tripper who is busily belief the advertisement on Native American dancing and planning her cruise to the abutting Pueblo. These bodies alive on reservations, and they additionally alive off of them.
Recently I took a cruise to Santa Fe with addition writer. It was apricot because I was abrogation Albuquerque yet again, and this was a goodbye of sorts. My acquaintance and I went on the Rail Runner. There was me, a mixed-Native person, a few Navajo people, Latinos, a brace of Pueblos and assorted added New Mexico association all sitting calm and mainly staring at our smartphones. The chat multicultural is one I generally acquisition abominable and inadequate. But it's article that institutions, communities and generally absolute nations strive for. And would it aching if Albuquerque and its association formed a little harder against it too? If association were accommodating to say, you know, actually, you're wrong, friend-of-mine-who-just-made-a-generalizing-statement: There are Native bodies in this burghal and afar areas of all kinds, not aloof the ones you see dancing during barbecue days, not aloof the ones you see on Central. And those bodies dancing at the Puebl o or active on Central accept lives alfresco of those roles too. They are people. Overall, this burghal is multicultural. We aloof accept to do a bigger job of acquainted it.
That day on the train, I anticipation a little bit about the city, about the abandon that occurs there, about the beauty. And as we were dispatch up against Santa Fe, we chock-full at one of the Pueblos, and the aqueduct asked for the cartage to amuse account the bodies on the reservations. And I teared up because there is not one added abode on Earth that I would apprehend this. Not one.
Erika T. Wurth's novel, Crazy Horse's Girlfriend, was appear by Curbside Splendor in September. She teaches artistic autograph at Western Illinois University. She was aloft appropriate alfresco of Denver and is Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee.