I am visiting my Native homelands, just me and my dad for the first time I could remember in forever. We get one weekend in the business of my junior year and we are filling it to the brim. I'm in awe as I finish walking up the hill. My eyes almost can't take it all in as I stare across the horizon. There is the green of freshly cut grass all around us and the green of a forest of pine trees as far as the eye can see, but then the green cuts off and a gray horizon of mist and clouds fills my eyesight. Patches of water from the massive river start blending with the land covered in a foggy haze and the gray sky filled with clouds. I finally bring my eyes to what's right in front of me at the end of the stone path and right at the top of this massive hill. The long stretch of wood that stands high above my head is familiar as I usually know it to be floating through the water taking people where they need to go. But here it's stationary and raised up by four concrete pillars covered in red detailing. One image in red has many points jutting out to look like a giant leaf is pressed up against the concrete. Another looks like a long legged human-like figure standing tall and proud, almost as if he is guarding the structure from anyone who dares do it harm. As I walk up to the canoe suspended in air I see the rock the size of the wagon that used to push us around as kids, underneath it in the middle of the pillars. Unlike the canoe structure it is simple with only one small word carved into its front, Comcomly. The name of our great chief, the one that is recognized in history as a “befriender of Lewis and Clark,” the one that I am a descendent of. This monument at the top of Coxcomb Hill is in his honor, it is a replica of his burial canoe.
—
Tala Powis Parker is who I want to be when I grow up. Somehow friends with everyone you pass on the street, she will make friends with the people sitting next to you on a bus within a few minutes of sitting there. Her social battery charges mine and shows me it’s not that bad to get out of my comfort zone sometimes. Traveling from one place to the next, from archery to rock climbing, she is proof that I can do anything as long as I want it. Standing tall on her own, her friendship means even more because you know that she doesn’t need you but wants to be in your company. She is the friend that will tell the waiter that my food is wrong when I don’t want to. She makes me want to be better in every way; to be more independent and outgoing. Her Indigenous identity story is unique to her, but still parallels mine more than I ever expected.
—
The gloomy weather feels fitting for this moment staring at the memorial site of my
ancestor. I think about the sticker on my laptop that reads “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.” Am I? I haven’t been to this place before. Despite being his descendant and knowing how important he was, and is, to our people, I can count the number of times that I have been to my Native homelands on one hand. I think about the storytelling ceremony that my dad and I are going to tomorrow and how I’m supposed to be a part of the young generation that is learning how to continue the important things to our people. But here I am, claiming to be Native to my college applications, to my ancestors, to myself, and I can barely get out here for one weekend of the year.
On the drive from the hotel the next day I was starting to get antsy; rain pelted our windshield as the sky stewed gray and angry all around us. The town was quiet because of the angry sky. We struggled to find more than a few brave people roaming the streets, but it didn't matter, we were driving straight through anyway. I watched as the gloomy buildings started melting away into trees, just a few at first and then all at once. The same long brown cylinders that I had seen moments ago, laying horizontal, stacked on top of each other waiting to be loaded on a boat were now standing vertically tall and strong for as far as my eyes could see, but this time with leaves on top, growing towards the sun and roots on the bottom grounding them in the earth. Every once in a while the trees would melt into small structures with four walls and a roof that looked like they were about to collapse under the weight of the rain. The houses were speckled throughout the towering giants, isolating one neighbor from the other, creating an outline of a community almost like a dot to dot picture with the trees filling in the space. My dad talks aimlessly about our family owning some small size of land somewhere around here, but my dad hasn’t been here in years either; he is as foreign as I am.
—
Olivia Leilani Panarella is me if I had grown up in Missoula, Montana and had been born
with the makeup skills of a professional and the photography skills of an artist. She is grounded in her Chinese and Hawaiian identities and is the most amazing lawyer-to-be, making her the worst nightmare of anyone who dares be politically incorrect around her. Her sisterly instincts will have her dropping anything and everything for you even when you don't ask but just need someone to be there. Her energy is truly infectious making everyone in the room feel like they are important and that they belong, and her hugs never fail to make me smile. As my more outgoing twin she never fails to be the coolest person I know. Her Indigenous identity story is unique to her, but still parallels mine more than I ever expected.
—
My dad and I were driving to Fort Columbia, a historic landmark site in Washington state that we had to rent out to have this ceremony because the Chinook Nation has no land of our own, for the Chinook Nation’s April meeting and annual storytelling ceremony this year. The Chinook Nation only owns one main building and it is a house converted into a reception and
logistics office and so ceremonies like this have to be moved around every month depending on what we can afford and what is available. A community that has no physical place for gathering is just a collection of people that have something in common. The roots of a community are built and tied to people gathering together in one place and forming connections with one another. How are people like me and my dad, who now live miles away from here, supposed to come and visit if we didn’t have a place to call home here? I felt like a stranger in these trees, in the place called Chinook Point that had my last name everywhere; I felt like I was trespassing. But driving up to Fort Columbia I looked at the history sign detailing the significance of this place: “Here was the home of the Chinook Indians and their great chief, Comcomly.” We “were” not here but are and I feel a twinge of pride as I prove the sign wrong by driving up to this building. I think that I have never felt closer to my ancestors as Comcomly’s name stands proud behind me and I prove that this continues to be the home of the Chinook Indians and that we are still here. One of those ancestors being my grandpa, my father’s father, who passed when I was 7. Who is the only family member that I have met who was born here. Who used to take his kids here all the time, at least once a year, so much that my dad can’t eat salmon to this day because he is so sick of it from his trips here as a kid. I wonder if he ever felt this empowered, rebellious feeling that I am experiencing right now in this place while he was visiting here with his dad. Or if he knew that he belonged here in the first place and never questioned it like I did. I think about how I wish I could’ve visited here with my grandpa and had my own personal storytelling ceremony from his oral histories and his experiences. But I know that he is here with me and my dad and Comcomly and all my other ancestors today as I finally hear about my people in our home.
—
Brentley Storm Sandlin, she is my soulmate in every way imaginable. Our beings are matched and our energies balance each other. I felt like I knew her before I even met her because we are like sisters to each other. She truly is what can only be described as one of a kind. We are each other’s rock, but she has helped me more than I could ever express to her, in a way that makes my help to her pale in comparison. We're alike in our overly caring nature and fierce protection of others but she is also so much more than me. Her eyes always look at you like a mother as they do with her younger siblings who consider her like a mother. Her hands guide you like they are old and wrinkly, filled with experience and yet they are the least wrinkly of us all. Her heart shines through with love even though it has had more weight on it than I can even imagine. She is the best parts of all of us all wrapped into one. Her Indigenous identity story is unique to her, but still parallels mine more than I ever expected.
—
I couldn’t stop thinking about that trip to the storytelling ceremony with my dad when I
first arrived at Stanford. My dad had somehow convinced me to sign up for the Native pre-orientation program meaning that I would be spending a week with the most “Native” Natives there were coming into my class. The people who grew up and lived on their reservations, who spoke their Native languages, who actually phenotypically looked Native.
The program had asked me to bring a culturally significant item with me so that I could share it with the group while we were there. I brought a book, specifically a book about the Chinook Peoples that my dad had given to me before our trip to the storytelling ceremony so that I could learn more about our culture. I didn’t even have a significant item that I could bring other than the book I had used to learn about my own lands and peoples as an outsider looking in. I was terrified I would be called out as a fraud, for not being “Native enough” to attend the program or call myself Native.
When it came time to share the object we had chosen to bring, in the middle of the woods, surrounded by strangers at the beginning of this program, my heart was pounding. My palms were sweaty and I was running through what I was going to say when the circle got to me. But once I started listening to the other people going around in the circle I heard stories that I wasn’t expecting to hear, stories that were similar to mine.
—
Tala tells me about the first time she went to a powwow on her reservation. She was 17
and it wasn’t her first powwow by any means; her mom had made sure they were active in the Bay Area Native community as Berkeley residents, but it was her first one in Shinnecock. The place where her mom had grown up and that she was now visiting for the first time. Her mom had been asked to take pictures professionally at the event and so when they got there they went in together through the back entrance to set up. She was being introduced to her mom’s friends and people in the community and she was feeling welcomed in this place that was so foreign to her. But then her mom asked her to grab something from the car that they had forgotten. When she went to return through the gate they had both used before, the elder sitting at the gate stopped her, he told her that this entrance was for powwow staff and Shinnecock community members only. She became flustered, describing a feeling that I know all too well, “I’m so white presenting, I’m not a part of this community, I haven’t grown up here, so people don’t really know my experience and my identity and that I’m a part of the Shinnecock tribe.” She didn’t know how to tell this elder that she was a part of the community, if she even counted as being a part of the community because she didn’t grow up there. It was all her worst insecurities about being disconnected to this place and this community coming to life in front of her eyes. She tried to murmur something of an explanation but just trailed off and ran inside without saying anything, like a little kid does when they want to find their mom.
—
I step inside the building in Fort Columbia that is hosting all the Chinook people feeling
overwhelmed and out of place. There are people getting plates of food, talking, laughing and I know none of them. The connection I had felt to my ancestors moments ago left me quickly. My dad and I get food and we see one familiar face, the chairman Tony Johnson. I only know him through email and pictures, but my dad has met him in person before and so he introduces us to some of the other people. Everyone is friendly and welcoming, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to seem clueless about our culture and our customs even though I am, and so I choose to not talk at all and just observe. I watch awkwardly from the side as I see this tight knit community in front of me, feeling like an outsider looking in. There is no peace in being with “my people” and “my community,” only anxiety. Anxiety of doing something wrong, saying something wrong, not knowing how to do or say something. I can feel all the people staring at me, wondering who this new outsider is, “she doesn’t even look Native” is what they’re thinking to themselves as I help myself to their food and take up space in their gathering.
—
Out of all of us Liv has spent the most time in her Native homelands throughout her life.
Visits to their family home happened at least once a year, if not more, with her family and her grandma in the small town of Laupahoehoe where her grandma is from. She tells me about one of her many visits to Hawaii, a summer spent volunteering for the cultural museum in a small town called Honokaa. She worked as an archivist where a big part of her job was to record the stories of their kupuna (elders) to add to the library they had. One of her interviews that summer was with a much older woman who knew Liv’s grandma so she was expecting an easy and not awkward interaction. However, while telling Liv about her life story and about growing up in Hawaii she paused and said “Oh ya it’s crazy you would never guess that you are Hawaiian, nobody would ever be able to tell that you are Hawaiian. It’s the way that you act and the way that you speak, you just aren’t Hawaiian Hawaiian, not like your grandma, probably because you didn’t grow up here.” An interaction like this sticks with a person weaving doubts into their every action. It leaves a person thinking “regardless of how often I visit or how much time I’ve spent there I will never be a local. I’ll never fully know the ways of my people and our protocol no matter how much I try to learn.”
—
I suffer through the most awkward dinner of my life, mingling with people, but mainly
clinging to my dad’s side the whole time and then finally it is time for what we came here for, the monthly April meeting followed by the storytelling ceremony. He is in his element, as a kid he would make the long 19 hour drive with his family up here to attend the monthly meetings as much as they could. He has told my siblings and I stories of how he would get to sit inside and vote on all the important items of business because he is a registered member of the Chinook Nation, while my grandma, his mom, would have to sit outside in a different room because he married and and wasn’t Chinook by blood. I thought about those stories as I sat waiting to finally become an official member of the tribe that I have always been told I was a member of. The Chinook Nation had recently instituted a rule that in order to be officially enrolled as a member of our tribe, you had to come to one meeting in person to pick up your card, and this was the month that my dad and I had picked. When it came time in the meeting for me to get my tribal membership card I saw the smiling faces around the room and the sense of discomfort left me. I could tell that these people were excited to welcome me to the community and that I truly had a place here no matter where I grew up. Their genuine smiles, cheers, and words of congratulations as I walked up to get my official letter and tribal card made it feel like I was surrounded by family. I felt more at home in this room full of strangers and by the time that the meeting concluded and the storytelling part started I could feel the connection that our ancestors were bringing us together. I was able to see that idea of community through time and distance, not tied to a physical location, but a group of people when I listened to my people’s stories on the land where my ancestors once stood.
—
Brentley had heard of Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, all her life. She and
her three older siblings always heard about this great place that was important to Cherokee Nation and her family specifically because her grandmother had grown up around there, but she only ever got to see it as an infant. That is until she was 14 and she was finally finishing the paperwork to get her and her sister legally registered as a member of Cherokee Nation. She was excited about finally being able to visit this famous place that all her older siblings had memories of except for her. But when they got there it was nothing. There was one laundromat, City Hall, a museum, and a gift shop, and it was in the middle of nowhere. She was expecting this extremely cool town full of Native peoples and yes there were a lot of Native peoples, but they were surrounded by rural white towns and so Tahlequah was nothing like how Brentley had imagined it. But they had gone there for their official Cherokee Nation cards and so when they went into the office Brentley tells me about how they were surrounded by all phenotypically presenting Native people and here she was with her dad and her sister who all looked extremely white. She felt so out of place, she felt like people were staring at her wondering what she was doing there. “I had this feeling of, what am I doing here? I had insecurities because I didn’t look how I thought I was supposed to look. I couldn’t even sign my name on my official tribal card because I wasn’t 18. How was I supposed to claim this identity at all?”
—
[Author Emily and her dad in front of the Comcomly memorial as described earlier]
When I think of stories and myths surrounding my Indigenous homelands there are too many for me to be able to name off the top of my head, but none of them are my own. They “belong” to my entire community who have passed them down for generations, they belong to the lands that they speak of in their stories, the lands I’m visiting with my dad. These are the stories that tell of our origins and of the lands we call home and how they came to be. But I don't personally call any of these lands “home,” not in the traditional definition that everybody thinks of when someone says “home.” I have never lived in the place my ancestors call home, I haven't even spent a substantial amount of time in the place my ancestors call home. My direct family members no longer live here and I don't have an easy way to get back to the place my ancestors call home. And yet, these lands are still my home though my ancestors and the stories that they share with us about these same lands just in a different time. I still know of how Willamette Falls was created by Coyote to catch the salmon and how Thunderbird laid eggs at the top of Saddleback Mountain that hatched to create the first Chinook people. Our myths of this place are the reason we all call it home no matter where we have physically had a roof and a bed. These stories carry our connection to the land through time and across borders making our community whole no matter how far we physically span. This is why I finally felt at home in the place my ancestors call home when I came for the storytelling ceremony on that rainy day in April.
[Tala Parker and her mom on one of their many trips for her moms photography]
Tala met that elder again as she and her mom were leaving the powwow. He saw her with her mom and said “Oh, you’re the photographer’s daughter! It’s so nice that you came all the way out here, thank you so much for coming out.” She realized that he didn’t actually change how he acted to her, it was just that he had a better opportunity to learn more about how she fit in. “I had to realize that I was always welcome, I had to take that on to myself to say that I belong instead of being really insecure about that because at the end of the day no one else can decide my identity for me.”
[Liv Panarella and her grandma on one of their many trips to Hawaii]
Liv’s experience of being told that she isn’t “Hawaiian enough” never stopped her from claiming her identity but it did make her realize that these small gut punches of call outs and doubts from other people would never stop and she would just have to learn to block them out. She remains knowing that she is enough and will always have her place as a Native Hawaiian regardless of where she lives.
[Brentley Sandlin and her older sister with their Cherokee tribal cards right after they got them]
Brentley and her sister stopped at one other place in Tahlequah and that was the official Cherokee Nation gift shop to buy their first pair of professionally made earrings. She remembers that the woman behind the desk asked if they were members of the Cherokee Nation because they got a discount, and at that point they had just gotten their brand new cards to prove it. All of a sudden the woman is asking them where their family is from and they start talking about towns around them where they have had family members live, and Brentley finds that she has been a part of this community all along. She remembers feeling more at peace after their conversation as it was her first one with someone from Tahlequah and they said how they get a lot of people from out of town who aren’t from here, but that this place will always be their ancestral home no matter what. It was a huge eye opening experience for Brentley about her tribal community and also about the expectations she had of her homelands versus what it was.
—
In an alignment of the stars, or maybe just lucky chance Brentley, Tala, Olivia and I all decided to go to Stanford and attend the Native pre-orientation program. Even without these specific trips to our homelands being shared with each other in words, we had formed a bond that didn’t need to be validated by those stories. Through our displacement from and disconnection with our ancestral homelands we found community in one we built, in a place we all choose to be.
—
[All four of the friends during their Native pre-orientation program to Stanford]