Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (21 page)

I was taken aback as I learned that my roommate was messier than I was; she claimed she had always been that way. How could her parents tolerate that? Didn’t they worry that she would never find a good husband? As I opened up to her, I was stunned by everything she shared about herself. She had never had to clean her brother’s room. “He does that his damned self,” she said, a bit surprised that I had thought that she had ever waited on him. Also, she had never cooked in her life. She probably couldn’t even tell you how to boil water, yet she wasn’t ashamed.

Slowly I fell in love with America. Sometimes I would hang out with the boys, just so I could say “No” to them. Whenever I felt really bold, I’d say, “Do it your damned self,” just like my roommate. Once, I cooked an African meal for some of my American friends. I didn’t make anything complicated, simply because I didn’t want to generate too many dirty dishes. I wasn’t sure I could handle the same loads as I used to in Nigeria. To my surprise, however, one of the boys offered to do the dishes when we were done eating. I paused and then said, with my accent, “Yeah, do it your damned self!” He thought that was funny and so we laughed about it.

Gradually I found myself saying and doing things I wouldn’t have dared to in the past, in West Africa. I finally felt light and free. I was able to focus on my studies without needing to rush home and cook lunch. I now had “leisure” time to sit around and chat with people from all over the world. I could sleep in longer, and I could experience “idle” moments when I simply did nothing. I could make boys clean after themselves, and I could do it with authority. And sometimes, just to be cheeky, I would even make them clean up after me. I really loved this new life that I was allowed to live.

Whenever I returned home for the holidays, I always underwent psychological conflicts within myself. My family had missed my cooking. They missed me too, however they had also missed my services. After two semesters of being my own master, I had to readjust to being the passive daughter they had been used to in previous years. Once, I told a cousin to do something “his damned self.” I was very frustrated. It wasn’t easy reassuming my domestic role, especially after a whole year of retirement. He was livid. Before long, the rest of the family clamored around me, inquiring about what possessed me to say something like that. I remained quiet and listened to them answer the question for themselves: “She’s gone to America, and now she has forgotten about her heritage.” “Why did they send her there? Now look at what she is becoming.” “She thinks she is American.” My father returned home from work and, of course, I was spoken to sternly. I was never to repeat that behavior again.

But had America really changed me? I vehemently oppose that theory. It is true that as I progressed through college, my relationship with my family clearly experienced a metamorphosis. Although I was still respectful of my elders, I gradually became less restrained in expressing my true sentiments in various situations. I no longer followed orders passively as I had in the past, and little by little, I acquired the audacity to question them. Of course, I didn’t always have my way, but at least I made it known that I was not always happy with the kind of life that they felt was right for me. This perceived impudence was not always welcomed, and I was repeatedly accused of disregarding my homeland’s traditions and thinking that I was now an American.

But my theory is that America introduced me to Me. Growing up, I had numbed myself to the dissatisfactions I felt in a society that favored boys. My only option was to conform, so I brainwashed myself into thinking that I was happy. That was the only way I knew to keep a level head. I lived an emotionally uncomfortable life plagued with internal conflicts. It was always my reflex to suppress my true opinions on the gender inequalities for the fear of reproach from a conservative society that I loved more than myself. Each time I felt violated because one of the boys was being treated like a first-class citizen at my expense, a voice inside me affirmed that I was being treated unjustly, but I would dismiss it as the voice of a wayward extremist. America helped me realize that all that time, I had been dismissing myself, choosing instead to embrace the beliefs of a society that taught me that I was inferior to my male counterparts. American society was conducive to nurturing that part of me that didn’t believe that I was weaker by virtue of my gender. America didn’t change me, but rather it simply allowed me to discover myself.

As I continued to enjoy this growing sense of empowerment, I became acquainted with American feminism. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it. It surprised me that any American woman could be discontent with the gender conditions of the same country I credited for liberating me. America felt like the Promised Land, and I wondered what else an American feminist could want. In my patriarchal background, women were considered the property of the male breadwinner. My aunt’s husband, for instance, would use her as a punching bag without compunction after say, a stressful day at work. As a young woman I choked on these realities; my hands were tied when it came to protesting how my uncle handled my aunt, whom he considered his “property.” At least in the United States my aunt could have been shielded from battery since her husband might have feared the threat of arrest. Thus, from my first perspective, America was surely the feminist’s paradise.

It was interesting to learn later that many years ago, America’s situation was quite similar to the current one in my natal country. I find this encouraging since it indicates that my people may one day embrace some of the values I now enjoy in America. Therefore, I do support the feminist and womanist movements in the United States, simply because these were forces that drove the change in America. I may eventually participate in the U.S. feminist struggles; perhaps I will gain some insight into what it would take to effect change in my country. For now, however, I am still living my American dream. I am so addicted to the freedoms I have enjoyed here, and I hope I can keep them, irrespective of the country in which I finally decide to settle down.

 

Today I am an independent woman working in the United States. I am very happy with my life, and I feel more fulfilled than I ever have. Occasionally, however, I find myself missing home. There are many aspects of the Nigerian society, besides the gender inequalities, that I failed to appreciate until I came to America. I miss the Nigerian sense of community; the security of knowing that I can depend on my next-door neighbor to worry if she doesn’t see me for several days. Here in the United States, my neighbor of two years still isn’t sure whether or not I have children. Come to think of it, we don’t even know each other’s names. I also miss Nigerian food, the obstinate devotion to family, and the festive celebrations. I miss home. However, irrespective of how nostalgic I get, I know deep inside that America is the best option for me right now. I have deviated so much from my childhood’s domestic and subservient lifestyle that I don’t think it will ever be possible for me to adopt it again. The only way I could return to that life would be to erase the past six years I spent in America. Without those years I would never have tasted the sweet wine of independence that has gotten me drunk and addicted today.

I think that my family is gradually coming to terms with the person that I have become. I wouldn’t say that my relatives are thrilled, but they recognize the futility of compelling me to marry a man from my community who is attached to its “good wife” values. They know that I will probably tell him to do his cooking and laundry his damned self, just like I have already told some members of my family to date. However, I wouldn’t necessarily conclude that an American would make the perfect companion for me either, since he may not embody the Nigerian values that I love and miss.

It is difficult to predict what the future holds for me, since I am very much in the middle of the two worlds that have molded me into who I am today. I have decided that I will go anywhere destiny takes me, provided that I have primary control over my life and that my opinions count, despite my gender. Anything less would not be a life for me. I have worked and struggled very hard to become the intelligent, independent and strong woman that I am today. I absolutely cannot ignore all that I have endured and achieved by settling for as passive life as Adam’s Rib. Some may choose to call me a rebel, but I am simply a woman searching for a happier life. One in which I am allowed to love myself, and not sacrifice that love in favor of a society’s values.

 

 

Kahente Horn-Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a Kanienkehaka—the English call us Mohawks—I was raised within the Longhouse tradition. I live in the community of Kahnawake and I am now a mother of two girls. As my daughters get older, I see and feel their enthusiasm for life and all that it has to offer them. They do not know yet of the challenges they will experience. I think of all those things I must try to protect them from, or rather, teach them about so they can have the chance to make up their own minds. Little do they know of what the world is like in all its diversity. I struggle with it myself. I am a student—of life in general and now formally enrolled in the institutions of the culture that colonized my ancestors—working for a master’s degree in anthropology. I am training in ethnography, and as I worked on one account of my community, I came to understand the dynamics within and surrounding the social problems young people here face. This is my story.

It began in September 1997, when a local thirteen-year-old girl attempted suicide. This woke up many people in the community. I—along with other mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers and grandparents—was compelled to think about the future and what it offers young children such as my daughter (my second daughter had yet to join us). The suicide attempt made people look closely at their children, as they tried to decipher the messages the kids were communicating through their actions. Drugs and alcohol are not new to any indigenous community, including Kahnawake. This young girl’s action forced a response, however. The initial question that everyone asked was: “How do we begin to combat this problem?” This appeared daunting, so the question changed to: “How do we get the energy to start?”

One woman in the Longhouse community—the keepers of our traditional ways—looked through the “Warrior’s Handbook,” written by Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall. She hoped it might give some direction. Karoniaktajeh, who passed away in 1993, is considered the philosophical father of the Rotiskenrakete, the Warrior Society. He was instrumental in revitalizing Kanienkehaka spirit and identity through his writings and paintings. In his book she found this passage:

 

The idea of having a War Dance (known as the Wasase) seemed like a good way to start. She approached others in the Longhouse with this idea. Her suggestion was met with a positive response, so the process of planning the Wasase began. I was part of this planning process. I wanted to be involved in this movement to provide a future for my daughter and the youth of our community. The Wasase was set to take place on the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, Canada, in October 1997, but during the preliminary stages some people began to question the women’s participation. As women, we wanted our roles more clearly defined. We could not see ourselves as merely providing support for the men during the ceremony, which meant remaining outside the Longhouse. This was our battle too. The survival of our children, our sisters, our brothers—we were fighting for our community. We wanted to dance.

And so it was decided that this issue needed to be brought before the participants in the Wasase ceremony. We would decide together what the best solution was. On the day of the event, we met. It became obvious that reactions were all over the place. We young women were adamant about our right to dance. We felt justified about what we were doing. A few of the older women supported us. But others insisted that the women’s role was to stand on the side and provide moral support for the men. The men listened. It wasn’t really about them, and in our tradition men do not impose their ideas on women. They shared what they knew about the history, the meaning and the past uses of the Wasase ceremony, but none of them got up to pass an opinion one way or the other. This was our issue.

As is the way in our traditional decision-making process, we threw in our opinions and our personal experiences. As people listened to our stories about drugs and alcohol and the other problems that confronted us, we began to convince everybody of our honesty and sincerity. Eventually the other women saw what we saw—that as mothers, sisters, daughters and community members, we had a legitimate and powerful role to play in this war that we were fighting. We had proven our case. They understood! We did it! We were going to participate!

Suddenly, everyone awoke to the realization that we had come to one mind, we had reached consensus, without anyone formally announcing the decision. Our voices had been acknowledged. The energy in the Longhouse began to increase as the men and women stretched their legs after such a long day. The time for deliberation was over. People talked about dinner, the kids, who needed a ride, and they gathered their stuff to leave the Longhouse and prepare for the dance. As I left, I realized this was the first time I had ever felt the full power of the Kaienerekowa, our Great Law of Peace, in action as my mother had described it to me. Knowing and seeing are two different things, especially where the Kaienerekowa is concerned. Anyone who does a bit of reading or listening can understand it as a governing philosophy, but you cannot fully comprehend its power and the role that our women play until you participate. This was the first time that I had ever felt the strength of the Kaienerekowa at work. And I carry this with me now—an image of the sun shining through the Longhouse windows on our people, the memory of our energy on that late afternoon as new life came into our old traditions. The women of my nation stepped onto the warpath of greater empowerment for all Onkwehonwe.

We were going to dance.

 

I am a strong Kanienkehaka woman, but I do not consider myself a feminist. Even though many of the early American feminists were inspired by my culture, my experience has been very different from that of women in the dominant society and I don’t purport to understand feminist theory. But I do understand the Kaienerekowa. As a young girl, I was taught by my mother to question everything. This feeds the anthropologist in me, but it is also a key to our traditional culture. We are taught to take nothing at face value. We have to listen to what the natural world is telling us and take the time to understand it, including our roles as women in the natural order of things. We know that if we don’t do this, our people won’t survive. Everything must be considered, everything is linked. We must think for seven generations to come.

I realize now just how much this has become part of my nature. I must understand things at a deeper level, otherwise I don’t feel complete. But, because of my unique position, my identity constantly shifts between scholar and participant, between my duties in Kanienkehaka society and the externally defined field of Iroquois studies. Sometimes it is hard to maintain a clear focus on what I am doing as a researcher; however, my experience is the lens through which you are looking now. As I describe the world I see, I become a role model, challenging the abusive image of the squaw, changing attitudes, empowering my people so they can appreciate and be appreciated.

After the Wasase ceremony was over and I sat in front of my computer screen, I thought back to the discussion in the Longhouse. I knew that some of the women felt that it was just “not right” to dance with the men. They compared it to letting men join the Women’s Dance. But what did this mean? As women, couldn’t they see that we too have an important role to play in the particular kind of warfare we were engaged in? I thought that perhaps they were not sensitive to our current situation of being surrounded by the colonizer’s society. But perhaps I was just being patronizing to think this way, not giving them the full credit they deserve as “survivors” of a sort. Perhaps the women who objected to our participation just did not know how to reconcile dancing in the Wasase with their traditional roles as they understood them.

What is our culture? And what is adaptation? At first I felt frustrated, for what seemed clear to me was in actuality not so neatly defined. As I asked myself these questions, I decided to look back into the history of the War Dance and of my people to figure out what had brought us to the current debate. In doing so, I realized that this aspect of history needed to be understood and rewritten from a Kanienkehaka woman’s point of view. Below are some of my reflections.

For us, performing the Wasase was a means of strengthening us to fight a metaphoric war against drugs, alcohol abuse and the increasing number of suicide attempts in our community. The Wasase is a ceremony that we adopted from the Sioux more than two hundred years ago, and Kanienkehaka communities had used it when we needed to feel empowered in modern confrontations: in 1974, when we took back Ganienkeh in upper New York State, and in 1990, during the Oka Crisis in Kahnawake, when the guns of the Canadian Army were pointed at our women, children and grandparents. Where the term
wasase
comes from is not known, but it means renewal, and its ability to bring new strength to our society was already evident during the discussions before the ceremony. Then we danced, continuously, with the men in an outer ring surrounding the women in a center ring. This still lives in my mind. We dance while rattles are shaken. We respond with whoops and hollers while a wooden cane is passed from hand to hand until a person feels the need to stop the dance and speak their mind. There is a loud thump as the cane is hit onto the floor. Everyone stops and listens. Then we all respond in acknowledgment and the dancing continues. This goes on until the first daylight, allowing everyone’s emotions to be displayed in full view, giving all those present a chance to recognize their mutual commitment to the confrontation.

The specific circumstances of the Wasase’s origin have been forgotten. It is this spirit—the unity and energy that is created—that survives. This spirit and strength exist in all of us, in our selves, in our relationships to the land and to each other. No one can take that away from us. It exists in all our cultures. It is just a matter of finding the right tools at the right time to allow the release of this power at the moment when we need it most. It is at these times, when we are most challenged, that we can feel most empowered. And at this particular time, our women needed to feel our strength. By incorporating women into the War Dance, we were keeping pace with the changes in our society, just as we have always adapted our ancient traditions to fit the different types of situations we have encountered.

As I considered what the ceremony had accomplished, I became even more acutely aware of the oppression that we Kanienkehaka have suffered. I grew up with a limited understanding of the history of my people and did not begin to take an active interest in learning about our past until I was working on my undergraduate research papers. At that time I was searching for meaning in my life and trying to understand the treatment my people received during the Oka Crisis. During this incident we fought the neighboring town’s proposed expropriation of our ancient burial grounds for the expansion of a golf course. As the issue escalated, we found ourselves surrounded by Quebec Provincial Police and the Canadian Army. We knew then that sovereignty and our very survival as a people was at issue.

I had spent my childhood away from the Kahnawake community and the issues that involve being Onkwehonwe, the original peoples. My mother had been a prominent participant in the civil and native rights movements of the 1960s, but she took time out to raise her daughters away from the spotlight. I had no idea of who she was as an activist and a Kanienkehaka woman. “I did not want to limit your development by making you feel you had to fit a mold. I wanted you to be free,” she said when I asked why she had never told us about any of this. So she lived and raised us as she had been taught in the Longhouse culture, and we observed.