Is it good or bad to be so vanilla that you have no heritage?
It seems good, the end of racism, here, right here in my single body.
But it also seems bad.
Today I was so sick I went to the Tribal Health Center and begged me to see me. It's the only decent clinic where I live.
I am partially native American, but I am from Illinois, and not a big tribe with lots of money... probably Illini or Cahokia, but I can't be sure.
Actually the Illini are probably too big. My great grandmother left and married a white man, with a German name. Actually I dunno... is Rothwell German or English?
Shit.
I dunno where I came from.
So I am sitting there with all of these people from the Pomo tribe, and they are looking at me crazy. And I am looking at them like... I wish I was them, at least they know their heritage.
I dunno where my grandparents came from. I know my father's father was not born in the USA. I think all of my mom's family was born here, for nine generations back on her father's side.
I don't really know though.
Maybe it's because I was raised in a second generation single parent home. There is no one to tell stories.
So I think it is bad. I am so vanilla and out of touch with things that I have no heritage.
Maybe that's why I cling to a religion with so much ritual, the Chinese Mahayana. Zen is just more vanilla ... I am sick of vanilla.
America doesn't have culture. We don't have our own art, or music, everything is borrowed from somewhere else.
We invented technology, and stuff... maybe the credit card is our cultural heritage. But I'm not even sure if we invented that... so whatever.
It's hard, they are def racist against me at the tribal health clinic. I can feel it, but the Lakeside clinic is so awful, I will put up with the racism, it's not as bad as CTTB. So I think I can take it.
I dunno tho.
