By Lee Longhorn

“You should say you’re multicultural.”

“I like saying I’m biracial.”

I worked with American Indian middle school students my final year of college. I enjoyed every minute of it. If you haven’t worked with middle school students, I suggest you give it a shot. They’re worth it. Most of my students were multicultural. For the purposes of being politically correct, I prefer the term multicultural instead of mixed or biracial. That comes from my training in my undergraduate career.

I’m currently working as my dad’s campaign manager and research associate as he campaigns in the tribal elections. Trust me, I never imagined either one of us would be in the political scene. Some of the candidates at the forums I’ve been to have never really acknowledged their other sides. Most of the time, they talk about their Creek families and names but they never acknowledge their parent from another race. It got me thinking about my own identity and how I talk about my family.

Why don’t we acknowledge our other sides of our family. Why is it that many American Indians don’t talk much about their interracial coupled parents? I pondered this question along with the question of labels. My biological father is married to a non-native person. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. In fact, I really couldn’t care less. Well, I take that back. It bothered me when I would hear things like “don’t bring home a white woman,” or “Your kids should be full.” It’s then that it bothered me. How can one parent make requests like that? They obviously didn’t follow that order. Is it a complex with racial identity?

If you recall from my first blog, I like saying I’m Indian and naming my tribes. I just don’t like being labeled as all of them because truth be told, I’m really not all of them. The night of my first blog, my mom was furious with what I wrote. She told me that I should just say two tribes. She wasn’t always like that. Dad said things changed when they met. He got her into thinking that you should only be one tribe and not the others. I halfway agree with him.

At the end of the day, when we look in the mirror, what do we see: A bunch of faces that we’ve never met or one person that is trying to make it in the present? I’m proud of my family and all that they’ve done. It shouldn’t matter the race, tribe, name or social status of where you’re at in life. It should only matter that you’re doing everything you can to make this world better for you and for future generations.

Lee Longhorn is an intern reporter with the Muscogee Nation News.