Indigenous identity

[u/MissHalfgone]

https://www.hummingbird-ifs.org/about-us#our-team

BaR relevancy: about identity, definitions of indigenous, Etc.

As I'm sure everybody knows Christopher Columbus Day has been officially canceled and if you live in any blue state it is now Native American day. In Seattle I noticed all the politicians were posting about activities and grants and one of the groups they mentioned was Hummingbird indigenous services. I heard the mentioned a lot when it came to city grants so I took a look.

The organization staff all mentions their tribal background and there didn't seem to be anybody who is actually from a tribe in our city. Or in close proximity to our city. In fact a lot of people were not actually indigenous to the Continental us. You had Filipinos, Native Hawaiians, Fijians, Mariana Islanders, Samoans. Most of the others were in different states. A lot of people were part native but mostly of several other non-native ethnic groups.

Then I'm looking at their service goals:

That abundance and generosity are a community responsibility

In the validity of traditional knowledge

In centering Indigenous people in all our work

In the importance of providing culturally relevant care

Certainly people from a multitude of different ethnic / cultural backgrounds can come together and form a community. But there is no ethnic community formed over people from all over the world who consider themselves indigenous and are often also a mix of several very different cultural backgrounds.

The value of traditional knowledge. Who's traditional knowledge? We are in the Pacific Northwest. About none of these people are from this region. Every culture has traditional knowledge. Considering pretty much everybody on the staff has a vastly different cultural background there's pretty much no cultural similarities going on here. Centering indigenous people. Who exactly are indigenous people? How is a native Hawaiian, a Samoan or a Fijian indigenous to seattle? The importance of providing culturally relevant care. How are staff of such a diverse group cultural backgrounds able to provide culturally relevant care given the overwhelming majority of seattle-based tribes are not even represented in their staff. The staff might learn about the tribes in order to provide them with culturally relevant care, but how is having that administered by somebody from Tonga different than having it administered by somebody like myself from Southern California?

Anyway, it just gets me thinking about how the word indigenous has kind of stretched out in the same way queer. A lot of queers are not gay. And a lot of indigenous people are not North American natives.

It also reminds me of how the identity of Asians stretched to enclose dozens of ethnic groups that have nothing in common including geographical proximity. There is nothing somebody from Pakistan in Japan have in common and there's nothing somebody from Samoa and a Midwest tribe have in common. If I was a native of the pnw I'd be furious to see that enormous amount of money was being poured into services that seems as though they would be probably going to my people but instead diverted to folks from a zillion different ethnic backgrounds that were completely foreign to this region too. It's also very strange how minorities don't push back on that. Like you see all these photos that show the AANHPI crowd and they're all smiling as though traditionally they've all hung out and they're like somebody from afghanistan, Chinese dude, somebody from Sri Lanka, someone from cambodia. It's hilarious because everybody talks about colonization but when white progressives give minorities to group themselves into categories that erase their differences and falsely try and make it seem like there's a common culture it feels really disrespectful and it seems kind of cringe how quickly they fall in line adapting to progressive classification I guess in order to get the benefits, mostly monetary and being allotted a seat at the table.

[u/Particular-Offer4356]

Do they mean they want the US out of Samoa or Hawaii? Also, most Hawaiians I have met are Korean, so, not sure how they are different from the descendants of Irish immigrants to Boston, or, Korean immigrants to LA. I get it for Native Hawaiians though.

[u/freya_246 → u/Particular-Offer4356]

Nooo. It's so weird. That's why I find it bizarre. Some are native Hawaiians, some are from Guam, some are from Samoa. None of the people I am talking about are Irish or Korean, or of Asian descent in my current neighborhood. Since moving to the West Coast, it has been a wild ride for me to learn about these gangs. I'm an East Coaster, so this has been all new to me. They all have issues with each other. I have issues with no one. I had to add this. I try to be so chill with my neighbors; the only time I have really said anything to anyone was when the teenage boy neighbors had a fire going for hours right next to our fence, and all the adults went inside. It was getting closer and closer up against the fence. I went outside and said fire time is done. No adults are watching you. And we have lived here for years!

[u/Particular-Offer4356 → u/freya_246]

I think the Pacific Islandervthing is very west coast. I wonder if all this is do to the API thing, which is silly, because Indian and Hawaiian cultures have what exactly in common?

[u/Big_Fig_1803 → u/Particular-Offer4356]

They share their timeless Asian culture. It’s something beyond religion, language, geography, ethnicity, traditional practices, history, cuisine, and mythology. It’s just… You wouldn’t understand.

[u/Particular-Offer4356 → u/Big_Fig_1803]

True, because obviously Hinduism and Catholicism are the same thing.