My family is Native American, and I was raised with Native American ceremonies.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Yeah, my family is of Indian heritage.
For decades, Indians have immigrated to the United States, joined our communities, and raised their families while maintaining their cultural heritage.
My mother's family came from the British West Indies. And my father's family came from, well, my father's father came from the Montana/South Dakota area. They were Blackfoot Indian.
My family is Abenaki Indian on my mother's side. My father's side of the family is Slovak, and we also have some English ancestry.
I'm a member of the American Indian Movement, and I'm from the indigenous nations of the Western Hemisphere.
When I was a kid, I really loved Indians. Native Americans. Pardon. Me.
By virtue of my traditions, and my community, I worked hard to ensure that I was accepted as part of the traditional family of America.
This is going to sound weird, but when I was a kid my old man used to tell us that he was a Sioux Indian warrior in his former life. Native American culture was always big in my house - I don't know why.
I go to South Dakota for ceremonies when I have the time. And when you learn what the Indian peoples have gone through to hold onto their culture and traditions... wow, it's an amazing story.
My Native American heritage was not embraced by our family, and we grew up African-American, so I didn't have a lot of access or history to that line of my family.