remembermyaccentaigu

[remembermyaccentaigu]

hey, i’m still here.

kinda sad about a few things.

1. how no one in my family cares about heritage or anything so i have no one in my immediate family to talk to about culture or stories or anything like that.

2. again, not “looking” like a typical métis person if i can describe myself that way. i know there’s no one way to look. but i feel like it’s too far back for me to have any features.

3. wanting to learn my ancestors’ language since who knows how long it’s been since anyone in their lineage spoke a word of kanien’kéha and i want to honour them by learning the language and getting in touch with culture that was ripped away over a couple of centuries.

but am i allowed? where does it become appropriation? 

dragging my hands down my face. 

[remembermyaccentaigu]

thinking more about my identity these days. 

i wish i wasn’t so afraid to ask questions. i’m always so nervous people will think i’m lying, or i’m pretending, or something, but i’m really not. i want to know if i am able to reclaim a culture i wasn’t raised in. a culture that most certainly could’ve been erased. 

did sara, my great-great grandmother, know of her heritage? was it hidden from her, that her parents were both indigenous? did my great-grandfather know? i met him, what a lovely man. he passed when i was 11. i wish i could show him, i wish i could ask him what he knew. i wish i knew then what i know now.

i wish i had someone i could talk to about this. but i don’t.

i want to be able to bring this culture back into my family, to make sara proud, to make my other ancestors proud that someone knows. but i still feel like i’m not allowed.

sigh. this is tough.

[remembermyaccentaigu]

i feel weird typing this already but i have a lot i need to say about myself and i want to say it here, because i know there’s someone here who has been in my same situation who can help me.

i call this blog “remember my accent aigu” bc my last name ends with an é. i am proud of this. no one else around me growing up had the é but my family, my father’s side. it’s a french last name. it sounds beautiful. i grew up believing we were french & nothing more. my roots stretched back to québec.

years ago i began tracing my family tree. i’ve really gotten into it over the past couple of years, and while tracing my father’s side, i found a direct line -- to multiple métis (unsure if big ‘m’ or little ‘m’, i don’t want to misstep) and first nations people. yes, going back to the 1700s, but also the 1800s, and my great-grandfather, born in 1917... his mother was métis. her mother was either first nations (unsure which people) or métis. 

my ancestors had beautiful names, mohawk names. kanien'kehá:ka names. i wish i knew where to put the accent markers, i want to respect their names. kaoninehta. karenatase. i don’t know where to put the accent markers because they were given french names. i don’t want to use their french names. 

so... where does that leave me?

i don’t want to claim a métis identity if i cannot, if i should not. and i feel like i shouldn’t, but i’m unsure if that’s just me not wanting to overstep boundaries or if that’s me being... afraid. afraid that people won’t believe me. afraid of using the wrong label. afraid that i don’t count. i look “white.” i have blue eyes. my skin is peach. and i know there’s no one way to look indigenous, especially if you’re métis but... am i?

i see so many things online calling out fake métis people. and i’m scared. am i métis? if so, where do i go from here to learn about my culture if i’m in the right to claim it?

what do i do?