Through My Grandfather's Eyes
With the death of two of his sisters, a flood gate opened. His daughters heard the details of stories they had always wondered about; stories of a reservation and family members; stories of discrimination and perseverance; stories that the only response could be a joke: “if only we had known when we were ten, we could have gotten that free milk in school.” Behind the stories was the reality that the sisters had kept the truth hidden to better assimilate in society. They had not focused on their racial identity, but forged a new identity for themselves. But even with the invented identity, the past could not be forgotten; it had contributed to who they were just in the efforts of concealing it; it contributed to their early formation; it contributed to their outlook on life where anything could be overcome- even discrimination and systematic isolation.
Growing up in Oklahoma during the Grapes of Wrath years, very few families could be considered fortunate. Perhaps having no shoes was common, but the family differed from those of their neighbors with the constant encounter with contrast. One side of the family was moderately wealthy, the other lived on a reservation. Visiting the “wealthy” family, my grandfather stood out in his tattered overalls and lack of shoes. Visiting the reservation, my grandfather still stood out in his tattered overalls and lack of shoes. His customs did not conform to either side and neither side really perceived him as their own.
The reservation and finely dressed families soon became distant memories with an opportunity to go West. But the secret couldn’t remain covered and during the War, there tended to be a fear of those who were different. Just different enough to draw attention, my grandfather laughs as he remembers the slurs directed at him for being “Indian.”
As his cowboy boots threaten the lizards in his path, he becomes fickle in his telling of the past. Perhaps if the sun is just right, he will indulge me and tell stories from his early years, but it is quite clear that he would much rather focus on his later years where he was successful, known as a cowboy and businessman, and where he had a family to call his own. The sun must be just right because he starts talking about his mean, old grandmother who had but just a few teeth. She would growl at him as he visited and he couldn’t understand a word. When she had to relieve herself, she would squat wherever she lingered. There must have been positive aspects about her, but they never came out in my grandfather’s stories. As a young boy split between worlds, my grandfather must have never been quite at ease around her.
My grandfather must have been reflecting on his life as elderly people do and he became anxious about not knowing his middle name. His father was a bit of a scoundrel-- a horse thief whose friends got hung and his drunken state led him to try to shoot his own son. He failed to tell my grandfather his middle name. Meanwhile, my grandfather's mother did not live long enough for him to ever ask and so he was left with the joke that his middle name, that started with D, was Desperado. A search online and through the National Archives finally revealed that his name was Despreez, but as we initiated that search, he also wanted to know the history of his people. Was he Choctaw or Cherokee? Were there any of his people left? I could not provide him the answers before he died and still would not be able to provide anything of certainty. Through my search, I began to worry about what if I found was that he was not Cherokee or Choctaw? What if the burdensome secret he had kept for his sisters and the purging he felt when he revealed it were based on a falsehood? What if the discrimination was based on mistake? If the documents did not show he was Native American, then was he wrong in identifying with that? Was my mother and aunt and my brother and cousins and I all wrong? What is more important the documents or the experience?
My grandfather left this world keeping many secrets for himself. Perhaps if he had more time as he should have, he would have shared a few more. He left without answering so many of my questions about his grandmother and of the reservation. He took those vital secrets with him and only left mystery like the red carnations he insisted on for his ceremony, the ceremony that he had planned 16 years earlier. I will not definitively know the answer to these secrets, but I can explore what it means to be a native person with no tribal affiliation.
Growing up in Oklahoma during the Grapes of Wrath years, very few families could be considered fortunate. Perhaps having no shoes was common, but the family differed from those of their neighbors with the constant encounter with contrast. One side of the family was moderately wealthy, the other lived on a reservation. Visiting the “wealthy” family, my grandfather stood out in his tattered overalls and lack of shoes. Visiting the reservation, my grandfather still stood out in his tattered overalls and lack of shoes. His customs did not conform to either side and neither side really perceived him as their own.
The reservation and finely dressed families soon became distant memories with an opportunity to go West. But the secret couldn’t remain covered and during the War, there tended to be a fear of those who were different. Just different enough to draw attention, my grandfather laughs as he remembers the slurs directed at him for being “Indian.”
As his cowboy boots threaten the lizards in his path, he becomes fickle in his telling of the past. Perhaps if the sun is just right, he will indulge me and tell stories from his early years, but it is quite clear that he would much rather focus on his later years where he was successful, known as a cowboy and businessman, and where he had a family to call his own. The sun must be just right because he starts talking about his mean, old grandmother who had but just a few teeth. She would growl at him as he visited and he couldn’t understand a word. When she had to relieve herself, she would squat wherever she lingered. There must have been positive aspects about her, but they never came out in my grandfather’s stories. As a young boy split between worlds, my grandfather must have never been quite at ease around her.
My grandfather must have been reflecting on his life as elderly people do and he became anxious about not knowing his middle name. His father was a bit of a scoundrel-- a horse thief whose friends got hung and his drunken state led him to try to shoot his own son. He failed to tell my grandfather his middle name. Meanwhile, my grandfather's mother did not live long enough for him to ever ask and so he was left with the joke that his middle name, that started with D, was Desperado. A search online and through the National Archives finally revealed that his name was Despreez, but as we initiated that search, he also wanted to know the history of his people. Was he Choctaw or Cherokee? Were there any of his people left? I could not provide him the answers before he died and still would not be able to provide anything of certainty. Through my search, I began to worry about what if I found was that he was not Cherokee or Choctaw? What if the burdensome secret he had kept for his sisters and the purging he felt when he revealed it were based on a falsehood? What if the discrimination was based on mistake? If the documents did not show he was Native American, then was he wrong in identifying with that? Was my mother and aunt and my brother and cousins and I all wrong? What is more important the documents or the experience?
My grandfather left this world keeping many secrets for himself. Perhaps if he had more time as he should have, he would have shared a few more. He left without answering so many of my questions about his grandmother and of the reservation. He took those vital secrets with him and only left mystery like the red carnations he insisted on for his ceremony, the ceremony that he had planned 16 years earlier. I will not definitively know the answer to these secrets, but I can explore what it means to be a native person with no tribal affiliation.
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