Mariah Sazue
Morris, MN

I am a Dakota/Lakota Sioux who is Native to this now American Land, but I feel like I am an Immigrant. In this country I feel like I came from a different country. I grew up in the public school district, where I was not taught a thing about my Dakota/Lakota heritage. Besides the traditional thanksgiving, Native Americans were not mentioned in my years of school. I was once ashamed of my race because I always heard classmates taunting the Native accent and the assumptions of the Native American stereotypes. I came to learn my culture through my grandparents and oral history. Coming to find out how this country really came about, I was confused and upset. I still felt like an Immigrant in our “Native America”. I was mad at myself for being ashamed, I was mad at those classmates for disrespecting me and my culture, I was mad at the school systems for not acknowledging the true history of these lands, and I am still mad to this day. I still feel like an immigrant mostly because we’ve been treated like immigrants since the first contact between the Natives and Europeans. I now have the upmost pride in my race and culture because who we were as people before assimilation was amazing, there were once millions of Indigenous people surviving on Turtle Island (present-day North America) simply on their own in their own ways. Who we are now as “American Indians” is because of what was brought upon us, who we are now is because of “America”. That’s why I feel like an Immigrant.