People & Places

I live just over the hill from where the Wounded Knee massacre took place, over by Wounded Knee Creek. … For white kids it’s just something in a history book. For me it’s my family. It’s my ground that they bled on. It’s personal.

— Destiny, 15

Even white people who know I’m Native can sometimes act like jerks. They’ll say, “Heading home to your teepee?” or go “Woo woo woo woo!” and pound their hands to their lips, doing some lame Hollywood version of a war dance.

Others ask me questions, and some of the questions are fine. You can tell when people really want to know something in order to get to know you better. But some questions go too far. Like, because I’m Ojibwe they think I was born on some sort of different spiritual plane or something.

— Brittany, l7

My chanii [grandfather] and my nana and others ran away from the residential school they were put into. Some of the older generation like my great-grandparents looked at the residential school as a good thing, but the schools weren’t as bad for them. For my nana and chanii, it was a whole lot of abuse. They were treated really badly.

My mother says there is no way to make up for the crimes of the past. There’s only forward.

— Cohen, 14