The Arbutus Review • 2020 • Vol. 11, No. 1 Special Issue on Indigenous Wellness •
https://doi.org/10.18357/tar111202019688

Native enough
Hailey Bird Matheson

What does it mean to be Native enough?
I do not “self-identify”

I am identified by my family line, my kookum, a bird
I am both sides, but my skin is of my father

So,
I am not enough to walk into ceremony without disgusted looks

But not little enough to be untouched by residential school
Not little enough to be untouched by intergenerational trauma

Fentanyl
Not little enough to be untouched by smudge

Sweat
Ceremony

But not native enough to not be questioned
Not enough to speak my ancestral tongue

I don’t fit the settler’s stereotype
But I am still not enough for my own people

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