Anishinaabeg Like Me: Voices from People of Color in Leelanau County
By Samantha and Aaron TwoCrow
Sun contributors
Samantha and Aaron TwoCrow are rising leaders in the Native American community in Leelanau County, based in Peshawbestown. Samantha, the Indian Education Director at Suttons Bay Public Schools, inherits the scars her mother suffered at an Indian boarding school, and that inspired her to pursue education. Her husband Aaron, who recently ran for a seat on the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ Tribal Council, contrasts the dominant narrative that we learn as white Americans with the historical trauma suffered by Native peoples.
This series is inspired by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which is provoking conversations nationwide about racial inequities. Read other stories by and about people of color and how they are treated here in Leelanau County, including profiles on African-American Marshall Collins, Jr., Mexican-American Bea Cruz, and second-generation Iranian-American Cyrus Ghaemi.
As the rest of the western world continues to move on, almost all First Nations people have been stuck for generations. For hundreds of years, First Nations people have been bullied and bloodied by our European brothers and sisters.
Growing up as a Native American in Leelanau County has always been problematic. My family relocated and we became part of this beautiful community at a young age. In middle school I transferred to Northport Public Schools from East Jordan just across Grand Traverse Bay. I remember walking into this even smaller community and thinking that this will be a difficult transition, especially after the discussion I had with the school’s guidance counselor. While attending East Jordan Public Schools, I was a straight A student. I excelled in my academics because I wasn’t seen as anything less than an academic student. I was just Samantha Callaway, a student, in a predominantly white school. I was fortunate enough to have both a culturally rich childhood because of my indigenous roots from my mother, and a life of general acceptance because of my white father. Seriously, it felt as if this is how it has always been—just white. My friends were white, my dad is white, my grades were perfect, and in my mind, I was already a professional basketball player by middle school. I was in band and was the first chair in clarinet. It was, as they say, “textbook” white American education. There I was treated like every other white student at that school. I felt welcome there every day.
Upon my arrival here in Leelanau County, I could vividly see the separation between cultures and it was all too real. I wasn’t seen as “Samantha Callaway” anymore. I was only identified by the box I checked where it asked my race. My excelling grades weren’t enough to put me in “regular classes”; instead it was my race. I was told I would fit better in the “special education class” with my peers. Nothing about this made me feel welcome.
But, as many of us are unaware, the disparity between Native American and non-native students in education is demoralizing at best. Go too far back and you uncover Indian boarding schools where Native Americans were told daily to speak English and to act “American” and to forget who we really are, who our ancestors were, and how to be Anishinaabe. Welcome to Assimilation 101. In the 1990s, many public schools had “special ed” classrooms specifically for Native students and students of color. This classroom wasn’t viewed by us as a place to help us with our “learning disabilities”; it felt like the troublemakers’ room, a classroom where they put the native students who refused to learn. This became a room where many of us were left and forgotten. A place where I was left and forgotten. Here, I began to lose hope. I felt unimportant, and it became a habit to just give up.
Despite my lack of effort in my public education, I was still able to continue to educate myself about my forgotten culture, and by the age of 25 I was finally ready for society and went back to college. This came at a cost, and to this day I still feel like the “Angry Indian Girl,” that just causes trouble. But reality was that I was just simply trying to survive. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that although many people want to live the so-called “American Dream”, this “Dream” is actually kind of a nightmare. As Native students we are literally still segregated in 2020. I remember our bus was just full of Native students because we had an entire bus full of kids from the reservation. Now when serving my community on this exact Peshawbestown bus route, I think this is our problem right here. We are still separating Native Americans from our public schools. Besides Suttons Bay Public Schools, no other schools will bus students from our “school of choice” residence, because our addresses are postmarked on the reservation. Other Leelanau County schools will go to Suttons Bay’s district to pick up white students, but when you call to enroll and say you live in Peshawbestown, you are told that buses aren’t in your district. Here again I can hear people claiming me to be the “Angry Indian Girl.”
In education, Native American students are indirectly affected by these types of segregation every day. The trauma that we as Native Americans have had to endure on a daily basis is heartbreaking. I honestly believe many of our Native students are being lost in education because we as a community simply cannot fully understand the difference between the effects of historical trauma and special education. My mother, Sharon Wasageshik, is a survivor of the Holy Childhood Indian Boarding School. This, coupled with ongoing segregation, has caused our Native families to mistrust our school systems. To this day, she struggles to speak about her time there without it triggering a traumatic episode. During the Indian boarding school era, Native Americans weren’t allowed to speak our language or practice our traditions without punishment. The trauma she and many endured has been genetically passed down from generation to generation, hence the term “generational trauma”. This manifested itself as depression, social anxiety, domestic violence, substance abuse, and alcoholism.
I think about what we gave up as Anishinaabe to share with the United States of America and that is what led me to pursue a career in Indian education, where I can work with an amazing team at Suttons Bay Public Schools as the Indian Education Director. We must be proactive and continue to persevere and practice our traditions. We must attend ceremonies, we must dance in powwows, and we must speak our language as much as possible. When we don’t, we begin to lose our teachings and our culture just like the boarding schools had intended. We must always honor our ancestors who sacrificed so much for us just to exist in America. This is why it is important to explore what our cultural identity looks like. I look forward to being a reference to any of our Native students and tell them, “I’ve been there”, and to be able to teach them how we push through, how we become leaders in our community and start building the bridge that has disappeared for so many generations. And that is how my husband and I are raising our family. We teach our language and our culture to our children every day.
Aanii, boozhoo noodin bimaasing ndizhnikas, kichiwiikwedong ndonjiba, zeeska ndoodem. And just like that, we can teach them how to introduce themselves in the language of their Ancestors, Anishinaabemowin. Hello all, my English name is Aaron TwoCrow, I was born at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, and have lived in Leelanau County for my entire life. Growing up on an Indian reservation in the ’90s is exactly how you’d think it would be. Reserved. Removed. Forgotten. But I remember years ago when my son came home from school and he told me he learned about the “Trail of Tears”, and I can remember instantly searching my memories to no avail. Zero recollection of learning our nation’s history and other atrocities that have occurred and continue to occur on “American” soil.
I remember standing and singing the pledge of allegiance every morning before class. All for a country that continues to ignore its past while simultaneously using the slogan “Make America Great Again”. Great again for whom, exactly? While people of color all over the country fight for basic human rights, white America is trying to reopen schools during a pandemic because only a small percentage of students could possibly die. It is this type of world we live in and it is why we as Native Americans have to raise our children to be resilient in this assimilated world. It is one of the most important factors to rebuilding our people.
Our teachings from our ancestors gives us a starting point, a blueprint for the good life, “mnobmaadzwin” for us to raise our children just like the ways of our ancestors. I am hopeful that through discourse and dialogue we can educate and enlighten people in positions of power to help those who need it most—those in Native America. It wasn’t until I was able to fully recover from alcoholism that I understood my purpose in this life, my purpose as Anishinaabe. I may have been born in America but I was born Anishinaabe, and through numerous attempts at stripping me and my culture, I am still here: strong, resilient, indigenous. America is starting to understand the significance of its past by banning the Confederate flags from events and buildings, and statues that glorify oppressive icons are being ripped down left and right. All a positive shift in our collective mindset, a mindset on healing, together.
I recently ran an election campaign for a seat on the Tribal Council for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and came up eight votes short of getting into the general election. I ran my campaign on reinvigorating our love for the culture and language in our community, and to provide as many resources as possible for our elders and students. It was my hope that I could ignite a spark of passion for Anishinaabe teachings in our youth at a young age where they could flourish and thrive as they were meant to, as their ancestors did.
Right now in our community, more and more people are speaking out. Now is the time to anger ourselves with the uncomfortable feelings these conversations bring to our inner conscious. It’s time to listen, hear, and respond with actions. Support our black, red, white, and yellow relatives. Teach each other the seven grandfather teachings: love, respect, humility, bravery, truth, honesty, and wisdom. We all can walk the same path understanding the different lives we each live, this is what community means… a feeling of fellowship with others.
