I first heard the term “Sidewalk Indian” from my cousins on the Isabella Reservation in Michigan where I was born. It followed “Half-breed” and “Apple,” inferring red on the outside, white on the inside.
In the late 1950s, my full-blood Saginaw Chippewa father fell in love and married a “white” girl. When I was two years old, we left the reservation for Rio Vista, a small town along the California Delta between Sacramento and San Francisco.
It was there where those words meant to degrade would disappear, only to resurface on our yearly road-trip back to our homeland during summer vacation. Truth is, I never felt bad having been born bi-racial. I loved my cousins too much to waste time on name-calling.
Apple bothered me. Native American ancestry is my core, and I’ve never forgotten or lost touch with where I came from.
My family – original last name Yahbay – have existed in the Great Lakes region for hundreds of years, prior to creation of the United States of America and State of Michigan. I am very aware of my lineage and heritage.
As for having left the reservation: I was a child, and my parents had their reasons (which I’ll reveal in a forthcoming memoir).
Today, technology has made it possible to stay in touch with family and tribal members on the reservation regardless of where we’re at; building a bridge between the reservation and urban Indian.
There is no denying I am Native American. I love to tell the story of being on a cruise ship once, in the middle of the ocean, and being asked “What kind of Indian are you?”
I’m also gay, and grew up during the Seventies and Eighties, a time of great turmoil in LGBTQ history; including the assassination of Harvey Milk, and the emergence of a pandemic that would take the lives of almost all my friends and lovers.
Out of desperation and anger, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) would emerge, followed by Queer Nation, both movements confrontational in not only name but action. “Act up! Fight back!” The latter, taking back a derogatory word and owning it. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”
This was decades before Idle No More and Me Too. Decades before I would march through downtown Las Vegas for Trayvon Martin, because I believe Black Lives Matter. Decades before I would stand for hours protesting in Los Angeles, when Pride became Resist.
My previous WordPress blog – My Native Life – was criticized for being too Native-centric and one-dimensional but ran for several years and reached 33,000 readers monthly. At the time, I was working at my tribe’s resort and casino, blogging from the reservation about tribal politics.
When deciding a name for this new blog, I took a cue from Queer Nation and choose a derogatory term I’d been called my entire life: sidewalk Indian. Taking it back, owning it. After all, having lived in Sacramento, San Francisco, Reno, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, I was indeed a sidewalk Indian!
After several years hiatus, and disillusioned with the state of social media, I’ll be sharing my works in progress here; including a much-anticipated memoir trilogy, and journey from writer to published author.
It is my intention to share my past and present, as an out Native American two-spirit and aging boomer, living in one of the most-exciting cities in the world.
Welcome. I hope you’ll bookmark and follow Sidewalk Indian. I’m glad you’re here.
