jason tucker home jason programs csb articles CHAGHASHE NAAKAI - CHILDREN RETURNING HOME  by jason tucker Growing up as a young Apache man in the urban societies of California seemed a bit out of place.  I’m sure growing up in other regions of the United States could have been much worse.  California has been one of the ongoing pioneers of the human rights movement since before I can remember.  Even as diverse as California prides on being, I can say I have seen a lot of change for the better starting from my early childhood in the late seventies through today. When my brother and I were young we lived in the Sacramento area of California.  People say that children can be cruel, but children are not cruel they are truthful and mirror the images portrayed by their care takers.  It is the parents that teach their children by example and lead them to discriminative acts as they get older.  I remember a beautiful spring afternoon.  We had many young friends in the neighborhood.  We would run through the sprinklers in the yard or ride our dirt bikes.  The very first discriminative, hateful, and ignorant act I witnessed was in this wonderful arena of friendship, not by any of our friends but by parents.  We had been playing and my mother had painted power symbols on our faces.  All of us kids thought it was “cool” and had a very good time that day.  The neighborhood parents, however, did not think of this as harmless children’s fun and games.  They were outraged and chastised my mother for this heathen and futile attempt to corrupt their children.  Coincidently while on a trip to visit my grand parents in Fremont, California, our house burnt to the ground and my father was blamed for it.  Apparently for the insurance money.  Go figure. We then proceeded to move around the country living between one parent, both parents, grand parents, parents and grandparents together.  By the time we made any friends and started to settle anywhere we were moved again.  We finally landed in Hayward, California, where I still live today.  I have gone to school here for many years through college with the exception of a short stay in southern California where I attended Cal State San Marcos briefly. Most of my childhood and adolescent years were spent trying to fit in.  Some where...anywhere.  I was a young mixed Indian with no one to associate with.  My brother became the typical Jock, excelling in sports and mathematics.  I was desperate just to have friends that could understand me.  My mother was always supportive and encouraged me to embrace my culture and heritage.  This was difficult at the time and I had a very rough transition.  I remembered the way we have always been rejected just like in Sacramento and even by our own family.  I tried to follow in my brothers foot prints by going out for the “Jr. Midget” football team.  I did pretty well.  But because of my brother’s massive size and natural athletic abilities I could never shine in his shadow.  It was through sports that my brother achieved his sense of self and belonging.  For me it was just another thing to compete for the acceptance of our peers. In grade school I met an old Indian Man who I adored and he treated me like the young Native I was.  With respect and gratitude I spent many hours with him and his son.  He would even come to school regularly to sit with us kids and tell us stories and play games.   He gifted me with very child like toys and things that were magically transformed into powerful medicine objects and warriors totems and I was proud of who I was.  I felt comfortable wearing my moccasins to school on a day we had never experienced before, ‘Multi-Cultural Day’.  It wasn’t long before I was on my own again. In Jr. High school I tried to hang out with the black kids and found one very close friend, Howard.  Things were great for awhile until my young friend died of Leukemia.  I then tried to cope with his loss and tried to adjust and maintain the same social group by hanging out with the guys who only found me fun to pick on and make fun of.  I soon tired of that.  I also had a close female friend Keilani, who unfortunately went to another school the second year of school and left me to the masses.  I tried to find my way with the Latino kids since I figured that the heritage was the closest thing around from ours. When I got to high school I started to see a more diverse student population.  There was actually another Indian student besides my brother and me.  We quickly became good friends.  We played football together and would hang out socially.  But even in the midst of my own people I wasn’t fully accepted.  He would joke about half breeds versus the Full Blooded Indian and I knew even with him I was still an outsider.  We kept in touch a bit after high school but eventually he stopped returning my letters.  Girls were always there to support my need for attention when I felt alone but the feeling of being lost remained always. I wasn’t in High School for a quarter before I saw some of my old Latino acquaintances from grade school that had formed a gang.  Of course I was stupid enough to join with them.  I don’t regret the experience and bonds formed.  I still run into them here and there.  We had fun but I was also introduced to a harder more shielded side of myself.  I was embraced and it was okay to be angry.  I had always been one of the guys that had been picked on.  Even after taking karate lessons I felt helpless.  Once I embraced my anger I became a different person.  No longer one to be messed with.  I didn’t find this within the foundation of the gang but was accepted for feeling this way…it was okay.  In one quick year and one quick fight with unleashed anger and the furry of all the past years of oppression, discrimination, and inacceptance brought shame and temporary deformity to a person who was once a friend.  I had fought an old friend because he had hit me with a pipe over one of my old girlfriends.  With that blow he had unleashed a side of me that couldn’t take it anymore.  I had worked out the previous summer to prepare for football in High School so I was no longer the weak little guy I was.  I quickly hammer my friend to the floor and proceeded to pound him, knocking the ex-girlfriend out of the way in the process and having to be pulled off by the football coach, ‘Hill’ and several other teammates.  I was fortunate not to reap severe consequences from this experience since he hit me first.  I t was that day I became respected by peers, a feared enemy of some, lost a friend, and lost my unconditional love for the world.  I remained confident and dominant for many years.  I still am I suppose by in a different way and with a different function. My later years of high school I started to think of my future and what I would do.  I decided that I would be a counselor so that I would be in a place where I could help kids like me.  I straightened up and focused on my academics and graduated with the rest of my class with decent SAT scores and grade point average.  My senior year I helped my mother set up the ‘Hill Top Pow-Wow’ at Cal State Hayward.  Things seemed to have gone well until the following year when I attended Cal State Hayward and attempted to keep it going another year.  I quickly found first hand why my mother didn’t want to do it again.  Let’s just say that things were not handled in a respectable traditional fashion.  The following year I had nothing to do with it and I don’t know if they continue to have Pow-Wows today. I went to Southern California to attend Cal State San Marcos.  I was asked to design a logo for the Pow-Wow that year.  I did so and was told that it was not an image that the school was willing to use.  This was okay but I was suspicious since I felt that it was a powerful representation of Native American spirituality.  It was also here, however, that I was encouraged further to embrace my Indian heritage and to use my Indian name instead of my Anglo names.  I came back to Hayward before long for various reasons, finances and home sickness being of the two biggest. I built a home and a career in counseling and mental health, a family of my own, but I still had not found my way back home.  I remembered my naming ceremony, coming of age, vision quest, sun dance, eagle dance, snake dance, my connection with all my relations and all that is.  I felt the pull and a shifting among the world to embrace our differences and be proud of whom we are.  I started to make peace with my demons little by little within myself and with my family, a process that continues today.  I started going to ceremony again and relearned what I had forgotten or buried within.  I am now home and at peace with myself.  To those who call us devil worshipers, heathens, prairie niggers, stupid Indians, half breeds, mixed bloods, and anything else that may come to mind…I say you are ignorant.  I say educate yourself.  Battle your own demons.  Fight the spread of this ignorance with knowledge and understanding.  Make peace with yourself.  Stand up in the shadow of fear and devour it with courage and love.  I am at home now…I belong here.  No matter where I am in the world…I am home. I offer this prayer for all the world; Shii bi’ni’gosdzan baa ‘okaah        Our prayer for the world Nohwiza’ye bike’e-lii            As we follow the Ancestor’s Tracks ‘intin ‘ihi’da-lii                Walking the Path of Life Chaghashe naakai                Children returning home Nabilziih diijiigo doo’aniina        Heal tomorrow from yesterday Ndee bil shit’eke sidil            With our friends close Diyi’sidil                    And Spirit closer Bijii ‘agodzaa yu                There’s a heartbeat Ts’ik’ii hada’didla                Louder than Thunder Beings Nchaa halii ya-bitl-ah            Flowing up and out from deep down under Bijii ‘agodzaa yu                There’s a heartbeat Bitl-ah shima                Deep inside our mother Ndee bil bidaa-distaaha            For Humanity we sing to care Aho!