American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The time has come for the individual to begin his true adult education, to discover who he is and what life is all about. What is the secret of the "I" with which he has been on such intimate terms all these years yet which remains a stranger? ... What lurks behind the worlds facade, animating it, ordering it-to what end? -Huston Smith The foreman at the door factory where I was employed during the summer stopped by my workstation and informed me that I was to be moved to a new site. The foreman was someone I knew because we attended the same church. As we silently walked through the factory, he suddenly directed a needlelike question to me. He asked, "What are you?" The question came as a surprise, but it didn't need qualification since I knew its intent. I had felt the sting of such inquiries, spoken and unspoken, numerous times in my growing up years in a town located adjacent to an Indian reservation. Since the factory was Dutch-owned and nearly all of the workers were of a similar ethnic background, this gave some explanation for the question. The question was a way of determining if consideration should be given to my placement with certain worker groups. I had experienced this kind of antipathy before, especially with social groups where there was a strong ethnic affiliation. Being a mixed-blood, I found it was often easier to attain structural inclusion in situations where reduced ethnic or racial polarization existed among group members. My answer to the foreman was simply, "I am a human being."