Dogs, Horses, Natives and Slaves
According to oral tradition, my father was a small part Cherokee. That's a giant problem to talk about online because American history and law treats Natives literally like dogs, like it's entirely about skin color or ethnicity and not culture, identity or nationality. When I was a seventeen year old brunette with unlayered shoulder length hair, there were a few photos of me that looked Native. My German relatives generally feel I look Native while Americans typically feel I look German. I got married at nineteen (to another nineteen year old) and for most of my marriage I continued to be brunette, but for most of my life before and after the marriage, I have trended some shade of blonde without dying it. My mother was a German immigrant. Like several of my cousins on my mother's side, I was blonde as a child and gradually turned brunette as I got older. My hair to this day readily bleaches out from exposure to sunlight, salt water or chlorinated water and I'm current...