Different Beans

At the beginning of the year, I called my grandmother on the phone during class to prove to my student, Jose, that we had Native American blood in our background. “Don’t let the blonde hair fool you—it’s out of a box!” I said.

My great-great grandmother was part of the Polawadamee tribe. I remember when I was in kindergarten, we had to paint this plaster of a Native American woman. I didn’t know any Native American roots at that age…in fact, I didn’t even believe my father when he told my boyfriend that we had Native American in our lineage.

My English teacher in high school wanted us to “Cherish our heritage!” I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t want to admit that we were German because who wants to be responsible for persecuting the Jews? As a child, we had Finn Power t-shirts, but Finnish is not as exotic as Swedish.

The only comment my Dominican has ever made on my facebook page is “your roots are showing.”

He was referring to the dark roots of my blonde hair, but I quipped back with “You mean my Native American roots?”

He says that the bath mat is “the white man’s invention.” He never used one growing up.

He gave me a can of baked beans because “white people eat baked beans.”

My grandma makes the best baked beans. When he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I sent her the poem I wrote about him giving me baked beans. She said, “I am sorry to hear about your Dominican boyfriend,” even though I used the phrase, “the guy I’ve been seeing on and off since 2002.” She doesn’t understand that he is not my boyfriend. She doesn’t understand that we just eat different beans.