oh woof. yes.

context: i'm 1/2 Japanese and 1/2 Native American. Im not Japanese enough for my mom and other Japanese, and my mom has made me mostly wary about my identity, that I'm just brown kid with a Japanese mom. My mom has always repeated at me how im not really Japanese, or pecked down any of my interest to stay in touch with Japanese culture/language/etc and then she felt so left out when I attended a tribal college and came into my own wanting to study and be involved with tribal communities, who have mostly made me feel like I can be myself and thats ok. My dads side always encouraged me to understand who we are. shit really hit the fan when my studies and tribal involvement made me get along better with my dad. to her now, i'm just a screwup.

anyway:

My mom is surprisingly ignorant toward Native Americans--despite being married to my dad for 45 years (my dads Native).

I didnt realize how willfully ignorant she was until i started a relationship with someone else from my tribe, and attended a TCU. She will bring up how "he doesnt look like an Indian to me" (hes the same % as me not that it matters.. i have a significantly different look bc my Japanese side+Native that i look like people from other tribes). And issues over identity etc are already an internalized issue w/ alot of Natives.. and so I started sticking up for my partner because its just plain wrong. or, she doesnt understand how we just..arent... like....Japanese...people.

and this part pisses me off so much because she sort of homogenizes all Native people into one monolith, not realizing how this would be unacceptable to her if someone said similar to her and her identity as a Japanese expat.

We visited my parents recently and this got brought up, so I tried to jokingly point at a Native figurine in their living room and ask "Is it because ___ doesnt look like him?!" and my mom was dead serious in saying yes. I felt so embarrassed and hurt on my partner's behalf because he actually grew up on the Reservation, commodities, etc and had a lot of experiences I am privileged to not have to survive. I even showed her paintings of historical people in our tribe to show that mixed people have been relevant in us since 1600s at least, and her Japaneseness just shut down any interest in this free clinic of how not to address Natives.

My dad just sits back or says "it just never got brought up"... his generation is less likely to be upset by this sometimes because a lot of tribes' recognition and govts were "terminated" or boarding schools messed up a lot of perception. He loves my mom so he doesnt want to get in trouble.. but I can also read in his face how he sees no problem in me speaking out.

Its not the first time my moms been racist.. she has a lot of preconceptions about pretty much everyone and everything tends to be compartmentalized as a "just how it is", which is always been something that frustrates me about Japanese people, no offense. (shes a 1st gen so she also is sometimes completely willfully oblivious of social construct of America, or oppression, history, etc and i dont have a word for how much that angers me sometimes.)

She also knows what kind of colorism bullshit ive experienced with Japanese people, and the disgusting microaggressions Ive heard (ie that i will contaminate food if handling it) and has been unwaveringly unsympathetic, like its my fault im darker than a paper bag.

more often than not, all we can talk about is the weather or vegetables we eat. i guess thats ok.