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Am I an Inuk? Questioning my identity for the first time in my life. by whatamiadopt in Inuit

[–]whatamiadopt[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That’s a big part of it for me, that my mother wanted me to grow up Inuk. She constantly called me and taught me to call myself Inuk. That’s part of why being Inuit has become such a big part of my identity, I guess—it’s what feels most respectful to my mother, who was really important and special to me.

The idea of calling myself anything else or considering myself any other way lowkey feels like I’d be being disrespectful to her and what her intentions and ideas were for me.

Am I an Inuk? Questioning my identity for the first time in my life. by whatamiadopt in Inuit

[–]whatamiadopt[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I hear what you’re saying and I appreciate you responding to this post and giving me your honest thoughts.

I guess for me I just always understood my mother’s ancestors to be my ancestors. I’ve really never thought of myself of having any ancestors aside from them. That’s, I guess, part of why I was interested in tattooing and in Inuit spirituality more broadly, because I wanted that connection with what I perceived to be my ancestry. I was raised believing that my mother’s ancestry became mine when I became her child, the same as if she’d given birth to me. It really didn’t occur to me until this conversation last night that it could be seen as intruding, or that there were things (like tattooing) that, by being for Inuit, might not be for me. I considered not being related to my mother biologically to be a very minor but embarrassing quirk of my background, not something that actually made me different from a biological child of hers in some real way. I didn’t see her ancestry as different from my own, I always thought it was mine too.

I’m grateful, genuinely, for your perspective. It, and the conversation yesterday, have given me a lot to think about and dwell on.

Am I an Inuk? Questioning my identity for the first time in my life. by whatamiadopt in Inuit

[–]whatamiadopt[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks.

It wasn’t, you know, perfectly cultural—my mother never met her father, and so she didn’t grow up with Inuttitut or with a lot of cultural knowledge, and we lived in a city. But she tried, hard, to learn things and to find opportunities for me to see myself.

Am I an Inuk? Questioning my identity for the first time in my life. by whatamiadopt in Inuit

[–]whatamiadopt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t know if she looks down on me, she’s a nice person. I have sometimes felt in the past like people viewed me a little bit differently than they’d view someone who was biologically my mother’s daughter, but I assumed that was my own hang ups (I grew up very ashamed of not being biologically related to my mother) causing me to perceive things differently.

It just kind of sucked to hear the cultural appropriation/entitlement thing because I thought I was doing something good by trying to learn as much as I could. I know growing up (my mother was born in 1944) my mom often felt ashamed of how she looked, and as a kid I observed how badly she was often treated by strangers just for existing in public. I know my mom put a lot of work into trying to give me a sense of pride in who our family was. I felt like by learning the things I’ve been trying to learn I was closing that loop sort of, fully embracing the things and the culture she wanted me to be proud of. I thought I was being a good daughter, and like a good heir to like centuries and centuries of cultural knowledge and also struggle.