A Letter to Elizabeth Hoover

Yesterday, on May 1, 2023, Elizabeth Hoover put up a “Letter of Accountability and Apology” on her personal webpage in which she states, “I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life.” I have had the following post sitting in my drafts for a few months, and feel ready to share it because I feel there is a need for information to be in the public record, and a need to understand the level of labor actual Indigenous people had to put in to get her to the point of writing that statement. I am one of many, many Native people who have been caught up in her decades of lies and one of many Native people who has worked tirelessly to hold her accountable, and this continues to take up enormous amounts of time and emotional energy. 

For the past year I have been dealing with the reality that Elizabeth Hoover (“Liz”), once one of my close friends and colleague, has falsified her Mohawk and Mi’kmaq identity. Nearly a year ago I researched her claims and communicated the findings to her. I did not do this to hurt her or destroy anything, I did this to find the truth for her and to help to exonerate her. What I found was the opposite. 

In February of 2021 Elizabeth Hoover’s name appeared on the controversial “Alleged Pretendian List.”  Since she had long asserted that she was of Mohawk/Mi’kmaq descent and the list contained the names of people who have actual, undisputed Native ties or are even enrolled in their nations, I offered to help her to write a statement about her identity to clear things up. She declined, but said she would talk with others to decide what to do. I realized then that I had never heard the full story of her family, though I had always been very open about mine–-but I pushed the questions away. However, one year later, in February 2022 there was a public statement put out by an Indigenous group in Chicago questioning not only the behavior of her then-partner, Adam Sings-in-the-Timber, but her claims to heritage. We then had a conversation where I asked her directly for family names and ties, and was left confused and unsatisfied by the answers. Failing a clear story from her I embarked on my own research into her claims. After extensive research utilizing Canadian and US census records, death certificates, obituaries, marriage certificates, baptismal records, and census data from Kahnawake I found no Indigenous ties on the lines that she had claimed, tracing back to her great-great-great grandparents. 

I will say that this work was not particularly difficult nor did it require a lot of specialized knowledge–her story fell apart very quickly, within a few clicks, but the subsequent months were spent trying every avenue to find something that would explain her claims, triangulating and triple checking, looking in new databases, finding more and new documents, or going back another generation.

In April 2022, Acee Agoyo of Indianz.com published a very disturbing research-driven account of her claims, looking up her dissertation, her on-line bios, while also investigating the allegations of sexual assault against her then partner. This public conversation created urgency around my need for answers from Liz directly. I sent her the letter that follows in June 2022. Four months later, in October 2022, she released a statement on her personal website [scroll below recent statement]. She has continued, publicly and in small groups, to reference “somebody” or “a colleague” who did the research into her family, and in some cases implied that it was research done out of spite or vindictive in nature. That “somebody” was me, and this research came from the exact opposite of spite or hate–I just wanted to know the truth, and I truly thought the answer would be different than what I found.

I have been very hesitant to share this letter. I wrote it for Liz. I didn’t write it for a broad audience, and I am the first to admit that I am not Mohawk or Mi’kmaq, nor am I a genealogist or a historian. I worried that maybe I had gotten something wrong. That I had not identified the correct ancestors. That I missed something. However, I am a PhD trained researcher (as is Liz), and this has since been examined by several others who found the same ancestors in their research. In the months since I sent the letter, she hasn’t offered any corrections or additions to the genealogy.

I also feel strangely and illogically protective over these random white ancestors, who I now feel connected to over months of reading their lives through online documents and tracing the trails and trials they endured. There is tragedy and sadness here.  Though they are not Indigenous and they are not my family relations, they didn’t ask to be pulled into this. However, in making these claims about herself in print and in public, in accepting opportunities designated for Indigenous peoples, Liz pulled them into this.

I continue to be referenced online as her supporter, called a “defendian,” and have had my own Cherokee identity repeatedly questioned (I am an enrolled tribal citizen), which has been extremely painful. At the time I sent this, I told her that I had no plans to make this work public, and I didn’t–but I feel that the work contained here and my approach may be helpful to others navigating the pervasive trespasses of ethnic frauds.

I am sharing the letter as I sent it, with the exception of one reference to a graduate student that I have redacted for privacy.

In her direct response to me, Liz didn’t question any of my findings.  She refuted ever lying about her identity and insists that her shifting claims about her identity in written documents was not about obfuscation or attempts to back away from her claims. She also refutes others who recall her claiming to be from other Mohawk communities as untrue. There are other minor points that she disputes, but again, she had no objections to the core of the research.

If you have any additional information about Elizabeth Hoover or have stories of how her claims impacted you or your community that you would like to share, I and a small group of other Native women have created a gmail account where you can contact us. Know that we will take the utmost care with your stories and you will have the final say over whether or how we use your information.

 HooverInformation@gmail.com

I request that you please only email the above account and do not respond to me directly through my personal or work emails as the time and energy this has required has already exerted an exhausting toll. Thank you for your understanding.

***

[Sent June 20, 2022]

Dear Liz,

I want to be clear that I did all of this work hoping to vindicate you. As someone whose identity is constantly questioned, I absolutely hate this kind of thing. I wanted the rumors and the tweets and the pretendian list to be wrong. Though you wouldn’t take me up on my offers to help you write a statement about your family, I wanted to help you tell your family story in a way that protected what you had described as a hurtful, embarrassing, and messy story and allowed you to move forward and put all this behind you. I didn’t go into this looking to prove you wrong or wanting to prove you weren’t Native. I did this work from a place of love, which makes what I found even harder for me to understand. I wanted your story to be true. I wanted to give you the tools you needed to prove everyone wrong. But I also got to a point where I needed to know for myself. Things were starting to not add up. If I was going to defend you I needed to know the truth, and I wasn’t getting it from you. 

This represents hours and hours of work poring over ancestry.com, cross referencing to other archives, finding online gravesites and obituaries, learning about pitfalls of Native genealogy, learning about Kahnawake and Canadian records, and even translating things from French into English. 

I am a researcher, as are you, and I used every skill of my Indigenous studies researcher arsenal to try and corroborate your story or find any shred of truth. I entered into this with the most generous reading of connection as possible. Knowing how settler colonialism and Indigenous erasure function, I gave the benefit of the doubt at every turn. I still hold out some tiny flame of hope that maybe I’m wrong on one of these ancestors. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I didn’t go back far enough. So I’m turning it over to you. All of this information is readily available online, and I will share all of these documents with you if you need them. I, and your friends, colleagues, collaborators, students, communities, and organizations need answers. If what I’ve found is untrue, incorrect, or incomplete, I need to know. If it is correct, I need to hear it from you directly. 

From your dissertation:

“Because I am of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent (my mother has ancestors from Kahnawake, a Mohawk community to the East of Akwesasne, and my father has Mi’kmaq ancestors from Quebec), I was invited to attend Longhouse events.”

From your book:

“As a person of Indigenous ancestry who is not from Akwesasne…” (Introduction, page 12)

“I have mixed Indigenous ancestry (Mohawk and Mi’kmaq) but am not enrolled in a community, so I am grateful to the Bear Clan, and especially Bear Clan mother Wakerakatsiteh, for giving me a place to sit with them in the longhouse; to Jean and Henry Laffin, who took me in as their daughter; to Ionawaiienhawi, who became my niece and her parents my dearest friends; and to the dozens of others who took me in, made me their friend and family, and put me to work.” (Footnote in introduction, page 286 of Notes)

[These are the only mentions of your ancestry I could find in your whole book, which is hard to understand in hindsight.]

From what you have told me, only recently:

Your great grandmother, Adeline Rivers, was from Kahnawake, but left when she married her husband (who I now know is Morris Ovitt), a Frenchman. He was abusive and harmful, and she took her own life by drowning herself in the St. Lawrence River. Her son, your Grandfather, who I now know is Leroy Ovitt, was then raised by another woman or family and disconnected from his heritage. Your mother, Anita Ovitt/Hoover raised you with this story, and you grew up going to local powwows and some kind of ceremonies in upstate NY and surrounding areas. You also mentioned the Mi’kmaq came from your paternal grandmother, who I believe is Maxine Earl.

Below is what I’ve been able to compile through my research. To be upfront: None of what you have stated and/or been told appears to have any truth.

Your maternal line, tracing the claimed Mohawk descent:

Elizabeth Hoover (you)

B. 1978

Anita Ovitt-Hoover (mother)

B. 1947

Leroy Ovitt (grandfather)  

B. 1918, Luzerene, NY

D. 1997, Saratoga, NY

Obituary:

Adeline Rivers (Great Grandmother, where you have stated the ancestry comes from)

B. 1888, Luzerne, NY

D. 1928, Luzerne, NY

Obituary:

Based on this information alone, the story you told me is patently untrue. Adeline was born in Luzerne, NY, and is listed as white on all census records (see below). Her obituary states she drowned in the Schroon River, not the St. Lawrence. 

This is the 1900 Census. It shows Adeline (Addie), at age 12, living with her family in Luzerne, NY, where she was born. There are no census records or other records from her life that list her as anything other than White. 

In 1902 she married Morris Ovitt in Corinth, NY, not Canada:

In 1925, she is listed as white, and the census shows that your grandfather, Leroy, was 7:

She then sadly died at age 41, three years later. 

Her father, Charles Rivers, your great-great grandfather, was listed as born in “France, Canada”. Her mother, Luretta, was born in NY. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I looked into Charles’ origins, as maybe the story was one more generation back.

Charles Rivers, your great-great grandfather,  who is also listed as white on all census documents, arrived in the US before or at age 4, and on the 1850 census is listed as living with his parents in Vermont:

His parents, Joseph and Ester Rivers, your great-great-great grandparents, are also listed as white, and listed as laborers born in Canada. 

I found Ester Rivers Jr.’s death record from 1914, your great-great Aunt, where she is also listed as white: 

​​

It shows her mother’s maiden name as Coutour. 

Joseph Rivers and Ester Coutour emigrated to the US sometime around or before the 1850 census, meaning if either of them were Mohawk from Kahnawake, they would have presumably been on the Kahnawake census records before then. The community took full community censuses throughout the 1800s, all of which were transcribed and recorded in these documents (I have the PDF if you would like to see). There are no records of the name Rivers on any of the censuses, which include other nearby Mohawk communities as well, nor Riviere (the french spelling), or even Two Rivers, Cross River, or some of the other Mohawk names that show up in the 1900s, long after your family emigrated. There are also no Countour’s or any other similar spelling. 

I found the marriage record for Joseph and Ester, which show them getting married in 1831 in Bertheirville, Quebec, which is a French-candadian village located about 60 miles north of Kahnawake. It appears Joseph changed the family name from the Francophone spelling of Riviere to Rivers when he and the family emigrated to Vermont.  

I am happy to share any of these documents with you if you would like to see them. I was very careful with my research, cross checking and verifying and making sure I was tracking the correct people.

I also found plenty of Mohawk people from Kahnawake during the same time period who were very well documented. Not only on the Mohawk censuses from their communities, but also through baptism/marriage records, and records of crossings between the US and Canada. On all of these documents they are clearly marked as “Indian” and their origin/home/birthplace as “Caughnawaga” (the early spelling of Kahnawake). 

In summary, for your maternal line:

Liz Hoover

B. 1978, New York

Anita Ovitt/Hoover (mother)

B. 1947

Leroy Ovitt (grandfather)

B. 1918, Luzerene, NY

D. 1997, Saratoga, NY

Adeline Rivers (Ovitt) (great-grandmother)

B. 1888, Luzerne, NY

D. 1928, Luzerne, NY

Charles Rivers (great-great grandfather)

B. 1846, Quebec, Canada

D. unknown

Joseph Rivers (great-great-great grandfather)

B. ~1802

All of these ancestors are not listed as Indian on any document.

Through looking at all of these folks in your maternal family, there are no discernable ties to Kahnawake, or any Mohawk community for at least five generations and over 200 years. The story about your great-grandmother you told me is untrue, and there appear to be no Indigenous ancestors through your maternal grandfather, as you’ve claimed. 

Your paternal line, tracing the claimed Mi’kmaq descent: 

This claim is even more baffling to me, as there are no ancestors that I could find through your paternal grandmother who were born in Canada, or even near Canada. The Vermont ties are from southern Vermont, not near the northern border. I have similar documentation as above for your paternal line, but because the locations didn’t line up with Mi’kmaq communities I didn’t provide it here. I’m happy to share if you want to see them.

Liz Hoover 

B. 1978, New York

Robert Hoover (Father)

B. 1950

Maxine Earl (Grandmother)

B. 1915, Chicago, Illinois

D. 1998, Altamont, NY

Harry Bennet Earl (great-grandfather)

B. 1884, Balston Spa, NY

D. 1923, Saratoga Springs, NY

Agnes Leyden (great-grandma)*

B. 1895, Iowa

D. 1938, Saratoga Springs, NY

Rollin J. Earl (great-great grandfather)

B. 1847, Mt. Holly, VT

D. 1922, Saratoga Springs, NY

Emily Bennett (great-great grandmother)

B. 1849, Boston, MA

D. 1922, Balston Spa, NY

Sally Spring-Earl (great-great-great grandmother)

B. 1806, Massachusetts 

D. 1879, Vermont

Roswell Earl (great-great-great grandfather)

B. ~1806, Mt. Holly, VT

D. unknown

All of these ancestors are listed as white on census, marriage, and death certificates. I also found documents of your great-great Uncle, Rufus Earl, who was listed as white on his death certificate as well. There appear to be no ties at all to any Mi’kmaq community, or even Canada, through your paternal grandmother for at least 5 generations and over 200 years.

*Agnes’ parents were born in Ireland, so I didn’t trace this any further, as they clearly could not be Mi’kmaq:

Philip Leyden (great-great grandfather, Agnes’s father)

B. 1845, Ireland

D. 1906, Iowa

Mary Manton (great-great grandma, Agnes’s mother)

B. 1849, Ireland

D. 1915, Iowa

Questions/Concerns you probably have:

Couldn’t my ancestors have been miscategorized on documents?

We know the US census is not a reliable marker for race, especially for Natives. Folks could not self categorize until 1960, and American Indian was not included as a category until 1860. However, in 1860, *only* Natives who were considered to be “assimilated” were counted on the census, meaning the folks living off reservations and in white communities, which would have included your ancestors if they were Indian. In addition, in 1900, folks were recorded with blood quantum, and in 1930 Indigenous folks who were mixed with white were recorded as solely Indian. The US government wanted to keep track of Indians. 

From Pew research: 

“Although American Indians were not included in early U.S. censuses, an “Indian” category was added in 1860, but enumerators counted only those American Indians who were considered assimilated (for example, those who settled in or near white communities). The census did not attempt to count the entire American Indian population until 1890.

In some censuses, enumerators were told to categorize American Indians according to the amount of Indian or other blood they had, considered a marker of assimilation. In 1900, for example, census takers were told to record the proportion of white blood for each American Indian they enumerated. The 1930 census instructions for enumerators said that people who were white-Indian were to be counted as Indian “except where the percentage of Indian blood is very small, or where he is regarded as a white person by those in the community where he lives.”” (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/06/11/chapter-1-race-and-multiracial-americans-in-the-u-s-census/#fn-20724-23 )

On all of these censuses, your ancestors are listed as white. On documents where they could presumably have self-identified, such as marriage licenses, they chose to identify as white. The obituaries I found don’t mention Native ancestry or connections, even in passing or as something they were proud of.

Additionally, our ancestors don’t exist in a vacuum. They each have a massive web of relatives that chain off of them–siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins–and each of those relatives have relatives and so on, making thousands and thousands of relatives throughout 200+ years. I clicked and searched for as many of these relations as possible in my research, and none of them are identified as Indian that I could find.

As an example of miscategorization, I offer my own family. I found a census for my Cherokee family in the 1920s, when they were living on Cherokee allotment land in Oklahoma. For some reason, the entire family is listed on the census document as white. However, on the same census card, right next to my family, is my great-grandmother’s brother and his family, who were living on the allotment next door, and they are all listed as full blood Cherokee–meaning obviously my great-grandmother was as well. Then, on all subsequent censuses, my great-grandmother is listed as Indian. My grandmother, who went to Indian boarding school and grew up on that allotment land, didn’t have a birth certificate because she was born at home in the rural country. When she was an adult, she went to get a birth certificate made so she could apply for a passport, and either she or the official listed her as white. But on other documents, she is listed as Indian. 

So even in cases of miscategorization, there are usually other documents or relatives to demonstrate connection to a tribal nation. 

For your family, there appear to be no such corroborating documents that I can find. 

Couldn’t my family have been “hiding in plain sight” for five generations? Maybe you didn’t go back far enough. 

I mean, maybe? Your great-great-great grandparents would have already had to have been white passing enough to assimilate into the white communities in which they lived to be recorded as white on all the documents. I obviously don’t ascribe to racist colonial blood quantum at all, but for a reference point, one Indigenous ancestor at the great-great-great grandparent level equals 1/64 of your ancestry, and one generation beyond that is 1/128 of your ancestry. If they were already mixed at that point, it would be even less. 

But it also then boils down to what you think about identity. That blood quantum BS shouldn’t matter at all if your ancestors were shown to be in community with a living tribal nation for all those generations, but they weren’t. So being completely generous in a way that is unsupported by facts in this case, yes, maybe some beliefs, stories, lifeways, or other connections wound their way through five or six generations to be a part of your family’s life today. At what point, though, do those bits and pieces warrant a primary identity? One that is so strong I’ve never actually heard you say that you’re Native and white, or even mixed, or even talk about your whiteness at all? When does “reclaiming” become appropriation? But again, even so, I can’t find evidence that your family has anything to reclaim.

I thought this essay by someone with documented Mi’kmaq heritage was a helpful musing about the difference between ancestry and claiming identity: https://maisonneuve.org/article/2021/06/29/ktaqmkuk/ 

But I have never claimed to be enrolled in a community, only descent?

To be a descendant of a tribal nation you must actually descend from that nation. As a professor of Native American studies, you know more than anyone that Indigenous identity is about nationhood. You have, as far as I can tell, no documented ties to any tribal nation. You only ever claimed a generic “Mohawk” and a generic “Mi’kmaq” which I now recognize as something I should have picked up on years ago. Those are not tribal nations. They are groups of tribal nations. That would be like me claiming “Cherokee” but not being able to state which of the three Cherokee nations I come from–a huge red flag. 

Again, to be a descendant, you must actually descend from a tribal nation. Which Mohawk? Which Mi’kmaq? To reconnect, there has to be a point of disconnection to heal. I can’t find any point of disconnection, because there doesn’t appear to be a connection in the first place. 

I have close friends who have to list themselves as descendants because their tribal nations have restrictive enrollment policies. These are folks whose parents are enrolled, whose grandparents are enrolled, some who have even grown up in their communities. They can get official letters from their tribes affirming their descendant status, allowing them to be working artists or apply for scholarships etc. They are descendants, because they have continued ties and connections. An unverified family story is not enough to claim descent. An unverified family story is not enough to build an entire personal identity and career off of. 

This is what I was always told, this is how I was raised, I never thought to question it?

You are a professor of Native studies. You make your entire living and career off of being Native. You have a responsibility to know your own family story. Every Native community I have entered into folks immediately ask who my family is and where I’m from by way of greeting. If it’s true you never questioned your parents, I wonder how you’ve been asked who your family is and where you’re from throughout your whole life and never stopped to wonder who your family actually is. Where they are actually from. 

There are also signs that show you did know the story wasn’t true. You’ve slowly erased your tribal affiliation from your bios online through the years, the parenthetical after your name stating Elizabeth Hoover (Mohawk/Mi’kmaq) has disappeared, you didn’t offer any kind of deep positionality in your book which isn’t a best practice in Indigenous studies, and Devon Mihesuah shared that you changed your bio for your book together in 2018 right before it went to press to remove any mention of your ancestry. That’s four years ago. I have a hard time believing or understanding that you would have done all this if you didn’t know at some level and were trying to cover your tracks. 

To be Indigenous is to be from the land. You know this. If it was true you never questioned your parent’s stories, how did you never want to know what lands you were from? How did you not want to find those lands and go visit with them? Stand on them? Be in relationship with them? As a food sovereignty advocate, know the plants and animals and medicines that come from the place you supposedly came from? For me, when I began reconnecting when I was a teenager, one of the first things I needed to know was what lands I came from. I needed to visit with them, and feel the place my ancestors came from, because that is what makes me Ani Yunwiya. I don’t understand how you didn’t have that same desire and therefore do the work yourself to find out. 

But I do good work, I’ve made family in Akwesasne, “canceling” me isn’t going to help anyone?

You did all of your “good work” based on what appears to be a lie. You told communities and organizations you were Mohawk and Mi’kmaq. You gained entry into spaces because of that lie. You gained entry into sacred ceremonial spaces where no non-Natives are allowed based on that lie. You created family based on that lie. You earned grants and jobs and fellowships based on that lie. You gained trust for your research based on that lie. The “good work” does not exist in the world on its own. You used previous relationships and others vouching for you as a “Native woman” to gain entry into additional spaces. You built trust and relationships based on the fact that you were Mohawk and Mi’kmaq, which is untrue. You strategically performed identity in visible and marked ways so folks would make assumptions and not ask questions. 

The thing that is hard for me is you could have done all of this good work as a white woman. You could have stood in solidarity with Native people, been a true accomplice, a co-conspirator, without having to claim identity. The work needs to be done, and communities need people to do it with them. You could have had the same career and do the same work as a white woman, and folks would have welcomed it. But now you’ve broken all of the trust and called into question all of the work, because you started it with a lie. 

There has to be some kind of accountability. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t advocate for “canceling” anyone, but you have some major work to do to repair any level of trust, and you have to realize there are and should be consequences for falsifying your identity for your entire career. You’ve caused immense harm. All of your friends, your collaborators, your co-authors, your students are all having their judgment questioned. Folks are calling to not assign your work any longer, meaning any of your co-authors and the communities whose stories you are telling also suffer. I and others can no longer ask you for letters of recommendation. I’ve had to field dozens and dozens of texts, phone calls, emails, and zoom meetings from your devastated and angry former students and colleagues. I have to be gaslit by everyone who doesn’t want to believe it’s true or who questions my own judgment for being so close to you for so long. 

This has been devastating for me. You were my best friend in Providence. You are the reason I am at Brown. You were my mentor and my guide for what it meant to be a Native woman in academia. And now I’ve had to call into question everything about our relationship and what I’ve learned from you. I have to reflect back and reexamine my ways of relating and being in community and the academy, knowing that I learned how to be a Native scholar from a white woman lying about her ancestry. The amount of stress and sleepless nights and crying phone calls has derailed all of my work for months and wreaked havoc on my body. I’ve been so angry, so upset, and questioning all of my reality and our friendship. How much of our relationship was because you loved me and wanted me as your friend, and how much was because you wanted more actual Native people close to you to be able to vouch for you? How will I ever be able to know?

I don’t need to address this. I stand by my work and those who support me and don’t need to give in to this witch hunt. 

The pretendian hunts of the current moment are a mess. They are harmful to those of us, like me, who are actual Indigenous people who code as white and have grown up disconnected because of settler colonialism. They are harmful to folks with complicated family stories and adoptions and estranged family and force many of us to share things about our families that we shouldn’t have to. But if you have actual ties to community, it’s simple and straightforward to stop the questioning. You share your family names. You tell, even an abbreviated version, of how your family was disconnected. Indian country understands the complications, when they’re real. Prior to doing this digging, I never understood your resistance to writing a statement or sharing your family names and story. To me it seems like such an easy fix–you just tell the truth, even if it’s messy, and people understand. You’ve also hinted that some of your changing of how you identify is because Mohawk’s are “intense” about identity, or Kahnawake is a hard place to reconnect to because of their own identity politics–but to me, anytime I’ve been questioned, it makes me more obstinate in claiming my identity. It’s a disservice to my ancestors to back down. There is no reason to back down if you have truth behind you. But now I see that there wasn’t a way for you to fix it, because there aren’t family names to share. There isn’t a story to tell.

You’ve used stories that weren’t your own. You implied your family was harmed by settler colonial policies, such the misogyny of the Indian Act, you implied your great grandmother was a victim of racist abuse, you allowed for everyone to fill in gaps and blanks with stories we all know from our own families and communities. But these stories weren’t the stories of your family. Your story has also shifted and changed, and even adjusted as new information emerged. Other friends relayed that they thought you had claimed Kanesatake, or even Six Nations at various times. No one ever heard which Mi’kmaq nation you claimed. 

I can’t believe I’m quoting a TV show here, but it’s recent and relevant. In the new season of Rutherford Falls, Reagan inadvertently hires a pretendian as curator for her tribal museum. There’s a very powerful moment where Michael Greyeyes’s character confronts him and says, “There are real Native people out here with deeply complex identity stories. But that’s not you. You take advantage of centuries of violent displacement. You hide in the cracks of our trauma, feasting on opportunities. How long have you been pretending? What started this game? You got waitlisted at Amherst, so you thought you could sneak in the back door. To compensate for your hopeless mediocrity by presenting as…whatever this is. Now you’re here, until you scurry back to a more prominent museum where no one in those white spaces has the depth to sniff out your fakery. Do you fathom the harm you cause us? Can you? As you pick and choose all the positives of who we are without ever once experiencing any of the hardships. I want you to look at me and tell me who you really are.” (Rutherford Falls, Season 2, Episode 2) 

So this is what I have, this is what I’ve found. I need to be able to address this, learn the truth, and move on. Now I need you to look at me and tell me who you really are. The full truth. Please. 

-AK