By now, observant readers will have noticed an oddity in the race commentary of Amphibious. There is only one mention of Native Americans––setting aside the discussion for now about why I personally do not believe Native Hawaiians to be in the same category as Native Americans––and there is no engagement with Native American history as such or any acknowledgement of their current concerns with respect to race relations.

The reason why there is not more attention given to the history and current concerns of Native Americans in Amphibious is a personal one. The only clue to it in the text is this one sentence, “For instance, the designation of 4.14 was given to Americans whose ancestry included slaves, slaveowners, and oftentimes indigenous people as well.” (Amphibious, page 48)

The concept of race in the novel is based on my experience of race in America. And sadly, there was a rupture in my family’s history that leads me to speak of Native Americans as “they” when, in a world less broken, I would say “we.” Native American cultures and history have been very nearly erased from my family’s consciousness but for a few small details.

My two nearest confirmed Native American ancestors are on my mother’s side, the Black American side. One of my mother’s great-grandmothers was mixed with Black and Native American. She attended a residential school and had an uncle who said his name was Charlie, even though everyone in the family knew that he had another name. The only remaining cultural artifact passed down from our Native American family on that side is the phrase, “Good little Indians don’t cry”––a phrase that reflects the trauma of life in a residential school.

My mother’s grandmother on the other side had a white father and a Native American mother. My great-grandmother’s life as a mixed person––and perhaps particularly being mixed with Native American––was difficult. She married a Black man, had Black children, and thereby “became” Black. She was Black, and she would teach anyone a lesson who claimed otherwise. So, although she was born mixed with white and Native American, she died Black.

Thus, my family––like many––bears the scars of the purposeful erasure of Native American cultures. White America plotted and planned to make this happen, and my own ancestors, brainwashed and traumatized, bowed beneath the pressure that was too great for them to bear. I do not blame them for doing what they needed to do to survive in a world that had broken them. But I would be lying if I said that their choice to erase their own pain does not still hurt me.

My great-grandmother, the one that was born white and Native American, was still alive when I was six. For six years, we both walked on this same planet, and our stories briefly overlapped. My mother had hoped to finally ask this great-grandmother from which tribe she had descended, but she never got the chance. My great-grandmother fell ill. She lingered in a coma for a while. That was how I met her––in the hospital room during my first trip to Alabama to meet that side of the family. We could talk to her, but she could not talk to us. She died during our stay, and we attended her funeral. 

I think of history in a social way as well as a spiritual one. Socially, knowing my history helps me to better contextualize myself in this odd world and the unfortunate systems within it. It helps me to know which people are my own and––although I am called to love all people––to identify those with whom I may feel a particular sense of kinship. Spiritually, knowing my history contextualizes me, too. My story does not just consist of my short life; it is connected to the stories of my family, living and dead. What happened to my ancestors still affects me, whether I am aware of the specifics or not. I am a part of their story, a continuation of it. Their struggles and pain may be reproduced in me, but they might also begin to heal. I fear, however, that without full knowledge of the wound, healing may be obstructed.

My Native American ancestors departed from this earth, taking parts of our story with them. On this side of eternity, I will not get those parts back. I have tried. I combed census records as well as the Dawes Rolls and researched the places to and from where the Trail of Tears may have caused my ancestors to be moved. But my ancestors did a stellar clean-up job. By the time the government got serious about recording Native American populations, my people were already listed as “Mulatto.”

So, back to Amphibious. The book is written from my Blasian American, culturally dissociated point of view. My history is traumatized into silence and that is reflected in the world-building of Amphibious. I’m not saying that this is right, only that this is the way it is. My Native American ancestors succeeded in taking painful information to the grave, but I still inherited their pain. It is a wordless pain that subsists on silence. In order to continue world-building in the rest of the Evolution of Control series, to be able to include more of the missing pieces, I will need to find words for the pain.

On a personal level, is healing possible? I endeavor to hope so. In the meantime, I want to do what I can to support Native American people and to share their concerns as much as possible. But I also acknowledge that getting involved now cannot connect me to the stories that I have lost. I have to accept those losses and live my present story while honoring that there were indeed indigenous stories that led to the one that I live today.