As A Black Native American, Arizona Woman Had To Prove She Was ‘Native Enough’Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Audio, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, United States on 2017-03-09 19:44Z by Steven |
As A Black Native American, Arizona Woman Had To Prove She Was ‘Native Enough’
KJZZ 91.5 FM
Phoenix, Arizona
2017-03-06
Naomi Gingold, Weekend Morning Host
 Roicia Banks with her mom on the day she graduated from her master’s program. Today Banks is confident in her self-identity, proudly African-American and Native American. (Photo courtesy of Roicia Banks) |
Roicia Banks went to graduate school in Texas, and when she was there, people said to her, “Natives still are alive?”
Natives, as in Native Americans.
Laughing, she continued, “Are you kidding me? Yes, we’re alive.”
Banks, who is from Arizona, is undeniably a modern American woman. She is also Native American.
And although — until the Dakota Access Pipeline protests — Native Americans as a modern people rarely graced the national headlines or broke into the modern American psyche, many do lead lives, on and off reservations.
Banks grew up primarily on a reservation. She’s culturally Hopi and registered in a tribe — just a different one than her adopted family. But although she was entirely brought up in Hopi culture, even on the reservation, there were times where she was treated as if she didn’t belong…
Read the entire story here. Listen to the story (00:03:37) here. Download the story here.