Nooksack Tribe member explores multiracial culturePosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Canada, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, Social Science, United States on 2010-02-08 18:41Z by Steven |
Nooksack Tribe member explores multiracial culture
The Bellingham Herald
2009-09-28
Dean Kahn
Louie Gong grew up eating American Indian bread for breakfast and Chinese dinners cooked on a camp stove.
In the evening, his Chinese and native relatives got together for mah-jongg.
Gong’s mother was of French and Scottish descent. His father was half Chinese, part Nooksack and part Squamish.
Early on, Gong was raised by his grandparents, father, stepmother and scads of relatives in a rustic community north of Abbotsford, B.C. Later, his family moved into Nooksack Indian Tribe housing near Deming.
Growing up in Whatcom County — he graduated from Nooksack Valley High in 1992 — Gong learned to navigate in a world where mixed-race people often struggle to define themselves, and where other people prefer to slot them into simple categories.
“I couldn’t quite figure out what I was,” he said, “but I knew I wasn’t part of the mainstream.”…
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