{"id":11669,"date":"2011-01-23T19:08:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T19:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11669"},"modified":"2011-01-26T18:19:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T18:19:42","slug":"phil-wilkes-fixico-%e2%80%94-a-true-native-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11669","title":{"rendered":"Phil Wilkes Fixico \u2014 a True Native Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Wilkes Fixico \u2014 a True Native Son<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

L. A. Watts Times<\/a>
\n2010-03-11<\/p>\n

Darlene Donloe<\/strong>, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

Phil Wilkes Fixico\u2019s life is more dramatic than virtually any soap opera.<\/p>\n

It took him about 52 years to find out who he was after growing up in what he calls a \u201cweb of lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

His intriguing story is part of the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s<\/a> \u201cIndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas,\u201d a book<\/a> and exhibit<\/a> that will tour the country for five years and make its Los Angeles<\/a> debut at the California African American Museum<\/a>, tentatively in March 2011. The book speaks to the challenges and triumphs of dual African American and Native American heritage.<\/p>\n

A \u201chome-grown\u201d kid who grew up in the Nickerson Gardens housing project<\/a> in Watts<\/a>, Fixico, 62, came up hard. His mother not only hid the identity of his biological father, but as a kid he was in and out of four juvenile institutions, experienced rejection, used drugs, committed crimes and witnessed domestic violence, said Fixico, who lives in Inglewood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fixico, a member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers<\/a> 9th<\/a> and 10th Horse Cavalry<\/a>, and the \u201cSeminole Negro Indian Scouts<\/a>,\u201d said he \u201cgrew up as a troubled youth because I kept bumping into the truth and half-truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew there was more than what I was being told, but I didn\u2019t know what it was. I certainly didn\u2019t know it was this.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he discovered 10 years ago rocked his core: He is a \u201cSeminole<\/a>–Maroon <\/a>descendant.\u201d He now describes it as an \u201cidentity crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

By appearance, Fixico looks like a black man to some, but he doesn\u2019t think of himself that way; instead, he describes himself as a \u201cSeminole-Maroon descendant.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…To understand why he calls himself a Seminole-Maroon descendant is a long story that he pieced together through research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t call myself black,\u201d said Fixico, who is one-eighth Seminole Indian, one-fourth Cherokee Freedman<\/a>, one-fourth Seminole Freedman<\/a>, one-fourth mulatto<\/a> and one-eighth Creek Freedman<\/a>, according to a Smithsonian researcher. \u201cThe reason I don\u2019t say black is because that doesn\u2019t really describe the nuances of who I am. I\u2019m a shade of black, a flavor of black.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone asks, \u2018Are you black?\u2019 it gives me pause. I can\u2019t take the same credit as someone coming out of Africa who is pure. I can\u2019t take their same degree of blackness.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be clear, Fixico doesn\u2019t have a problem with being called black or with black people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t want to be black,\u201d said Fixico, who explained his mother was African and Cherokee and his father African and Seminole. \u201cI\u2019ve been the product of a mixture. The one-drop rule<\/a> says I\u2019m black as anybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder America\u2019s concept of black, I\u2019m black. But when I look at it as my own sense of self, I\u2019m a flavor of black.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Wilkes Fixico \u2014 a True Native Son L. A. Watts Times 2010-03-11 Darlene Donloe, Contributing Writer Phil Wilkes Fixico\u2019s life is more dramatic than virtually any soap opera. It took him about 52 years to find out who he was after growing up in what he calls a \u201cweb of lies.\u201d His intriguing story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,125,8,3015,20],"tags":[5273,5274,5269,5270,5271],"class_list":["post-11669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-darlene-donloe","tag-l-a-watts-times","tag-phil-wilkes-fixico","tag-philip-vincent-wilkes","tag-pompey-bruner-fixico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}