I go to pow-wows annually. It's not all beautiful. There's still lots of racism, drug use and alcoholism. Racism is especially bad, I have friends that we're ba

I go to pow-wows annually. It's not all beautiful. There's still lots of racism, drug use and alcoholism. Racism is especially bad, I have friends that we're basically ostracized from their tribes for having non native fathers. The annual pow-wows sometimes feel like one big D.A.R.E. lecture and it's really sad because they talk about how every other generation gets caught up in addiction and grandparents are always raising grandkids. My mother intentionally never got us properly set up for tribal membership because she didn't want us anywhere near the negative aspects of the culture. (I'm also not even sure if I could qualify despite tracing my ancestry back to the baker rolls.) And she didn't even grow up on the rez, just in Appalachia. It's been a blessing and a curse.