I Am From Here

"I can tell you the when, where and how of every single time I’ve been accosted by the phrase, “Go back to where you came from.” The drunk men gulping openly from their 40s at the gas station in Sissonville. The leering cowboy in Wheeling who first asked what tribe I was from, and then, on being told that I was “not that kind of Indian,” spat hate in my face. The drive-by slurs screamed out an open car window in Nashville.

Each time, my body switched into an uncontrolled state. My eyes blurred, my stomach went queasy, my temples pounded. I cataloged counterarguments in my mind, ways to prove my “American-ness”: my birth certificate, my passport, my memorization of every fact there is to know about the state of West Virginia. State bird: cardinal; state animal: black bear; state motto: Montani Semper Liberi; famous West Virginians: Jennifer Garner, Chuck Yeager, Steve Harvey, Henry Louis Gates. But the dryness in my mouth, the fear in my chest about what they might do if I talked back, prevented me from saying anything until the men were gone".