Ganabaj (I think)

By: Anjanette M. Parisien

This time of year, especially after the annual costume days and the start of a focused calendar month on my personal racial and ethnic grounding, I find myself deep in contemplative and reflective moments around identity. I find myself thinking about whether I should be doing something extra to celebrate the land, the water, my people, my culture, my family, or myself. I notice myself waiting for others to recognize the land, the water, my people, my culture, my family, or myself too. I find a self-made celebration to be ostentatious and boastful. I see a multitude of people sharing endless social media posts, supposed revised historical narratives, and (much to my unshocked disappointment) imagery of Anishinaabe or Dakota or Cree or Metis and countless other nations that continue to propagate inaccuracies, misconceptions, falsehoods, and hurtful opinions.

Instead of engaging in the uncomfortable celebration of Pan-American-Indian-ism, I find myself removing the mantles of external expectations to focusing on what I think, ganabaj. Specifically, I find myself reaffirming who I am and how I came to be the person people know today. Ganabaj my heart is made to love when circumstances might dictate otherwise. Ganabaj my spirit is an example of courage. Ganabaj my mind is filled with wisdom that some will recognize, some will not, but is present for a purpose. Ganabaj my actions, my words, my thoughts, and my emotions are respectful of my wholeness and exemplify truth and humility. Ganabaj my entire being is a representation of a life lived in the truth.

My internal conversation has been focusing on the term “liminal.” What does it mean? Why do researchers use this word when referring to people like me? How can my passion and purpose move my existence in the world out of space between and around into the space of everything? When will people who do not share my cultural grounding do the emotional, intellectual, and physical labor to authentically recognize the truths of shared histories? Who is this month really for anyway, me or people not sharing my same identity?

In all honesty, I do not feel liminal. I do not feel between. I do not feel disconnected from history, the present, or the future. I, and countless more like me, exist fully present in the realities we are being patient for others to unblind themselves to see, recognize, and reconcile within themselves. In greater honesty, I do not need a month to celebrate the land, the water, my people, my culture, my family, or myself. Ganabaj my identity is celebrated when I hear my language when I see accurate representations of Anishinaabe and Cree and Metis history, language, material culture, cosmology, and contemporary successes. Ganabaj I am of the people, every moment of every day in every month of every year – a celebration worth my lifetime.