Usually the word Prejudice when used as a noun relates to something bad or negative, not to be mistaken with bias which can be both good and bad. The synonyms for Prejudice include but are not limited to: Narrow- mindedness, intolerance, discrimination, unfairness to list just a few. The definition of prejudice is a preconceived opinion not necessarily based reason or actual experience. Bias can be; favoritism, preconception partiality and both good and bad depending on whom it is intended for.

Different Races and species develop when there is isolation from other groups. Is it then a natural thing to be "prejudiced" or biased of something different? It could be as simple as a new individual to the group having curly hair, lighter or darker skin color and maybe just having different ideas about life in general?

I have a foot in both the Alaska Native and the Caucasian (Gusuk) world. I belong to BBNC and have inherited CIRI stock. I am legally a Native shareholder but I have to identify myself as Native as I outwardly show few Native characteristics. Due to this I haven't often had deal with either bias or prejudice from rather world.

I was raised in Dillingham a small Alaskan village, with a foot in two worlds. I was a child of a "gusuk" father, Bill Andrews and a half breed Mother, Marie Vialla Osterhaus Andrews. When I was growing up the Dillingham population was between three and five hundred people. Counting all of my relatives there were about fifty people directly related to my Osterhaus family. It was wonderful place to grow up. I have always described it as a town of half Swedes, half Norwegians, half Germans, half Aleut, and half Yupik with a few Asians thrown in, so you had to be careful of what you said. Who knew who you might be insulting!!! It was a safe town. Everyone played "meachi" or Red Rover in the school yard after school. I did find some discrimination as being puny and not able to run, I was usually the last person chosen. I didn't care. I was always eventually picked.

The word Native in my mind was not an offensive word. We had the town Natives and the upriver Natives. The upriver Natives I remember sitting together in the movies because they were friends and liked to be together. Their native tanned furs were somewhat "odiferous" but not considered offensive. We just sat on the other side of the room.

My mother Marie Vialla Osterhaus was a half breed Aleut born in a small village about 30 miles from Togiak August 20, 1916. My father Bill Andrews was a gusuk, (white) born in a hospital near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco California November 27, 1913.

There were few written records when my mother Marie Vialla Osterhaus was born in the Bristol Bay area. I was able to find census record for 1920 but not 1910. Most information was oral history based on observation and passed down through generations. Her father Adolf (Duffy) Osterhaus, a Californian of German ancestry was looking for adventure and when he came of age, headed to Alaska in the early 1900's. (Sassa Peterson from the Bristol Bay area in recent years told me that Duffy's native name was ___??______________ )

After Duffy arrived in Snag Point as it was called at that time, he met and married a full-blooded Aleut, Anuska Chythlook, a union that produced six children that lived; Elisabeth, Hugo, Adolf, Alma, Formas and my Mom Marie. Mom always talked about how beautiful Duffy thought Anuska was. I also heard that she was assumed to be an Aleut due to her height, she being almost as tall as Duffy and she possibly had Russian in her ancestry. Following Anuska's death from the Spanish Flu in 1919, Duffy married Anne, I am not sure of her native ethnicity, and two more children arrived, Boice and Irene. A white man marrying native women was accepted but I don't recall many Native men marrying white women at that time.

 When my Mom was young "Half Breed" was a somewhat offensive word but when they called her a "Siwash" she thought it was pretty and liked it! Guess that is Bias.

I remember lying next to my Mom when I was about four or five and noticing that our skin color was different. I asked her why but don't remember her answer. It must not have been important to me. There were few mirrors in our small village but just looking at our hands close together showed a marked difference. I had also begun to notice that my Mom and Dad's skin color was different as was their hair color and hair texture. I don't remember it ever making a difference

In 1944, when I had to fly into Anchorage at age seven in to get glasses with my white grandmother, I experienced my first exposure to Prejudice. I could read and as I approached the door to the Anchorage Grill, located on 4^th Avenue and E Street, read the sign on the door that struck fear in my heart: NO NATIVES OR HALF BREEDS ALLOWED in big black letters! Nan didn't appear to notice the sign but I was horrified and terrified! I didn't know exactly how I fit into this situation! I was afraid to bring it up to my Grandmother in the restaurant as someone might hear me, throw me out and I didn't know where to go!!! When I later shared the sign information with my Grandmother, she put me in front of a mirror and said "You look like me". She was right but I did not fully understand it.

My father's Andrews family was well documented and I remember reading a book, lost in a '64 fire, documenting the history of the Andrews family when I was young. Dad's ancestry was listed as Scotch, Irish, and English and his roots extended back to the family arriving in America shortly after the Mayflower group. The family headed to Arkansas where they stayed and established roots. His maternal family, the Allen's was also an old established Arkansas family.

My white grandmother Dad's Mom, Gladys Allen married Phillip Andrews, they moved to California and two sons were born, William and Harry, who died early of a suspected brain tumor. After Gladys and Phillip divorced, Gladys always an adventuress came to Bristol Bay Alaska in the early "30's with her then husband Perry Wamser who was working in the booming salmon industry in the early ‘30's. She left her 17-year-old son Bill with his Dad Phillip in San Francisco. Bill then convinced his Dad that while he had the opportunity he wanted to follow his Mother to Alaska, a long journey that involved large and small airplanes and probably large and small boats. There were no travel agents to help so a lot of the scheduling was by the seat of your pants.

When Bill arrived in Bristol Bay, he saw beautiful half breed Marie, age 16 and fell in love! He was immediately shipped back to California. Bill had time to vow his love for Marie and tell both Marie and Duffy that when he came of age, he would return to marry her. He turned 21 in November 1935 but at that time winter travel was difficult so he waited until the spring of ‘36 to head back to Bristol Bay. Marie was waiting for his return. He married Marie after fishing season" August 30, 1936.

His mother Gladys refused to acknowledge the marriage.

On July 20, 1937 Mom gave birth to me at Wood River Cannery in my Aunt Elizabeth Larson's kitchen. I, as well as my four siblings was born exhibited mainly Caucasian characteristics: fair skin and blue eyes. My coloring combined with me being named Gladys, "Nan "as she chose to be called, now wholeheartedly accepted the marriage. I guess it was a case of bias vs. prejudice.

 My mother was the first of my German grandfather's half-breed children to marry a Caucasian. I heard that when I was born, Duffy stated, "I finally got a little German". I fit right into the Dillingham mindset of being a "little bit of everything".

I loved growing up in a village. We had "Upriver" Natives and "Town" Natives. The town natives had adapted to the Western Culture and had the best of both worlds in my opinion. The Upriver Natives lived a more subsistence type lifestyle but had also had adopted the parts of the Western culture they liked. When the upriver natives came down for the summer to fish and get winter supplies such as salt, pepper, Crisco and canned fruits and vegetables they lived along the beach in "Tent City". (The canneries had built wooden tent frames used by the visiting Natives. They had their own tent tops.) Beside drying and salting salmon, they picked berries for their agootuk (Eskimo Ice Cream) and got their winter grubstake from local stores and canned salmon from the canneries for the winter before returning to their upriver villages.

 My cousin Betty Larson and I looked forward in the summer to visiting friends in Tent City. We got to have tea and pilot bread spread with butter and jam out of cans! Not only that... we got to pour our hot tea into our saucer, hold a sugar cube in our mouth and drink "Chi" like "big" people! When it rained it sounded so cool on the tent and both of us wished we could live like that!

I tried to learn the native language but my mouth could never correctly say the guttural Native words. Every time I used a native word I was teased and laughed at so I quit trying. I could at that time understand the language so conversation with friends was often a mixture of both languages. Many of my relatives including my Mom were bilingual except for me.

I clearly remember when a Negro nurse came to work at Kanakanak Hospital. As she would walk into the school gym to watch an event, the native children would part like the Red Sea to let her through! Most had never seen a Negro before. Even if her skin was darker as was theirs, she was very different! It wasn't exactly disrespect but more astonishment! I am not sure if she was accepted.

Changes in both "cultures" were rapidly starting to become evident. I was" aware"/"unaware". I think overall there was acceptance of the differences and a gradual cultural exchange that was both good and bad.

When the use of alcohol first started in the villages, only the men drank. I noticed in the years we were gone to Texas in the late ‘50's, a dark change took place. The women started to join their husbands and now both parents often drank at home and in local bars. A breakdown of the traditional Native family was taking place.

 My thoughts about this are that there was very little sugar in the native diet. Alcohol became a serious issue and very detrimental to many native people. Their liver was just not able to process alcohol. I suspect the involvement of an addictive gene issue also. This added to the downward trend of the word "Native" taking place at that time. The use of the words drunken Native was unfortunately becoming a more common thing.

After the passage of ANICA, the Native Land Claims, good changes came to the Native lifestyle. It in a way helped bridge the gap between the subsistence way life style and the Western lifestyle. Today being     A Native is "IN".

Through the years, I always have been proud of both my Native and Western culture. I may be fair but am blessed with" native" skin. At the age of 82, I have no wrinkles to speak of and never have to use expensive face creams. My bone structure is "native" in that my upper and lower appendages bones are shorter than the average Caucasian. My bones are strong, I have never broken one, even when I incurred a freak accident that left me paralyzed for 23 days. After many years of recovery, I can't turn my head but I can walk, talk and feel that I lead a very normal life! When I give details about my accident to people, I say it is my "native" bones, a strong mentality of survival and the expertise of many at ANMC.

I know that I am very fortunate to be born with a "FOOT IN BOTH WORLDS" and love it! While I still have a difficult time trying to say Native words and have forgotten the language, when I hear someone speaking Native it is so comforting to listen to. It brings back so many memories of my happy village childhood.