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 4th 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.
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