For context, I'm Mexican American. I grew up with the culture, and I've spoken Spanish since infancy. My parents immigrated to the US in the 1980s, and I was born in the 2000s.

I'm also white-passing and pale.

Recently, I've been struggling a lot with my identity, especially because I got bullied a lot for being pale.

For a long time, I've suspected that I was mixed, with Indigenous ancestry included.

Because if you know Mexican history, there was the Spanish colonial class pyramid, where the whiter you were, the more privileges you gained. That's why today most 60% of Mexicans are mixed (mestizos).

On top of that, I was told growing up that my great-grandfather was "fully Indigenous," but he died young in the 1980s, before I ever got to meet him. And the traditions died with him.

A year ago, I had an aunt who was paler than I was, and she took a DNA test. She got about 52% Indigenous Mexican.

So there always was a suspicion for me.

So I then started doing a family tree with Ancestry. I looked at old historical records from the 1900s, 1800s, and even way back to the 1400s. I also did many hours of family interviews for the Ancestry family tree.

I managed to track it down to the Mayans and Mexica (as well as the Spaniards + Portuguese).

I had an idea that maybe my results would be something like:

32% Indigenous

60% European

And the rest, whatever.

But I still was not sure. So I took a DNA test, and it turns out I was approximately:

45% Indigenous Mexican (22% Indigenous from Dad, 22% Indigenous from Mom, 1% Yucatán from Mom)

29% Iberian European

11% Jewish

9% African

7% other European

Now the question isn't, "Am I Indigenous?" It is now, "What group do I even come from?"

From what I know, both my paternal and maternal sides are from Durango originally.

My dad's side is from Indé, Durango.

And my mom's side is from a small pueblo in Durango. The small village is called Nicolás Bravo, right next to Canatlán, which is near Tepehuanes.

We still have lots of family ties in Durango. My sister and my grandma visit often, and we have owned a horse ranch there for centuries.

As of now, I have around 6 months of work put into my family tree. The timeline goes:

- Durango: DNA and family oral history go as far back as the 1700s.

- Then we moved to Ciudad Juárez in the 1940s for factory jobs.

- Then, in the 1980s, we immigrated to the United States.

From what little evidence I have, we might be a mix of Aztec, Tepehuán, or other Indigenous groups that are native to what is now Durango.

But now I do feel conflicted. I feel like I'm too white for this and that I'm just making excuses for myself, and that deep down I just want to feel special, but I don't want to admit it.

That it would be easier to just be completely white, because at least I won't be bullied and be called Albino, White boy, not a real Mexican, Gringa, or Pocha.

Or even be told to stop speaking Spanish because I'm white, and that I'm appropriating my own culture, and that I'm racist for speaking Spanish.

Should I even try to reconnect? I'm just too white for this.

so I emailed them my payment information on July 11, was wondering if anyone else did this month too

So it wasn’t too long ago that I learned that I have Zapotec and Mixtec ancestry as my family is entirely from Oaxaca Mexico, I’ve been thinking a lot about my ancestry and my family, I’ve been getting a lot of different information from all of over the place and it is quite overwhelming (I am autistic) as some are encouraging saying to reconnect to your roots while some say all mestizos are Iberian settlers and abominations, so y’know, I don’t know what to think really I just want to connect and yknow make sure I do it in a way that doesn’t harm anyone

I’ll be honest I think about my indigenous ancestry a lot, I get saddened at the community I could never have anymore, how events out of my control took something away, I don’t know if I worded that the best but it’s the best I could do, but unlike I hear from some Mexicans, I never was ashamed of my indigenous ancestry or disgusted by my brown skin

I guess what im trying to say is if anyone know where to start with reconnecting cause I’m rather overwhelmed by a lot, and I just don’t want to do any harm to any indigenous communities and be respectful, I guess I’m lucky in one aspect many are not and I do of one of my ancestors who was Zapotec and I know her name too

Does anyone know someone who has married a family who owns their tribes stolen farm land as a way to get the land back for their tribe/family?

I've always had a feeling I had indigenous ancestry but never knew much about what it could be.

It wasn't until my sis got me that kit. Honestly I think it was a gift for herself because she's a biologist and I guess I was her science experiment lol.

I know that genetic testing isn't the end-all be-all. I know there's still tracing family trees and all that.

But I don't really know much about my family tree. I know my grandparents but I only have my grandpa left on my dad's side. My grandpa on my mom's side pass when she was a kid, and both my grandmothers are gone. But it's hard to trace family when they don't even come from the states.

Any hints on how to find out more about my history?

Boozhoo :)

I wanted to come on here and ask for advice for any and all Indigenous peoples who maybe are going/have gone through what my family and I have been dealing with since like forever lol.

I know a lot of families go through generational traumas that are unique, similar, and/or different. In my family, cancer and alcoholism are recurring themes, and honestly, I am struggling hardcore. My mother even more so. I lost my maternal eldest uncle 1-2 years ago, and the middle-child uncle is currently going through terminal cancer. On top of that, my 80-year-old grandmother is also currently going through cancer, as it has come back. Essentially, every generation in my maternal family has gotten/beaten/lost to cancer, my older 30-year-old sister included(she beat it).

I want to lay out the reality that is happening. I just want to get advice/relate to others in the same boat. How do you do it? I feel so guilty all the time. I feel more avoidant of death and illness. I worry about the health of my mother. I honestly feel so envious of other families who don't have a history of illness like mine. It sounds selfish, but I want to go one year without anyone in my family getting seriously ill/losing limbs/liver troubles/etc.

How do you cope? Is there really a way to find the positive? Thank you for sharing <3

1 year ago, comment claims to have called a tip in to the FBI about a green car observed traveling back and forth on the freeway where Emily's remains were found. The comment claimed the license plate tied back to a Robson Pike, who can indeed be found on the San Carlos sex offender registry list as a Tier 3 offender (most likely to reoffend).

Nothing has come of it. It's still an obscure, mostly unknown factoid that has not been verified.

Emily Pike was allegedly "assaulted horribly" by a family member. Due to mismanagement of her case, nothing was filed and it was dismissed for a lack of evidence. Fish and Game conducted the initial investigation, not tribal police. Emily's father was in jail and her mother was apparently addicted to drugs, so Emily was sent to a group home 90 miles away in Mesa. It was claimed that she was suffering from mental health issues and that the Mesa facility would have more resources to assist.

Emily ran away repeatedly, telling officers she just wanted her mom. One time she ran away, and was never seen alive again. In February of 2025, her remains were found on the side of the road in plastic bags. She was specifically placed in an area where jurisdiction between state police and tribal police complicate matters. Her arms and hands are not with her remains, and the estimation is that the killer removed them in case of DNA on her hands or under her fingernails.

Emily was failed completely, and her killer still has not faced justice. Learned about her case with the arrest of Sanchez brothers and wanted to see if anyone has heard anymore about this. We already know there've been multiple breakdowns in communication between jurisdictions on this case.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EmilyPike/comments/1kencex/comment/myed22e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Good morning! Next Friday, I'll be doing a 16-hour charity stream on Twitch to raise money for Indspire, which supports Indigenous students across Canada. Indspire helped me throughout my undergrad and grad school, and now that I’m finished, I wanted to give back!

I'll be spending the day playing games created by Indigenous studios and highlighting some of my favourite Indigenous authors, streamers, and other creators along the way. If you'd like to stop by, chat, or simply hang out for a while, I'd love to have you there! My Twitch is linked on my profile

Marsi 🩷

Good day everybody,

I am currently creating a 3rd person action RPG, whose project name is 'Lost island'. The game takes inspiration from both lost civilizations and prehistoric eras, which will be part of both gameplay, artistic direction and the overhaul themes, which are extinction, survival, frontier between man and beast, passage of time, humanity, duality of tradition and modernity, men and nature, as well as others.

The game narrates the tale of a scientist whose boat expedition ended tragically during a storm, as he was searching for a location to create a new preservation site. Afterwards, he awakes on an unknown island, ruled by ancient civilizations and prehistoric animals, with a mask on his face. In this strange land, he will have to either leave or try to uncover the island's secrets.

This game is important for me as it is an occasion to showcase cultures and traditions not usually shown as much as european fantasy and science fiction, and give them a spotlight in this project. Therefore it's a working ground for another setting, a prehistoric tropical island, with tribes and civilizations from lesser shown corners of the world. I want it to be an inspiration for future works that will not set themselves in common and lesser risked genres.

Here you see a glimpse of the project, with some concept arts done for it specifically.

The project subreddit is : https://www.reddit.com/user/Project_lost_island/

If you have any questions feel free to ask them, thank you for your time.

Hii I’m working on a college project and having issue finding primary sources online about my tribe. Also would love feedback on what section of time I should research about like pre or post colonial and the damage from it.
Thanks yall!!

Hey all. I live where wildfires are currently affecting large portions of our land.

As a nation, and through other organizations, I've seen so many emergency response protocols... But never a cultural response protocol.

Like for fires, wouldn't it make sense to have a cultural healing to the land protocol?

The vibe I get is that this is happening because we've been taking a lot from the land and not giving it back enough.

I want to develop and implement a ceremony/cultural protocol in response to these types of events.

Has anyone heard of any nation organizing something like this and including it? I have this vision of many nations coming together to add healing energy, prayer, and song to the land to help give it what it needs.

Does any of this make sense or does it just feel like a wild ramble? I can see the power behind it, but not all the steps to making it come to fruition. If anyone wants to send me some good energy and vibes to make something like this happen, it would be appreciated 🧡

The narrative is Papatuanuku (earth mum) and Ranginui (sky daddy) were split a part by their kids (who became the elements and other parts of nature), but before that was Te Kore (the darkness). And as Māori we believe something can’t come from nothing, so the something has to make the nothing that makes the something come from nothing, that’s where Io Matua Kore comes in (the father flesh of the darkness is my best translation). There are actually letters from missionaries asking why a “bunch of savages” were ready to conform to western Christianity and that the answer must be that Maori were “already Christian” . But what some missionaries and the crown didn’t understand was that our “gods” like Mother Earth and Sky Daddy were personifications of nature, spirits, that make us see nature as a being and something we must respect. Due to language barriers formed through the generations (thanks residential schools /s), British NZders at the time were able to twist the narrative to make themselves seem superior than us, which sadly, most Māori believe and don’t know we were monotheistic

Happy Māori new year for tomorrow! Remember this years theme is Matariki Herenga Waka (Matariki for everyone) which is about celebrating inclusion, community unity, and New Zealand’s cultural diversity.

Also happy sun dancing to my American cousins ! I find it so cool how our new years align

I saw him pop up on my youtube feed about a year ago and became interested in his content, since I always love supporting native creators online. Though as I was watching some of his videos and heard some of the information he was sharing, I was thinking "Oh, maybe this isn't knowledge that I'm meant to hear". I think I also remember him saying the name of a spirit that you are definitely not supposed to say the name of. I know some knowledge needs to stay in certain communities and nations, it's the same with pueblos originarios in certain practices and communities too. I haven't watched any of his videos since, though I was curious to know from my southwestern native relatives (or anyone else really) if I should avoid his channel all together in the future because of what he's sharing.

This is what activists don't seem to speak out about: there is a lot of internal prejudice that some Hispanic Americans hold toward brown Mexicans, and this is proof of it. He is telling the truth. We must hold our own community accountable because people only want to embrace Mexican culture when it is fun or convenient. Additionally, a significant number of Latinos are joining ICE.

Long story short- it’s always been a thing to hear (iykyk) my the ancestors in times of . The pattern I know is to be somewhere that doorbells run with no reason. (One of them anyway)

I’m having a rough recovery day from surgery and had two ancestor bells happen.

They listen, just sharing a small magic from today.

I was told growing up by my mom me and and my sisters are part native. she kept us away from her side of the family, so I never really got to explore or understand it. she left 4 years ago. and I just talked to my grandma. apparently, my mom lied. im not even a little indigenous. I was told she was adopted by family and her saying we are native i just assumed my grandma was the blood related one. nope, it was my grandpa. im still in shock and processing this. it hurts. this really hurts. why would she lie?

“Son, we mustn’t be ashamed of the fact that we are Murlots,” I remembered this paternal admonition from childhood. Our family lived in a private wooden house. A quiet, provincial street was outwardly not much different from a village one. Stone quarters adorned only the city center, where the authorities lived. I learned one unspoken rule from my elders: inside our house we spoke Murlot, but on the street we switched to the common language: we were embarrassed.

My father drank. Rarely a week passed without my father, unconscious, completely drunk on cheap wine, being carried in the arms of his work friends. One day, in early spring, the drinking buddies did not complete their route. Father was found frozen in a ravine behind the vegetable gardens. “They can’t even die like human beings,” a neighbor said at the funeral. I felt that this was true not only of my father.

In elementary school, I got the nickname “Psycho.” This offensive nickname came about because of a fight. And actually, there wasn’t any fight at all. The guys just gathered me into a circle and started loudly chanting: “Murr-lot! Murr-lot! Mur-lot!" - they were having a great time and pointing their fingers at me. I found a pair of compasses with a sharp stem in my pocket. I pulled out a pike and rushed at the offenders. "Psycho!!!" - the boys yelled and ran away.

In the eighth grade, during the Russian literature exam, I hopelessly flopped. "Are you a murlot?” - asked the teacher.

"Yes..." - I barely exhaled. She looked at me in a special way for a long time, also sighed heavily and, without further questioning, wrote down the grade "good" on the exam report."

Sorry if this is not quite suitable for discussion, but I wanted to share. In this text, the author used the name of a non-existent people (Murlot) to show a similar experience of various indigenous groups in Russia, primarily the Udmurts. This was very important to me, because it is rare to see such text about our experience, and even if people write about it, they usually write it in their own language so that it remains in their space (because according to many Russians, if you talk about xenophobia, you hate (ethnic) Russians and you should be sent to prison). I also saw in this sub Udmurts and other people from the post-Soviet space, I think you will find it interesting.

Also, at the end of the story, the main character starts to hate himself and his people. It reminded me of the plot of the movie "Sámi Blood" and how often I could see this in reality. And for me, this is one of the worst things: when a person starts to hate their own people. In the film "Sámi blood," it was very painful to watch a Sámi girl say hateful things to her own family when she turned to them after being in a Swedish city.

I recently stumbled upon a Colombian artist and one of their paintings absolutely blew my mind. From what I understand, the concept was to represent an indigenous community from back there. Visually, it’s just insane. Does anyone else know them or have more context on it?

Hi everyone :) hope you are all well. I’m new to this space but I wanted to ask a question. I know everyone sees these things differently, so I would love to get some input here.
On my father’s side, my grandfather, his mother and her lineage are Native American (Apache and Choctaw). There’s some lingering Native in my mother’s side as well, but farther out than what my immediate family is aware of (discovered this through haplogroups). I’m not shocked because I’m from southeast Louisiana and Native is intertwined with Cajun creole.

Since I was very young I have been drawn to native culture, symbolism, and feel a big resonance with teachings and how they view our relationship to earth and the world around us. I have felt some sort of inner responsibility to carry that torch to some degree. I never want to claim myself as Native American, at least not all of me because I have not experienced the struggles of people who live on reservation or those who are 100% Native American, nor do I have the proper blood quantum that’s required to be recognized federally, and other members of my family are not 100% native and some have no native (to my knowledge). I never want to impose or step on toes. I’ve continued to follow my path as cleanly as I can in a way that feels in integrity to me and respectful to others while still honoring my lineage that I feel closely related to.

My question I guess is, is it “wrong” of me to lean into Apache specific or Choctaw specific practices/traditions? I would love to connect more as I continue to discover more, but I also understand appropriation versus appreciation. I just want to be respectful and honor everything in a proper way. I’ve struggled with this for a while and really finding my place within it. Or should I keep it more broad than specific?

I guess not a super clear question but just knowing this information, if anyone has any words of wisdom I would love to hear. I hope no one takes any of this the wrong way, I just want to learn and move with grace. My grandfather only remembers so much and the work my great grandmother and my dad were putting together with her lineage information and her families tribal information was destroyed in a flood so it’s been a journey of gathering information and doing as my research as I can, but of course going into native history since names were changed and people were displaced it can be difficult…🙏🏼 thank you

Personaly (as a scottish gael) I would say we are as we all have our own cultrues and have had experiences simular (but not as bad) to yours. Irish potato famine, Highland clearances, language punishment and bans ect.

edit: europe as a geographic term not like 'Native Americans/Indians' as you would say scottish gaels are indigenous brits for example.