People get caught up in the racial and phenotypical mess of it all but Native identity is a tad more sophisticated than that.
Many people assume I'm "mixed with something" anyway so if being "mixed" is all I cared about I wouldn't be connected with my tribe , and finding my way to help, and building our first official website .
My elders are super excited about the work I'm doing . It means a lot to me. My tribe actually needs my help so I am so glad I found them. We are super small, and they are living in poverty up in those mountains with limited resources, no WiFi . Like many tribes are, especially smaller ones.
To reduce it all to a physical, "exotical" thing says more about the person who's making it about that than it does me.
And that's the last I'll say.