The Peacemaker

"when I was 13 I was selected to go to europe with an organization called People to People as a young ambassador for Arizona. This program was to help American people promote peace and harmony with different cultures and countries. The group I was a part of consisted of about 25 or more people.To be more specific in detail, the group was mostly of white ethnicity,and Mexican ethnicity one asian, one black person, and two Native Americans which included me. Each of us were United States citizens born in the U.S and with so far, a Junior-high education, if not less than that. Now for me as a young teenager coming from a Native American Reservation with nothing much to surround my everyday life environment except desert plants,mountains, local tribal establishments school,and an hour drive away from the nearest town in each direction, This was a very big thing for me to be a part of. I had also never been anywhere too far outside Arizona before this as well. My overall experience with this trip was great however being one of the only natives in the group, I was frequently asked questions about what kind of life style I lived and in some cases joked about aloud.questions such as Do you live in a tepee? and Do you run around naked? or Hunt for dinner every night? these were the type of questions i was asked through out the trip which was three weeks long. More so, these questions didn't affect my emotions in a negative way because for the most part the people were genuinely curious and interested however the ones who joked about me being Native American were the people who made me feel angry or sad in some way. Jokes such as ' your long hair makes you look like a girl', 'hey chief ', and one particular incident when the group of boys and myself were playing foot ball and my natural aggressive style of playing lead the rest of the team to shout things like, watch for the indian!, or His killing blood makes him crazy! were things that stood out most to me. Having grown over the years and looking back, i now feel that most of this stereo type of judging and ridicule is greatly attributed to an adolescent mind doing what it naturally does and in part people still growing and learning how to interact with different cultures and ethnic groups.This does not justify these acts but simply leans towards the belief that to be able to be rid of these profiling ways we all must learn to accept each other for who we are and acknowledge respects in some kind of way.