Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's Response

            In contrast to the other authors we have read thus far, rather than focusing on her own personal experiences, Tiffany Midge chooses to instead take a broader look at Indigenous American culture in her book “Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s,” with the majority of her jokes focusing on experiences unique to this community. She does share stories from her own life, speaking of her relationship with her mother on multiple occasions, but for the most part her actual humor centered around either in-jokes for other indigenous people reading her writing, or giving non-indigenous readers a look into her cultural experience. Her overall message is one of representation, acknowledgement, and respect, which she accomplishes through her countless illustrations of how Indigenous Americans are not represented, acknowledged, or respected currently in this country. The chapter “Red Like Me” illustrates a common manifestation of these nationwide problems in the form of an interview with a white person (who later became infamous for claiming African American ancestry) who claimed at the time to be descended from indigenous heritage. Her careless appropriation of Native culture is far from an isolated incident—especially in recent years, with the popularity boom of DNA testing, I find within my own life I have encountered a nonzero number of other white people excitedly telling me about their newfound “exotic” ancestors, oftentimes making up a mere decimal of a percentage of their ethnic makeup. In the pursuit of aligning oneself with a marginalized identity to feel “different,” people such as the one Midge interviewed here “present a real and present danger to the integrity of Native communities because they usurp authentic Native voices and dilute, cheapen, and perpetuate harmful stereotypes” (Midge 124). Earlier in the conversation, Midge’s interviewee excitedly tells her that her spirit animal is a wolf, and Midge says that she threw up in her mouth a little—and so did I, reading that. So many thoughtless comments, whether it’s a professed love for pumpkin spice or a declaration of a favorite sports team, can be unknowingly harmful to the American Indigenous community, and Midge does a fantastic job of bringing these often overlooked microaggressions to light.