My Mother's History

One day many a year ago
My mother spoke to me
About her family’s tangled history,

She spoke to me
Of lies, half-truths, and myths
Some of which may have been true
And throughout the evening
Her history came alive.

She was born in the hills
of North Little Rock
The 10th of 11 children
Of an ancient dying race.

The Lost Tribe of Cherokees
who had run away
Refugees who fled in the hills.

Part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee nation
Part African American, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek,
Dutch, French, Scot-Irish, Scottish, Seminole
Who fled to the mountains
To avoid the trail of tears.

Rather than join the rest
In the promised land
Of Oklahoma.

They did not exist
No DNA evidence
Less than 20,000 of them left.

The BIA told us
No Indian scholarship
For you, since you can’t prove
You are in fact
Of Native American ancestry,

I asked my mother
What does this mean?
She said,

No BIA money for you,
My non-Indian son.
Long live
the Lost Tribe of the Cherokees!