Dear Digger, hands off my pierogis, Part 1

2023-12-06

Dear friend,

“That’s where there’s been a lot of healing for me,” my friend Julia Chase told me yesterday. I’d been facing Julia with my back against one end of our loveseat. She had chosen the cushioned wooden chair in my living room, for its back support.

I got up to retrieve my journal from the kitchen to write down her exact sentence. I did this for myself, and how much her words meant to me. Also, I wanted to carry them unbroken to the ears of the editors at Vermont Digger.

Julia stood at my left flank when I first said “I do” in 2007, but she’s been a lot more to me than a groom’s best mate. Maybe it’s that my most essential childhood memory involves the purchase of ski boots that I knew all along were too tight and that ended in frostbite. But enough cannot be said about how Julia has served generations of customers at Burrow’s Specialized Sports in downtown Brattleboro. Whether helping you feel safe on a new bike or walking you through that first ski-boot wobble, Julia has for 27 years and counting witnessed in that vulnerable retail space the tryings-on and sharpenings of many a Vermonter’s adventurous-but-cautious soul.

I’m on the left at my 2007 wedding with Julia Chase in the middle. Photo: Dani Weiss

Yesterday, though, I felt worried. She seemed down, even though I also saw the joy alive in her heart. She had cracked a smile so easily when our kitten Lavender climbed onto her chest and curled up for a visit. Her smiling gaze looked upward, as if to heaven. Even for a 50-something crew-cut lesbian transplanted to Brattleboro and married for 18 years, with two kids, her Catholic, Worcester, Mass. background dies hard.

After Julia left I looked back at my wedding photos. There we both are, fresh-faced, neither of us knowing the depth of challenges we would face. Julia’s first son, River, was born two days later. That would begin a period of years in which her family worked to understand River’s severe developmental disabilities, and to get him the care that he needs. Myself—divorced, my wedding photos as a document of fractures.

How are Julia and me still friends after all that’s happened?

I might as well ask: how are we both still alive?

Julia remains unfailingly committed to making the most of what she’s given. Even when life’s random tragedies have hit her, even when she feels like it’s her fault and that she’s unworthy, Julia’s committed not only to surviving but also to showing up even more strongly as herself.

One way she does it has been her process of connecting with her family’s heritage. She told me about the shrine for her ancestors—filled with photos and votive candles—that she’s recently assembled on the side table in her dining room. Are the faces looking back Indigenous people?

Maybe. The topic came up because I shared about my postings on X in response to Digger’s recent article about the Vermont Abenaki, “‘A false narrative.”

I had posted critical questions about unconscious bias. What is Digger doing in giving credence to a group dissing Vermont Indians?

When I mentioned “Pretendian” to Julia, she tucked her chin and pulled her torso back, as if she had been struck.

“That sounds like a slur, doesn’t it?” she asked me.

Is it? The dictionary gave no answer. According to Wikipedia, an ethnic slur is “designed to insult others on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality.”

Historically, “Pretendian” is a slur on a slur. It was coined to shame those who claimed to have an “Indian princess” ancestor, a fantasized “Pocahantas”-type. That not only sexualizes and infantilizes Indians. The European conception of Indian “royalty” is also wrong. Let’s put it behind us.

But Digger’s definition isn’t about the racist stereotype. Digger labels as “Pretendian” any “people who inaccurately claim Indigenous ancestry.” According to this view, all that matters is the evidence of their genealogical claim, and something called “blood quantum.”

Did Lucius Malfoy come up with this? If so, I’ll stand proudly with Harry Potter, and Ron and Hermione, and everyone’s right to find their own version of kinship. Even federal definitions of “Indian” give stronger weight to social ties and self-determination than racial purity.

One of the reasons to center a social definition of kinship is that claiming your heritage with certainty is a mark of multi-generational wealth and privilege. Did you know that on average, 10% of your family tree is inaccurate? That’s right—researchers peg rates of paternal discrepancy, where the father on the birth certificate isn’t the father, from 0.8% to 30%.

This could happen, for example, to a woman with a rape resulting in pregnancy. Should she tell the doctor the father is the local boy she’d planned to wed, or the gang of soldiers, now gone? Paternity testing with accuracy didn’t arrive until the 1990s, and is still only common in disputes. That leaves a lot of historical room for paternal discrepancy, and the likelihood that one’s biological lineage is close to unknowable. Of course, it’s less knowable for some than others. Contributing factors to higher rates of paternal discrepancy include poverty and family instability, two things that generations of poor rural communities in New England have suffered from.

Lately, the opioid crisis is adding more stress on all levels of society. I have heard dozens of stories this year from families who have lost a loved one to an overdose death or a murder. Like all Vermonters, the Abenaki are counted in these numbers. What can we do to turn the tide?

Consider the life-saving value of social kinship. A training last month by SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) taught me that “Family-centered therapy is one of the best approaches to substance use disorder recovery.”

For Vermonters experiencing addiction and homelessness, biological-family ties are more likely to be frayed to nonexistent. But SAMSHA encourages us to remember—“‘Family’ may not be biological, it may be chosen!”

Let’s put aside the past, including the imperfect tribal recognition process, and choose a tighter-knit future. Embracing our uncertain heritage reminds me of Helen Zabawski—my Grandma—and pierogis.

Part 2 of Hands of my pierogis is here.

What are your thoughts? Email me at tristan@tristanroberts.org.