What is a Global Identity?
A new perspective for the modern era.
People who travel often say that it helps them broaden their perspective and change their mindset. Experiencing other cultures inspires you to try new things, meet new people and learn more about yourself.
When I was seven years old, my dad got a job in Indonesia. At that time, we lived in the desert in my hometown of Gallup, New Mexico. This was the first I had ever heard of this chain of islands in South East Asia. At that age, I barely even grasped the idea of countries. Yet, suddenly, I found myself in the middle of the jungle in South Kalimantan.
I was enrolled in the Tanjung Bara International School, which was so small that instead of separating students by grade, they grouped us into 3 cohorts by age group. Still, there were only a few kids in each cohort. Nearly every student was from a different country, and I was the only American in my cohort. My mom and I may have been the only Native Americans on the island.
It was an exciting time for me as a child, and I enjoyed living in a different country. My favorite part of school was lunchtime because everything was handmade by a local restaurant. To this day, I would eat Nasi Goreng for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I could. In addition to celebrating Indonesian cuisine, my school also embraced local dance, language, and culture.
According to Pew Research, "Roughly 88% of Indonesia's population is Muslim, and the nation is home to about 13% of the world's Muslims." One time, one of my classmates tauntingly ate lunch nearby an Indonesian teacher who was fasting for Ramadan. Not on accident, because he was also verbally taunting her, to my memory. The Indonesian teacher told our cohort teacher, so our class had an earnest discussion about respecting religious practices. That conversation was the first time I learned about cross-cultural respect.
I ended up living in four other countries before I was 18; Colombia, Zambia, back in the US, and then in Mongolia. As I grew up, making friends was easy, but certain things were still challenging. Each place was welcoming, but no one around me knew anything about Diné culture, history, heritage, or belief systems, which was isolating.
In Colombia, nearly every person in my class made fun of my bone structure and the shape of my nose. I used to want to "fix" these features, but eventually, I learned to embrace them. When I learned about fashion designers like Rei Kawakubo, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Vivienne Westwood in college, I could finally see beauty as something more dynamic.
I frequently got in trouble in Zambia because I didn't adopt the local accent. In one instance, a teacher tried forcing me to call an "eraser" a "rubber." I didn't want to do that for obvious reasons, so I would get reprimanded whenever they heard me say "eraser." Another thing I found weird was the teacher's insistence that I change the pronunciation of my own name to match her South African accent. From my memory, I got into a verbal fight with her and got sent to the principles office. I now look back on how upsetting that was for me, and I just can't imagine what our elders went through having their names taken away in boarding schools.
A few times, I was met with pointed racism toward Native Americans while living in Alabama. For example, I once described my favorite Navajo foods, their preparations, and their ingredients with some people from my high school. Basically, I described Navajo corn stew and the butchering process. Someone said Navajo food sounded like "the poorest sh*t [they'd] ever heard of." They then went on to make more racist comments, clearly possessing no awareness of the benefits of “farm-to-table” methods of eating.
In Mongolia, I became quite familiar with the term "гадна хүн" (outside person ie. foreigner) used in the pejorative. I lived in Mongolia twice, and before I decided to move back the second time, I had a lot of social apprehensions. I traveled to Khövsgöl in Northern Mongolia and had the chance to visit with a shaman. I asked her, "Will the land accept me if I live here again, even though I wasn’t born here?" Far from home and my family, I needed at least one solid ally that I could count on during hard times. After consulting with the land for a moment, she told me it would always accept me; in Mongolia and everywhere else I went.
Travelling definitely has opened my mind and helped me learn a lot more about myself. I've grown to understand that every painful moment has a lesson. Through the difficulties I've experienced, a vision of a global identity emerged. Developing a global identity requires a shift in perspective to see yourself as part of a global community that transcends national borders. It’s a matter of giving up the made-up designations that we let separate us and finding a deeper place of respect and unity as a human race.
I truly believe that the entire world heals a little bit every time we do something to heal ourselves. Moving back home to New Mexico and being around Native artists that understand me and inspire me has been very healing. My artist friends in Santa Fe have also really helped me find the confidence to share my work with the world. They are actively encouraging me through the development of my weaving practice and through my experiments in micaceous clay. Practices that are in and of themselves, very healing and meditative because they are so connected to the natural flow of the world.
With LAND+OBJECT, it’s my intention to help more people view their lives through the lens of a global identity. I think if we all adopt this way of thinking, future generations can avoid making the same mistakes that cause the division we see in today's world. I honor the love and acceptance given to me by the land by trying to share my vision in a way that is beautiful, peaceful, balanced, and harmonious.