What Tourists in Martha’s Vineyard Showed Me About Being Indigenous

Every summer from when I was old enough to make change until after I graduated from college, I worked in my family’s gift store on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

I grew up in the rhythm of the store. The season began in the spring and steadily ramped up throughout the summer, reaching a crescendo with the August crowds. I learned how to fold a T-shirt and talk to strangers.

But one thing I never fully got used to was customers’ surprise when they found out that my family was Aquinnah Wampanoag and the few shops in our town were all owned by tribal members. Or, to be more precise, I never got used to the things they said when they found out.

But even as I resisted their ignorance, I was forced to reckon with how little I knew about my own identity and community.

People would tell me they wished they were Native or that they must have been in a past life because of their spiritual connection to nature. Sometimes they asked me my tribal name or wanted to take a picture with me. I still wonder what they do with those pictures.

I’ve been asked if Wampanoags use iPhones and live in houses. Although few of them said it, I knew what they were looking for: a kind of combination of Crazy Horse legends and the infamous crying Indian from the 1971 “Keep America Beautiful” ad. When I — who spent fall, winter and spring in Newton, Mass., and would later move to New York City — didn’t meet those expectations, they often seemed disappointed.