PART TWO FORCES OF CHANGE

APAY’U MOORE

PERSPECTIVE

But Who Am I?

But who am I? This question has been a part of me since I have known how to feel. In so many ways, society has given the burden of anxiety to many, like myself, who look one way but only know another. The twists of fate and random acts of life bringing new generations into the world. The impacts of colonialism and damning of identity. From people who knew the land as an extension of themselves, my living spirit was transformed by death from being a connected part of the world to being reborn and watching it and feeling from a distance, knowing that the wilderness is a part of me, but not knowing how to fully connect myself again to the land.

As a mother, I’d relate it to the feeling of having my first child. She came from my body, I felt her in me as a part of me, I knew she existed through me, but when she emerged from my body, I felt like I needed to ask someone if I could touch her. The emotions that swarm around that injustice, understanding that it shouldn’t be like that, but it is, and for reasons that don’t present themselves without strenuous and dedicated periods of thought that eventually lead to the realization of how history brings us to our present-day realities. I felt like I needed to ask authority figures in the hospital if I, the lesser being, was worthy enough to touch a newborn in their society.

Fortunately, my ancestral spirit lives hungry inside of me and my heart hears the voice within telling me to do the right thing. To be Yup’ik. My birth certificate lacks the name of a father. My mother is a beautiful Yup’ik woman. She brought me home—stamped with the physical appearance of a kass’aq, a white person—to a village with under a hundred residents, predominantly Yup’ik. I was given a Yup’ik name, and I heard the language of our people. It planted foundational seeds in my infant ears, and my heart spread out roots that grew into every soul that said my Yup’ik name, reminding me that, despite my looks, I was Apay’uq, my grandpa’s fishing partner and my grandma’s uncle, a Yup’ik man with a sense of humour and charisma who won the hearts of all he teased. I got his teasing back tenfold as a child! Some might call it karma. But that karma was of the best kind.

Eventually, I won the heart of a commercial fisherman, whom I call dad. I think it was a partnership that was planned out by Apay’uq. My dad couldn’t stay away from the water and had me back out on the boat by the time I was four. Along with a dad came five older sisters and, after that, two younger brothers. This family has tested me and loved me, and it has encouraged in me even more dedication to be true to Apay’uq.

When I would return to Twin Hills in the summers with my mom’s family, I’d embrace the constant reminders that I was a person of the land. That I had years of fishing experience and hunting stories. My humour was the most memorable part of me, and to this day everyone who knew Apay’uq gives me a huge familial smile, like they know a good story and a part of me that I have yet to learn about. My grandma reminds me that I tease her, just like he did. Those smiles and reminders are enough to push me forward in my search to know more about me and what I’m capable of giving to our future generations.

In a way, it’s like the lifetime of teasing that Apay’uq dished out was preparing his white-looking, female self to be ready for all the comments and comebacks. This new world has not always been kind, but I know for a fact that because our Yup’ik people always treated me like him, I was better prepared for my new role in our society as a white-looking Yup’ik woman. Joke’s on you now, male Apay’uq! We have the craziest minority stereotypes: bastard, white-looking female who is actually a Native person. In this irony, humour is all we’ve got.

Today, I am navigating and finding my way as I learn to reattach to our ancestral ways. I purposely make my life less convenient by Western standards, with the understanding that well-being isn’t about having to do as little movement as possible in a day through the conveniences of power buttons. Apay’uq wasn’t a cheerful man because he did less—he was full of character because he did more. I planted myself in Aleknagik, a village on the shores of Aleknagik Lake that feeds into the Wood River. Salmon fill the river and the surrounding lakes and creeks in the summer, and each season I thrive, experiencing a little bit more out there in the wilderness, connecting my soul to where it belongs and creating a pathway to ease my children into where they belong.

With the aspiration to live more in the Yup’ik way of life, and being right here, where each year I’m doing a little bit more, I feel all those times that Apay’uq made people feel vulnerable through teasing when I reach out to ask something that would be common sense to other Yup’ik people. As I learn how to do the simplest subsistence tasks and need to ask, “Where do I tie this string?” or “How do I cut this fish?” or “How long do I boil this meat?” I get those funny looks that say, “How do you not know this?” and feel a little embarrassed and need to chuckle and tease my inner self: “See this? Look, you should have teased less, Apay’uq!”

Despite the occasional embarrassment, my heart relishes the triumphs of facing these moments through the insecurity of being Yup’ik but looking like a white woman, wanting to bring out the Yup’ik namesake who is bursting to do what he loved again. I want to go fishing and share my catch; I want to go hunting and share my catch; I want to go hunting and fail because we had some disaster that ended in laughter and a good story; I want to be at the side of the river, listening to the bugs and the swift push of water trickling over rocks in small creeks; I want to breathe in the sweet smell of tundra tea as I fill my berry bucket. My list of things that I know that I miss without quite knowing how that is even possible goes on and on. Commercial fishing—this is perhaps one of the things I miss the most, along with drinking a hot cup of cowboy coffee and speaking my own language, cackling while sharing stories. I miss my grandpa, who in my early years called me his “pard’na.” My tongue waits in anticipation to sing out phrases fluently, and prematurely my heart sputters in this moment with the knowledge of how great that will be, and what weight will be lifted from my chest when I burst out phrases with full confidence that I am Yup’ik.