"White Indians don't get any money."

It's what a young Cherokee girl told my young son when he told her that we have a Cherokee ancestor. He was appropriately puzzled by the response.

Undoubtedly my son looking more Swedish than Cherokee is at least part of the reason for her response. Our Cherokee ancestor is four generations back. His mother was Cherokee, his father, a white man. Born just after the turn of the last century, as a mixed-race child he was looked down upon. He was given to a white family to raise; he was not treated well, and left home as a boy to find "his people". He spent much of his youth looking for his family, white and Indian, to no avail.

The same desire for belonging the young boy sought more than a hundred years ago, his great, great, grandson still seeks. Thankfully, my son wasn't discouraged by the odd response to his attempt at friendliness and commonality with a potential friend.