From “The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery” by Sarah Augustine
My lineage is similar to Indigenous People throughout the Americas. My mother’s people are originally from southern Colorado, a people twice colonized: first by the Spanish, then by the northern Europeans. Although not one of her relatives can be traced to a border crossing, her childhood was marked by white locals telling her to “go back to Mexico.” My father was raised in a Catholic boys’ home. Segregated orphanages like the Catholic charity where he grew up were common in the 1940s, as was the practice of removing Native Americans from their homes and relocating them to cities. Both of my parents grew up on the margins of society, neither with parents. When I asked my mother where I came from, she would say, “The Planet Earth. Your father and I are like Adam and Eve.”
No history. No extended family. No identity.