Ethnicity

After reading Tara’s story, we learn that she is a Black woman, born of two backgrounds—one African, one Apache. Tara’s ethnicity is mentioned as an inquiry in my story. My questions arise from my own ancestry and from a desire to honor those who are Native American and Black. In the Black community, there has long been quiet claims that having a Native ancestry felt safer than being White. Over time, belief became truth, even when our DNA told another story. This ideology was born from survival.

Tara is very aware of her origins, yet she refuses to let ancestry become destiny. She does not live to ease the discomfort of others, nor does she allow the opinions of others to dictate the shape of her life. Tara’s resistance mirrors my own understanding of self hood.

From childhood, I was ultra aware of who I was, but still asking a persistent question: Now what? Being different was/is my personality, I moved through the world in ways that was unclear to others. As a result, I began to wonder whether identity could truly be determined by blood, by name, or category. And If I was so different, I had to be more than the sum of my racial background. More of this became true as a adult, we are made of many colors, even when the world chooses to see only one. My hope is that the world catches up to that truth.

Tara understands this intuitively. She knows who she is, but she does not live in the prison of her own race (s). Her being—her humanity, and her immortality—extends beyond race, beyond history, beyond the perception of others. My first book intentionally mentions Tara’s racial background and slowly strips away the labels of the other immortals. My reason is this: Once time strips away the need for labels, what remains is essence.

My hope is that readers come to see Tara, Kevin, David, Sheila, Ellin not as radicalized figures, but as beings—complex, and human.