In our names there was once a place

Rediscovering the Indigenous in our selves

Image Description: aparna’s ancestor Arakere Narasimha Iyenger (1894-1931), a village teacher who died in a cholera epidemic

adrienne maree brown taught me that we will all be more whole, more grounded, more balanced, if we rediscover the Indigenous in ourselves. At first I cringed. I am not Indigenous to this continent. My ancestors did not suffer genocide, removal, relocation, assimilation, dehumanization, or commodification, at least not here in this country I call home. And I benefit in many ways from the colonialism that has had far reaching impacts on capital Indigenous communities here.

But still, there is indigenous in me. And as I learned from adrienne maree brown:

Whether our people arrived here voluntarily or involuntarily, long ago or more recently, those of us who are not Indigenous to Turtle Island (North America) still have ancestors who at one time were tethered to a place. And in our displacement, this umbilical cord to our own indigenous homelands was severed.  

The evolution of my family name tells the story of this severance. In our names there was once our place. Our names began with where we are from, followed by our father’s given name, and only then, third, our given name. My maternal grandfather was Melapalayam Srinivasa Rajagopalan. Melapalayam is his hometown, in the heart of Tamil Nadu, India. Srinivasa was his father’s name. Rajagopalan was his given name. My paternal grandfather was Arekere Narasimha Srinivasa Iyengar. Arekere is his hometown, a small farming village between what is now Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Narasimha was his father’s given name. Srinivasa was his given name. And Iyengar is a fourth name that indicates a sub-caste within Hinduism.

In my ancestral naming system, my name would be: [Where I am from] Rajagopal Aparna. But this is where I get stuck. Where am I from? I don’t have a small village that I am tied to. Nor do I have a city. Malepalayam and Arekere, India are more foreign to me than Lander, Wyoming or Eugene, Oregon.

When my parents moved here, they changed the system to assimilate to being American. My father, Srinivasa Rajagopal, became “Raju Rajagopal,” adopting his nickname as his first name and his actual given name as his last. My mother, Melapalayam Rajagopalan Geetha, became “Geetha Rajagopal,” using her given name as her first name and my dad’s given name as her last. It made things easier for them, and for us. I mean, “Rajagopal” is hard enough for white Americans to pronounce. Imagine two or three more names like that!

But sitting here today, grasping desperately for a sense of my own connection to my ancestral lands, I wonder if my parents realized that in their immigration and assimilation, they severed our place from their names. And in that severance, they cut the umbilical cord that tied them—and their children—to our homelands.

So since we immigrated, I have worked desperately to rebuild this cord by forging a sense of place in lands that are foreign to my DNA but encoded into that of Indigenous people. I bike, run, and hike local trails. I get to know the plants. I learn about animals. I build community. I buy books on geology and natural history. I spend nights sleeping outside staring up at the constellations visible from the various versions of the night sky: from Ohlone land in the Eastern San Francisco Bay, California, to Shoshone land in Lander, Wyoming, to Apsáalooke, Tséstho'e, and Séliš land in Bozeman, Montana to Kalapuya land in Eugene, Oregon.

But despite these efforts, I’ve still felt … untethered. And this is because rediscovering my own indigeneity isn’t just about building a sense of place in a new land. I’ve learned that it really starts with learning the stories of my own ancestors, and all of the stories, not just those of joy but those of pain, even if the stories are unwritten and have been buried by generations of shame.

I didn’t start the journey of learning about my own ancestors until a couple of years ago, when I was kindly made aware that I harbored a bizarre obsession with my husband’s genealogy. My husband calls himself “and American mutt.” He has some Lebanese ancestry, but most of it is Scottish and English. He used to joke that one of his ancestors “fell off the Mayflower.” Turns out it wasn’t a joke.

When my husband’s grandparents died, we inherited a cedar chest his great grandfather received in China while on mission. The chest was overflowing with lithographs, journals, first edition books, and items like cufflinks and a civil war sword, all meticulously organized with tags on which each item’s lineage was recorded in perfect cursive script. Between the chest and the detailed records of my husband’s ancestors dating back thousands of years on ancestry.com, there’s a rich story with all the characters of the colonial American tale. There’s a mayor of London. A mason in Scotland. Founding leaders of the original colonies in Connecticut and Maryland. Farmers. Slaveholders in the South. Pioneers. Both Union and Confederate soldiers. Leaders in the Hudson Bay Trading Company who traveled West. Landowners of large swaths California. California’s purported “original Native son.” Founder of Stanford University. Missionaries. I’ll stop there.

Image description: aparna’s husband Jamie’s ancestor Lucien J. Barnes

This fixation with my husband’s genealogy was probably just an easy distraction because I only have an oral history of my family, a few recordings of conversations with grandparents, and a smattering of photos. My ancestors did not keep genealogical records. When I press “search” on ancestry.com with my family name, there’s nothing.

So I began rifling through what little I have to make sense of it. I listened to some recordings and talked with my own parents to piece together my story. Here’s a part of the story.

I am the daughter of an immigrant family from India. My ancestors were teachers, scholars, contractors, farmers, police officers, village leaders, and chemical engineers in South India.

My ancestors were colonizers. I am descended from Ichchambaadi Aachaan, who lived around 900 years ago, and was one of religious leader Sri Ramanuja’s disciples who dedicated their lives to spreading a specific sect of Hindu teachings called Vaishnavism. I am not proud of this part of this history because my ancestors sought to assimilate non-Hindus living in South India, including people who practiced animism. My ancestors are complicit in the 4,000 year old legacy of “Sanskritization” (Hindu colonialism) that gave rise to the caste system and continues to fuel the current wave of Hindu Nationalism.

My ancestors were also colonized. My ancestors were river people, living along the banks of the Kabini and Kauveri Rivers. Many of them died in a cholera epidemic in the 1930s during British occupation of India. My grandfather worked tirelessly and loyally as an assistant for a British company man. Till his death my grandfather would speak in adoration of his boss H.G. Filio, his internalization of oppression showing up as a sort of Stockholm syndrome that I often saw in Indians in my family; people who claimed to hate British rule, but also loved British people. People who taught me my cultural ways, but also adored British culture.

I am colonized and colonizer. And I am a child of rivers. And that is only part of the story that I continue to unravel.    

So what does it mean for those of you whose land connections have been fractured to rediscover you indigeneity?

I know not all of us have the privilege of being able to access our own ancestors’ stories to rebuild those broken umbilical cords. But given the opportunity, even a glimpse into our own past can help unearth our own relationships with the earth and build deeper connections to the places we now call home.