Tribal Chic

For the fifth grade Thanksgiving pageant mama sewed me an Indian costume. I’ll refrain from using “Native American” because it wasn’t a Native American costume, but rather an idea of whut the Injuns used tuh wear—completely inaccurate.

She used brown cotton cloth to simulate leather and hides. It had frills all over the place, a brown matching headband with a special slim pouch at the back into which I stuck the final touch, a green feather. Where she got really creative was with the shoes. Mama’s first and only job in the states was at a canvass shoe factory in the sewing machine assembly line. She knew a thing or two about putting together footwear. So she found some scraps of tan suede and fashioned a pair of authentic-looking (and smelling) moccasins.

As part of the pageant, all the little Indians had to perform a dance for all the little Pilgrims. Mama, gushing mother that she is, fell in love with the dance and insisted that I perform it for her at home, freezing into poses at her command so she could take pictures of me.

Then came Noche Buena (December 24th), which Cubans celebrate with a roasted suckling pig, all kinds of boiled and fried roots, two kinds of rice, three kinds of beans, every dessert in the Cuban repertoire. We hosted the feast at our house that year and mama insisted that I perform my Indian dance for the whole family. Luckily we had sparklers on hand and I thought it’d be great if I incorporated them into my choreography. With a few adjustments I was glowing down the yellow-tiled walkway into the house as cousins and aunts and uncles looked on from all sides. Cameras flashed, eyes widened and from the Fisher Price record player I’d plugged into the outdoor outlet came the high-hat taps of "Macho Duck," my favorite song from the Mickey Mouse Disco album.

It wasn’t clear to me at the time how offensive and anachronistic my performance was, nor how queer. In my tight brown frilly pants and my ankle-accentuating moccasins waving around glittery fire sticks, hips shaking to the disco Donald Duck beat, I would’ve been the doll of the Village People.