I will not call names, because I feel it unnecessary and also because if some are doing this to me, they and possibly others, are doing it to others.

My membership number is 301.

If your membership number is lower than that–it does NOT make you

More Indian than me.

More Waccamaw than me.

More dedicated to your heritage than me.

More anything than me.

I do not mind telling you what my number is. What bothers me is after I answer you you say, “Well, my number is (some number lower than 301).” Then procceed to try to make me feel bad because my application was processed after yours.

I have been made to feel like the low person on the totem pole. Like a hitchhiker.

I AM not.

I am Waccamaw and Lumbee on my mother's side. I am either Choctaw or Cherokee on my Daddy's side.

That Waccamaw blood screamed at me.

And I listened.

I live my heritage every day. No one that actually ever speaks to me for more than a few minutes can say that I am not Red.

Its in all I do.

All I say.

All I believe.

All I stand for.

Every breathe I take.

Please, don't judge me because my membership/enrollment number is lower than yours.

Unless your name is Harold “Buster” Hatcher, then someone has an enrollment number lower than yours.

Oh I agree with you 110%!

I love it when people come up tp me and ask if I am Indian and then proceed to tell me their great grandmother was a C Indian Princess!

I am too outspoken to not offer them a little education on that one.

Ask me at Pau W what I tell most when they tell me they are “Cherokee'–

I don't have a card at all. A relative of a relative did some genology. Most of the documents we have go back to a Shadrach Jacobs that was eventually hung in fairfeild county SC. Only one branch of the family went back futher. They found some Jacobs brothers from Germany who married Indian women and showed a link to those families. I don't have the documents yet to study. Anyway when Shandrach was running from the law, he ended up in Southeast Georgia, and he left a family there. The truth is most my family is white-ish. There is a bit of this and that for color, lots of not quite white people marrying eachother. I have some Creek indian blood, but the paperwork will show she was white. The man who wanted to marry her went to Savannah, bought a dead white woman's name off a ship and then used that name and documents to marry his Indian wife. She went by that name all her life. On paper we often look as white as anybody else. I am related to some Harper's who are related to some Carvers that were not considered all white either. And on it goes with each branch of the family. I'm not applying for a card anywhere. My ancestors seem to have had a plan, to get as white as possible. My girls had blond hair and blue eyes when they were little. Success!  I found this site and this other little peice of information about what kind of Indian my father's father was descended from. I identify with whoever invites me to sit and eat with them in a lunch room. All I can say for certain is I look white-ish (asian people say I have asian eyes, I have markers from native american ancestory, feet, fingers, teeth) and I can't find any asian in the family tree and everything else is certainly possible! Having a card might have stopped the dentist from filling my shovel teeth, but papa told that dentist he wasn't an Indian so go for it. To me applying for a card would probably have many of my ancestors rolling over in their graves! Papa always said he couldn't be an Indian because he had blue eyes. He told me if you say it long enough, people start to believe you. He tries for a jewish discount everytime he can though. He's a Babtist! A card would not make me more or less of anything. What you see is what you get and there really isn't any changing that. I am comfortable with how I look. My sister is darker than me. Does that make her more Indian? Maybe, but it doesn't make her any less my sister. Just be happy in your skin. A card is just a card. The number is just a number. I don't think I am enough of any one thing to merit a card anywhere anyway. I don't have to try and save anyone from themselves. I don't have to stay where I'm not welcomed. Being white-ish is fine for me, I'm not usually this social or talkative. If you've cared enough to get a card, that should say enough in itself. Some people are always seeking to be higher in the pecking order no matter where they are. Its nature. Its not admirable, but its  human.