My name is Braxton Daniel Two Feathers.  I am nine years old.  I live in Ponca City, Oklahoma, with my Granny Bee and Father.  My mother, she's dead; she died while giving birth to what would have been my little sister.  Her name would have been Raven Sky, according to Father.

I look like any typical Native American Indian kid:  skinny, rather lanky in appearance, with long, thick jet-black hair, snapping black eyes, dark ruddy skin.  I like to wear tee-shirts or jeans or my ratty tennies most of the time.

Some of the things I like to do include playing basketball with my chums Reston BigHorn, Whyatt Elk, Quince Jackson (he's not Native), Elfred StormCloud, and Freddie High Horse, drawing, reading, riding my horse Buxton Babe, skateboarding, and scaring little kids by making monster faces.  I know it's not nice, but I think it's hilarious to watch them get scared, then run off, squealing for their mommies.

I act like a typical "English" kid (that's what we Natives call non-Indian kids; they, in turn, call us "RedSkins", "Injuns", or worst of all, "Chief"). 

When powwow time comes, however, I act more like a Native kid.  I love to dress up royal in my fancy Indian dance clothes, complete with fringe, bells, and feathers, and dance cool Native dances like the Eagle Dance or the Hunting Dance, or my favorite, the Wolf Dance and the Harvest Moon Dance.  I am very good at dancing; I've been dancing at powwows since I was a little pup.

I eat cornbread, Indian Corn, and smoked salmon, ham, beef jerky, and I speak my first language, which is Choctaw Indian.  I am very proud of my Native American ways, my heritage; I don't know why the English people have to give us a hard time about it!  It really makes me angry!!

We are people too; we just happen to be the ancestors of the First People who were already here before the white man came and took everything from us.  It is at times when we learn about our past when I'm ashamed to be Native; however, both Father and Granny Bee tell me to hold my head up high, be proud of who I am.

I try, believe me, but it is so hard when kids call me "Chief" or make Indian war cry noises, anything to try to distract me, or push me and laugh.  I want to hit them, bash their ugly white or brown faces with my fists, but Father tells me fighting never solves anything; he tells me to settle my differences with words instead of my fists.

Sometimes I get so mad I come home from school in tears.  That's when I wish I still lived in Skiatook, which is the town where I was born.  I lived there on a reservation, and I was happy there; I was among my own kind, and I didn't feel like a stranger in my own land.

We've lived in Ponca City for two years now, and I hate it!  I'd give anything to move back to Skiatook!!

~Written by Braxton Daniel Two Feathers, age nine.