I've written in StoryCulture about how my grandparents hid their indigenous heritage from their children and neighbors, either out of shame -- or just because life was easier when people identified them as members of the caucasian Christian majority.
Cultural genocide is often an overt act of aggression... and sometimes, as Mari Boine points out, its a societal brainwashing passed down from generation to generation.
This video was recorded in Oslo (spring 2008). Mari talks about how she, like too many Sami on both sides of the Atlantic, hated her heritage when she was younger. When Mari was in her mid-twenties, she embraced her ethnicity and started to write and sing joiks.
Mari Boine: website
Mari Boine: biography
Mari Boine: MySpace
