What amount of tribal/cultural involvement does your non native spouse have?
For those of you who have a non native spouse that is. I have been thinking about this a lot, especially after seeing a modern exhibit that featured a lot of work from a non native person who married into a tribe. I found it frustrating that her art work was in what was supposed to be about native resilience. If it had been one art piece maybe I wouldn’t have minded, but it felt like half of the modern works were hers.
My non native husband wants to be as involved as possible, and I’ve had many talks about what that looks like at different levels of seriousness of our relationship. I didn’t expect any from him 6 months in, but now that we are married and considering children that has changed.
Right now I tell him that if our future kid is involved in something, he’s allowed to be there to watch them. Like, any camps, getting in a canoe, basically if I can’t be there then I think he should be. Things like canoe journey he could totally be ground crew and there would be no issues.
I’ve also been thinking about this more because he’s an amazing weaver (European styles) and when I am confused he can just look at a weave and figure out how it works. He is loved enough by my family that my grandmother is teaching him how to spin yard on a spindle whorl so we can do it together. I still don’t think I would feel okay with him being featured in a native art exhibit though.
What are your thoughts? Is your non native spouse involved, and why or why not?