I, too, am a writer — for the Eastern Door weekly newspaper in Kahnawake — and I find myself to be a Quebecer, Canadian and Mohawk all in one. Well, at least that’s what the governments want me to be: a good little Canadian who participates in the census and pays his taxes.

I speak enough French to get by and I speak some of my Kanienkeha language, but mostly I speak English. I don’t have anything against the French people of Quebec or the English in the rest of Canada. What I do resent is the federal and provincial governments constantly trying to make me a citizen. I am not a Canadian and I am not a Quebecer, I am a Kahnawakeronon who happens to live in the province of Quebec.

No matter where I go or where I live, I am and always will be Kahnawakeronon. No matter how many times my Canadian passport is stamped or I produce my Quebec driver’s licence or apply for the GST refund, I will always be Kahnawakeronon.