I made it back to my adopted hometown Chicago, but no blatant Indian-ness imagery was to be seen in the areas in which I spent time—the downtown area, Hyde Park, and northern suburbs. However, the word “Chicago” comes from the Miami-Illinois word “Shikwaakwa,” which means “striped skunk” or “smelly onion.”
The explorer Robert de la Salle is credited with the first precursor to Chicago, “Checagou.”
Anglo-Americans “gringo” traditional names and places in their mispronunciations and spellings, which endure because their white tongues are the ones empowered. “Chicago” is the mispronunciation and writing down of “shikawkwaa,” an eraser obliterating the traditional history of Indigenous Americans and redefining the word.
In the same way that La Salle whitewashed a word from a Native language, Anglo-Americans in power appropriate sacred symbols of Indigenous peoples for kitsch and commercial uses. Favored characteristics of a myriad Native identities are blended and synthesized into one, sole “Indian” identity.
The road trip I will be taking over the next week will display the ways this synthesized caricature is manifested.
(These bottom three photos were taken in Tokyo, Japan, and though not taken en route on my Route 66 trip, show how universal the American Indian aesthetic is.)
