Let me first say that I am married to a full Sioux, making my daughter half Sioux, and she does take after him (native genes beat Scot/Welsh/Irish imports anytime). In her pre-school and kindergarten, she was an Indian. Well, they called them Native Americans, but you get the point. Both my husband and I attended the Thanksgiving pageant for the two years of pre-school and the kindergarten play. At no time were we ever offended that our daughter was an Indian, Native American, whatever. In fact, we joked about it being typecasting! She had fun with it, played it up. Everyone loved it. No one asked if we were offended or anything. No one asked us ahead if we minded, either, and they all knew her heritage.

Neither of us has ever been the type to object to the Indian mascots for sports teams or anything else. The only time I have ever had a problem with his heritage is when a former employer denied me a promotion because I was a “dirty squaw who married a dirty Indian”. I quit as soon as I heard the comment, filed a grievance and put the small-minded people out of business, at least in that state (they only had 6 employees).