I'm a freelance writer and blogger. At some point, I was paid to write something about Papua New Guinea and in the process learned that the country faces development challenges rooted in the fact that the vast majority of the land is tribal lands, which means you can't get a mortgage.
This led me to wonder How do you modernize when the tribe owns the land? I've also written a few other pieces about developing Tribal Lands.
Additionally, according to oral family tradition, my father was part Cherokee. I took no particular interest in that fact until after he died and I happened to trip across a photo of an actor named Gary Farmer.
Two other pieces elsewhere with related thoughts are:
1. The Talk
2. Redbone
So you can thank -- or blame -- Papua New Guinea, Gary Farmer and My Dad for my tendency to write a bit about Native themes.