Gallup Walmart, day after Xmas 1999

My sister lived in Gallup, NM for just one year. My daughter and I visited sis and her daughter for Xmas that year. My sis, a single mom, underpaid school teacher at the time, did not have some basic kitchen tools, which I learned as we hacked together our Christmas dinner without, for example, a good cutting knife. This was in 1999.  We stayed through that New Year's, being family.

So the day after Xmas, I headed to the only place in town that sold kitchen stuff, Walmart. I do not generally patronize Walmart but when in Gallup.  Stock in chain stores in poorer communities is different than stock in more middle class communities. I had known this before I spent Christmas and New Year's in Gallup, NM. I was surprised, even so, by the junk kitchenwares on offer.

I was also surprised that basic kitchenwares were all but sold out, suggesting that many Navajos (the largest Navajo reservation begins just outside Gallup and spans into Arizona) had bought things for their Christmas dinner. Walmart, as Walmart stores often do, had come into the market, wiped out local vendors and became the only store for most of life's basic needs. And then they stocked that store with junk products.

Still, I scooped up what I could for my sister's kitchen. A cheap frying pan (with teflon, I believe), a  not-well-made stirring spoon. Knives were sold out. Pots were sold out. What I wanted was to shop in the kind of store I was accustomed to, a middle class store with quality, but not very high end, kitchen wares.

Then, having gathered up the few choices I had made to buy for my sister and got in line, there was a very long line. Lots of Xmas gift returns and post-Xmas sales had the store packed. People were lined up in one single line, waited for a cashier to beckon them over. And it looked like all the people all around me were Navajos. My white college age daughter and I stuck out.

Yet one of the cashiers, and most of them appeared to be Navajo, called out to me even though I was deep in that long line and said "You, white lady, I can check you out here." That whole long line of Native Americans looked at me, then looked at the cashier, then looked around at themselves and those around them. And I did the same looking.

I shooked my head, waived a thank you. The cashier offered again to take me next, as if she thought I might not have heard her offer of white privilege and I said "No thanks. I'm good." I wanted the moment to be as small as possible. I had a sense that to the Native Americans, such moments of overt white privilege were so common that most expected me to partake of the offer to privilege me. I had no sense that I had scored any points with anyone but myself.

We took a side trip to Santa Fe, overnighting in a motel. On that trip, I bought my sister a few more kitchen supplies. A stock pot!