I Accidentally Learned Something About My Country That Broke My Heart

Indian War 1609 - 1924

Today I learned something that genuinely broke my heart.

And what’s wild is how I learned it.

I wasn’t reading a book. I wasn’t in a history class. I wasn’t watching a documentary. I literally just turned on my TV.

A really old black and white movie was playing. I wasn’t even watching it. I was in the bathroom washing my face, half paying attention, when I overheard a line that stopped me in my tracks.

The movie was Massacre Canyon.

Someone casually said something about helping the army kill Indians.

I froze.

I remember standing there thinking, wait… what did she just say?

It wasn’t said with shock. It wasn’t said with sadness. It was said like it was normal. Like everyone already knew.

That one sentence sent me down a spiral I was not prepared for.

I started asking questions. I started reading. And what I learned today hurt in a way I honestly did not expect.

I learned that not even that long ago, around one hundred to one hundred fifty years ago, this country actively used its military to remove and kill Native people in order to take their land.

I knew about Christopher Columbus. I knew land was stolen. I always felt uncomfortable with the Thanksgiving story. But I did not know how organized and intentional it was. I did not know that this wasn’t just random cruelty or a few bad people, but an entire system deciding that innocent human beings were disposable.

That realization made me cry.

Because I love my country.

I love the life I have built here. I love the opportunities I have had. I love the freedom I have to think, speak, and create. And it is incredibly hard to hold that love alongside the truth that this same country caused unimaginable harm to people who did nothing wrong.

What hurts even more is the feeling of having nowhere to put the anger.

The people who made those decisions are gone. The soldiers, the politicians, the people who ordered and justified it are long dead. There is no one to confront. No one to demand accountability from. No one to make it right.

And that is what hurts the most.

It leaves you sitting with grief and sadness and confusion, with no clear direction for it to go.

This is why I sometimes struggle with protests. Not because I don’t care. But because I genuinely ask myself, who exactly are we yelling at. How do you hold someone accountable for something their ancestors did when they themselves did not choose it.

That does not make the history okay. It does not erase the pain. It just makes the reality complicated.

What really breaks my heart is realizing how much of this was never explained to us properly. How many of us went through school without learning these truths. How something this heavy could be hidden behind softened language and incomplete lessons.

I did not learn this in a classroom.

I learned it by accident.

From a black and white movie playing in the background while I washed my face.

That alone says a lot.

Learning this as an adult feels like grief mixed with disbelief.

Grief for people who were erased.

Grief for lives that were uprooted.

Grief for the fact that so much comfort was built on someone else’s suffering.

And still, I don’t feel hatred.

I feel sadness. I feel empathy. I feel a deeper responsibility to be honest, even when honesty hurts.

Maybe accountability today does not look like punishment. Maybe it looks like remembrance. Education. Respect. Refusing to minimize what happened just because it makes us uncomfortable.

Maybe it looks like holding more than one truth at the same time.

That I can love my country.

That I can be grateful for my life.

And that I can still mourn what was done to innocent people in the name of progress.

Today reminded me that history is not just something in textbooks. It lives in the land. It lives in the silence. It lives in the stories we overhear when we are not even looking for them.

And sitting with that truth hurts.

But I think sitting with it matters.