Queer Indigenous Studies

"Heteropatriarchy has become so natural in many Native communities that it is internalized and institutionalized as if it were traditional (34)."

This quote in from the introduction stuck with me through my individual reading of the text Queer Indigenous Studies. I reminded me that Heteropatriarchy works in a way that hides colonialism. Furthermore, while reading chapter three, I was able to connect how even something as simple as the mixing of race (or intermarriage) between Maori women and European men played a part in heteropatriarchy and white supremacy in Aotearoa, through Maori women.
"From the early beginnings in Kororareka thereemerged two influential ways of thinking about Maori women; one was promiscuous, the source of 'The New Zealand Fever,' and the second was as protection through marriage for European men wanting to move safely through, and negotiate the acquisition of, Maori tribal territory (70)." This is a clear example of how heteropatriarchy played a role in the life of Maori women. They were either used for sexual pleasures and/or for land property. Either way, Maori women, through heteropatriarchy, were made a property and used for European benefit.
"The inculcation of Maori women into roles as domestic help was promulgated through the mission schools, and schools established specifically for half-castes. Not only were schools the site in which young Maori and half-caste girls were taught English, and to read and write, it was where they were trained to become servants (74)." This is not only seen in Aotearoa, but around other colonized Indigenous communities as well. Women and men have been "assigned" a specific gender role in which they are expected to perform. By performing this role (assigned by the white colonizer), Native people slowly begin to fall under heteropatriarchy and become the disappearing Native.
I personally don't like the idea of how women in general are held to a certain requirement in order to be a "woman." I furthermore find it a bit challenging at times to assert myself as a Native woman around my peers who are confined to a patriarchal mindset (the thought of having to always cook, not speak my mind, have a nuclear family, speak English etc).  More so, I sometimes find myself straddling boarders between my Native and European cultures. Growing up in this type of society causes me to forget (and sometimes blend) the differences of my Hawaiian traditions and European traditions. Like stated in this section, the blending of both causes a disappearance of the Native. How can we (as Iʻm sure others go through this) address this issue? Do we care to address it?