Jare Cardinal is a historian, educator and archivist who has worked with the Haudenosaunee community for over 20 years. As Manager of Community Relations for the Rochester Museum & Science Center, she is liaison to the Haudenosaunee on NAGPRA issues. She is also a board member of the Seneca Iroquois Museum and Rochester's Native American Cultural Center.

"I don't think Ely Parker would have changed much if he had his life to live over again. He was someone, as his mother's dream visualized, was a man of destiny. And I think he was destined to explore life, he loved challenges, he loved to learn new things. And I think he never would have been satisfied going back to Tonawanda and to be a Seneca in a traditional way. You can understand that when you read his letters describing the loneliness when his parents die; they were his last tie. There was no reason after that to live there; he couldn't feel like he belonged there.

There are many things you can learn from Ely Parker's life, of course, depending on your viewpoint. For many he was someone who overcame all sorts of racial barriers to succeed in so many different fields, and to save the lands of the Tonawanda Senecas. So in that respect, he's a success. On the other hand you can look at someone who made poor choices, who thought that white society was better than that community given to him as a child. So he changed his values and never quite succeeded in being totally accepted into the white world. But more than anything else, these experiences show us who he was as a human being, and human beings are dynamic, there are many pathways. I think cultural diversity is precious. It inspires creativity, new ways of doing things, new understandings. But I think Ely Parker believed white society had a better future than Seneca society. He made that choice, and depending who you are, it was a good or bad choice.

The lesson we can learn from him is to be careful when going out to be a bridge between two worlds, because if you don't step carefully, you lose who you are, you lose who you can become. He is the man in the Two Row Wampum, who is straddling the Indian's canoe and the white man's boat. And he stretched too far and fell in.

You don't have to be a Seneca to appreciate his story, to appreciate what happened to this man. Everyone makes choices - you always want to step forward, but don't lose who you are in the process."