Seth Prince, a copy editor at the Portland Oregonian, wrote an essay about what it means to be American Indian. It shows that this former Wichita Eagle intern is as good a writer as he was a copy editor.

The choice of what element of heritage to identify with, and why to do so, is one of the toughest decisions any of us can confront.

Its ripples -- in being laughed at or laughing along with, in a cold shoulder or a warm embrace, in being told to play an Indian as a child or living as one as an adult -- are never ending.

Seth was the copy editor on the Oregonian's Pulitzer Prize winning series on immigration. Here, the paper's ombud uses one of his first blog entries to share some responses to Seth's story.