As Greenland moves past Danish colonialism, young people are taking up old traditions, like facial tattoos and kayaking, and see no need for the U.S. as a new master.

My mother’s paternal grandmother, Maaliaana, was born in Kangaamiut, in western Kalaallit Nunaat, sometime in the beginning of the 1900s. (Kalaallit Nunaat is an endonym for my motherland; Greenland ...