The discovery of the “New World” was a blessing to those escaping religious persecution in Europe. The colonists found a place to be free, to start fresh and a whole lot of land to make that all possible. A little kink in their plan was the fact that this world was already home to indigenous peoples who had been living off the land for years. Since then Native Americans have been slaughtered, ripped from their homes, and forced onto designated land now called reservations. The modern day Native American stereotype is not a pretty one- most of the time the reservations are associated with alcoholism, gambling addiction and diabetes.
Once a people of health and freedom, Native Americans for the most part are now part of a low socioeconomic class plagued with a sense of not belonging. Tommy Orange portrays the struggle of the “Urban Indians” in his novel There There. He writes, “We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.” This sets the tone of the novel in which Orange tells the story of twelve characters, varying in their degree of Indian, as they plan to attend a big powwow in Oakland, California. As the characters develop we learn of their connections but the major similarity between them is the fact that they all struggle with being Native American in today’s America. Depression, alcoholism, domestic abuse, gang violence, teenage pregnancies, suicide are all realities for these individuals and their journey to find where and how they fit in ends at the Big Oakland Powwow.
Harvey, the MC travelling to the powwow says, “We all been through a lot we don’t understand in a world made to either break us or make us so hard we can’t break even when it’s what we need to do.” He is a recovering alcoholic who runs AA meetings for fellow urban Native Americans. He is travelling to the powwow with a woman who he forced himself upon earlier in life and also plans to meet a son that he has never met at the powwow. This is an example of how interconnected Orange’s characters are in the novel. They are all on a path of self discovery which unfortunately coincides with self destruction.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading There There because of the raw emotion that Orange is able to portray in his words. He paints a very clear picture of the struggle Native Americans face today in this country which is a topic that rarely gets the recognition it deserves. This is not the story told in school history books but a very real and very current slow destruction of a group of people that is eerily reminiscent of the past. It is well worth a read.
2 Book Girls 