Documenting a Cultural Genocide: Historical and Fictional Accounts in There There

 

    Often disregarded in the American education system, the Occupation of Alcatraz inspired a new era of indigenous activism meant to highlight the destruction of culture, identity, and lives caused by white colonialism in the Americas. Tommy Orange’s There There discusses a fictional account of the occupation in which family, and therefore cultural, relations become confused; these strained relations are evident throughout the remainder of the novel. Orange’s fusion of fictional and historical accounts thus emphasizes how white colonialism and white society’s erasure of indigenous stories and culture has contributed to a deep-rooted, long-lasting destruction of cultural and individual identity in indigenous communities.

            Orange includes two sections which explicitly comment on these themes. The Prologue and the Interlude discuss historical events and how these events have destroyed, erased, and belittled native cultures and identities. Orange describes how white society has “reduced [Indians] to a feathered image” (Orange 7), particularly in terms of mascots, while “it was a celebration” for the same white society when “they tore us up. Mutilated us” (Orange 8). Furthermore, the failure of the American education system to teach indigenous history beyond the Trail of Tears—how many Americans can confidently discuss the importance of the (third) Occupation of Alcatraz?—exacerbates the trend of “histories written wrong and meant to be forgotten” (Orange 10). When discussing the Native American experience, Orange utilizes strong imagery meant to evoke strong emotions—disgust, anger, sadness—from an audience formerly lacking in knowledge on these topics. Orange’s historical sections therefore educate the audience in preparation for the fictional side of the novel; this contextualization allows the audience to more broadly understand the deep-rooted erasure of indigenous cultures and peoples.

            Likewise, the fictional majority of the novel demonstrates that this erasure is a modern process rather than a historical effect of cultural genocide. While the historical sections contextualize, the fictional ones trace the less-than-clear identities of multiple individuals to emphasize how the cultural genocide of Native Americans has been preserved in modern American. Several characters, including Blue, Tony, Opal, Edwin, and Orvil exemplify this confusion of identity when they look into reflective surfaces, almost as if they simultaneously experience outer and inner reflection. Orvil sees himself as “a fake, a copy, a boy playing dress-up” (Orange 122) when he attempts to connect with his culture, and Blue similarly “see[s] [her]self from the inside out . . . and inside [she] feel[s] . . . white” (Orange 198). Tony, born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, scrutinizes his face in the reflection of the TV and “couldn’t make the face that [he] found there [his] own again” (Orange 16). Each of these reflections represents the erasure indigenous people experience; what they perceive on the outside—FAS, obesity, skin color, etc.—does not match how they feel on the inside. White society has taken over, and this process, left widely unacknowledged by its white perpetrators, demonstrates how the cultural genocide of indigenous communities continues in modern America.