Throughout There There, many Natives struggle with finding their Native identity. One of the main reasons for this is due to the city of Oakland being a place that does not feel like home to the characters in this novel. Tommy Orange describes Oakland as a city where many low-income Native families live and gather, but the land is now changing. This piece of information is why all the characters are fond of Oakland, but at the same time they feel distanced from the city due to them not being able to find nor share their identities.
The city of Oakland is changing, and this is causing many Native residents to feel distanced from the community. Dene Oxendene is a Native that lives in Oakland, and he wants to hear the stories of other Natives who grew up in Oakland. After Dene heard about Gertrude Stein’s childhood in Oakland, he realized, “the place where she’d grown up in Oakland had changed so much, that so much development had happened there, that the there of her childhood, the there there, was gone, there was no there there anymore” (39). When Gertrude Stein was talking about “there there” she was referring to a place where someone calls or feels at home. This statement helps prove that the land of Oakland is changing, and it does not feel like home to Natives. As time has gone on, Natives are still being pushed out of their own land due to new people coming and moving into the town, and that is why most of them do not know how to express their identity. All the interviews that Dene does show why Natives feel this way.
Another way this novel shows how Natives lack a sense of showing their identity is through Dene’s interviews. Each interview that Dene has, it seems as if most of the Native’s do not know what it means to be a part of the Native community. One of the first interviews that Dene has was with Calvin Johnson, and he describes his life growing up in Oakland. Calvin does not fully know his Native identity, and he later goes on to say, “But it’s like we can’t talk about it because it’s not really a Native story, but then it is at the same time. It’s fucked up” (148). He does not feel comfortable telling people about his Native side since other residents of Oakland might not like what he has to say. Calvin also does not want to express his views about being Native because he does not exactly know what being Native means. Once again, many Natives do not feel as if they can show their true identities, since there are new people living in their land. The characters are distanced from Oakland, but they still find the city a stable place for them. Oakland has a lot of Natives who do not express their culture and identity.
All the Natives in this novel still enjoy living in Oakland, even though they feel detached from the community. Although they have a tough time finding or showing their Native identity, these residents feel like Oakland is a stable place to live. This novel shows how Natives adapt to their land changing, and how it affects their culture and identities. Most of the characters' identities were impacted in a negative way since they never utterly understood how to express themselves.
I would like to counter your last point. The Americans of Native descent who live in Oakland do not feel detached from the community of Oakland. While the city of Oakland may have changed a lot over the past years, I would contend that Native Americans have formed their own community – a community that has mostly adapted to urban life. When Daniel is writing an email to Manny, he writes “Especially if it was from one of those white boys trying to take Oakland over from the West. You know they haven’t made it to the Deep East yet. Probably never will,” (191). Some people have at least formed their own communities within Oakland itself – thus being part of the Oakland community. Deep East at least has some kind of racial makeup, because the community is contrasted against the majority-white community in Oakland Hills (“those white boys”) several times throughout the story. I would go so far as to say that the community of Deep East could be extrapolated to be a native community since we, the audience, know that Daniel, Octavio, and Calvin & his cousins are all of native descent and live nearby.
ReplyDeleteThe Native American characters have adapted to the city and have made their own communities so ingrained into the rest of Oakland, that some characters just don’t feel the need to differentiate between their ancestral identity and their modern identity. To elaborate on one of your own quotes, when Calvin says “But it’s like we can’t talk about it because it’s not really a Native story, but then it is at the same time. It’s fucked up” (148), I think that what he means is that he has adapted to the modern way of life and that he’s really not that different from anyone else living in Oakland. I don’t think that these characters really consider Oakland to be some kind of ancestral tribal territory or that they would necessarily conclude Oakland as “their land”. I don’t think the book emphasizes how Native Americans are worried to be themselves because others live in their ancestral territory, rather I think that a major point of the book is actually to show how many Native Americans have integrated into American life to the point where they don’t feel the need to have two separate lives – one Native and one American.
The novel explores multiple stories with different perspectives of changing or developing identities. One I found compelling was Blue's identity and relationship with Oakland. She grew up in the suburbs of Oakland, so her experience is extremely different than those who grew up in the different generations of Oakland. She struggles with her identity, as she grew up in a White environment with White adoptive parents, but was still made fun of as a child because of her skin color. She does not know the name of her mother or her tribe until she turns eighteen, and this is when she starts to discover her Native identity. She gets a job with the Indian Center, which she comes back to later, and notes that it "helped me to feel more like I belonged somewhere" (Orange 295). She follows her tribe to Oklahoma, and then leaves her abusive husband to return to Oakland. Unlike the other characters who accept that they do not know anything about their Native identity and sort of leave it at that, Blue works to define her Native identity through her work at the Indian Centers, her relationship with her abusive husband, and what she knows about her mom. Rather than be affected by the changing of Oakland or external factors that the other characters face, Blue's identity development is very much a personal adventure of finding a place she belongs from the moment she learns of her heritage.
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ReplyDeleteTo add to this idea, other characters in the book also feel disconnected from their identity in Oakland. For example, Opal, Jacquie, and their mother move from their yellow house in Oakland to Alcatraz to connect with their “relatives. Indians of All Tribes” (Orange 48). They did not feel at home in Oakland. Instead, they found a new place, at least for a little while, to reconnect as a family and their Native American roots. One night Opal’s mom “sang the Cheyenne lullaby she used to sing to put [them] to sleep” (Orange 49). These characters feel more in touch with their heritage when surrounded by others like them.
ReplyDeleteTo counteract these feelings of disconnect in the Oakland community, Native Americans created the Indian Center to reunite people with their culture. Blue, Jacquie’s daughter, grew up in an adopted white family. As a result, she never experienced her native culture, so when she became an adult, she “got a job in Oakland at the Indian Center and that helped [her] feel more like [she] belonged somewhere” (Orange 198). The Indian Center was the only local place that provided her a chance to find a new sense of identity and home. Furthermore, Edwin Black becomes an Indiana Center paid intern that helps “with anything related to the powwow” (Orange 76). This job is significant because it allows him to receive a paycheck rather than scrolling through the internet all day. It is also his first in-person exposure to his culture since his sole interaction has been reconnecting with his birth dad through social media.
The interviews are used to explore what it means to be Native, but the book truly does this through showing multiple points of view. Furthermore, Calvin’s interview with Dene does specifically explore lacking a strong Native identity, but that is still, nonetheless, a way to be Native. Through this, Orange is trying to tell us that what it means to be Native is up to each person—it’s individualized.
ReplyDeleteFor Opal, being Native has only brought her pain: her mother was spiritual, but later passed from cancer; Lucas left her without closure; her sister, Jacquie, is an alcoholic and is barely holding herself together; she had to take in the boys: Orvil, Loother, and Lony, so that they would have a home. Because of the pain being Native has brought Opal, she has little interest in sharing that heritage with the boys: Orvil, Loother, and Lony. They do not have the privilege of learning about their heritage; however, she also tells the boys to “[never] let anyone tell you what being Indian means” (Orange 119). With this, we see that Opal is completely disconnected from her heritage, yet is still trying to show the boys what it can mean to be Native.
On the other hand, Fina, Octavio’s grandma, is strongly connected to her Native heritage. Fina has an altar in her closet and believes in curses. She can see them in people, and explains a darkness that runs in the family, “it was some old dark leftover thing that stayed with our family…we got this thing that hurts real fucking bad, makes you mean” (Orange 181). Fina sees this “curse” in the family and this shows us how she approaches being Native, from a very spiritual perspective.
By exposing us to these two contrasting Native perspectives, Orange is telling us that there is no one, correct way to be Native. So, while the interviews do show us ways of being Native, the switching of the points of view throughout the entire books show us a larger picture of ways to be Native.