Kelsey McClymonds

Throughout There, There we see a wide range of narrators that struggle with their identity in relation to their heritage and the burden of their history.  One of the main crises Tommy Orange has emphasized is the lack of understanding of what a true modern Native American most commonly looks like.  Many Americans who are not of native decent have this stereotypical image of the average Native American that is one that is alienated from society and still living the traditional reservation lifestyle.  This is idea is outlined in the prologue as Orange describes the Indiana Head test pattern, the cowboys and Indian movie genres with John Wayne, and the mascots in which the Indiana identity is removed, “then reduced to a feathered image” (Orange, 7).  It is because of this incorrect idea of what the modern Native Indian looks like, that Orange writes first the prologue to explicitly stating that many Indians are urban now and living the same way that everyone else does and also explains how even though they are separated their heritage and culture has not been completely erased.  Orange states “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 a bounty, or just to get rid of us” which illustrates his theme that we are our past even if we don’t live in it (Orange, 10).

        Throughout the novel, Orange depicts how a group of modern Indians of different sexes, ages, backgrounds have navigated urban life while also brings them back to their heritage by trying to attend a powwow.  Orange shows the range of challenges that modern Native Indians face from an identity crisis to either embrace their past or forget about it and the social struggles that have impacted the Native Indian community due to their harsh historical past.  The identity crisis is illustrated in Orvil’s struggle to want to dance at the powwow and learn about his culture even though his caretaker Opal is dismissive of their heritage.  Then social struggles especially with substance abuse is depicted in the opening and closing narrator, Tony, who suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Jacquie who suffers from substance abuse and then the drug culture that Octavio’s entire family struggles with including another narrator Calvin.  These struggles that the modern native population faces are represented through Orange’s attempt to explore the effects of the past on the native communities in the present and how it ties into their heritage.  Through this we can also see how Orange depicts the diversity of the urban native community in opposition to the unified stereotypical image that is displayed in the media and in books.