Certified Urban Indians

“There There,” by Tommy Orange, 2018

This is a series of chapters which seem to be short stories, then connect into an intertwined picture of Native living in urban Oakland, California.   There is no overall plot except modern Native survival in the concrete world of houses, streets, the BART and freeways. This is not ‘the Rez.’  This is the city.

Yet even in the city there is no real ‘there, there’ according to Orange.  He contends it is not a grounded place for Native Americans, reflected in the many moves the characters make. The common problems of urban Natives exist – alcoholism, poverty, rape, petty crime, violence, drugs, suicide, the removal of children from homes.  But also solidarity, humor, reading, music and kindness.  The kids have tech skills while some adults work as proletarian bus drivers, postal workers, grounds-keepers and social workers.   

Orange concentrates on Native traditions, especially massive pow-wows, dancing, drumming and music.  The “Big Oakland Pow-Wow” becomes a narrative focal point, as most of the characters show up there in one way or another.  It does not end well! Pow-Wows are where inter-tribal natives from all over the country are ‘braided’ together.  The NoDAPL camps in North Dakota also ‘braided together’ different tribes, but on a political basis.  Orange’s angle is a kind of apolitical Native cultural nationalism, unconnected to any greater struggle.

The most political event in the book is the occupation of Alcatraz island in San Francisco Bay by American Indian Movement (AIM) members and their supporters in 1970.  But its depiction is sad and depressing, showing it to be an errant failure.  No other political events happen, as the focus is on cultural issues like the celebratory pow-wows.  This might be an effect of Orange’s MFA training.

Some of the central characters are Oklahoma Cheyenne, some of mixed ancestry.  Family and older women, especially Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, play a key role.  Of most import Orange understands that Natives, the indigenous, are here, now.  Orange says that “the problem with indigenous art in general is that it is stuck in the past.”  To him Natives are not figments of the past, they do not want to live only in the past, they are as modern as modern can be, living “in the present tense.” And that means still oppressed but still resilient, living with a future.  Orange has many modern references, from Facebook, drones to 3-D printing, to emphasize this point of modernity.

A revealing and perhaps familiar read, even for upscale gringos.  The long-time sadness stories will appeal to them. This is what gets recommendations from the NYT and the Washington Post, especially if you include quotes from Baudelaire and Genet.  Yet telling individualized sad stories is not enough.  It is part of a recent U.S. tradition of dysfunction narratives that appeal mostly to liberals.  Misery foretold, misery alone, misery together, but misery left.  Without political action, misery remains.  

This is Orange's first book and perhaps his second will 'get bigger.'     

Other prior blog reviews on indigenous issues, use blog search box upper left:  “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” (Dunbar-Ortiz) “New Zealand Now,” “Are White People White?  Are Black People Black?” “Sami Blood,” “Northland,” “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence,” “Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes,” “Indian Country Noir,” “The Heart of Everything That Is – Red Cloud,” “The Hidden History of Guns and the 2^nd Amendment,” (Dunbar-Ortiz) “No is Not Enough”(Klein), “The Open Veins of Latin America (Galeano), “Red Gas.”

And I bought it at May Day Books, which has a large selection of Native books.

Red Frog

April 12, 2020