The City Sounds Like a War
Consider the following statement from page 9: "We stayed because the city sounds like a war, and you can’t leave a war once you’ve been, you can only keep it at bay." In what ways does the historical precedent for violent removal of Native populations filter into the modern era? How does violence—both internal and external—appear throughout the narrative? The violent removal of Native Americans and the reasoning behind it filters into the modern era of real life and the setting of There There. With the oppression of Native Americans not being an uncommon occurrence in the novel, the continuous effects the Trail of Tears and horrific treatment toward Native Americans in the past are seen in the more modern setting of Oakland. One such instance in which the verbal violence that stems from the removal of Native populations occurs is when Dene is waiting to pitch his film idea to the panel of judges, and a fellow attendee asks if the winner of the grant has to be a person of co...