Professional Documents
Culture Documents
We are the author of our life’s story, no matter what our connection with
our ancestor, cause our story holds this personal energies and the relationship
with others thus, creates exciting and special moments in our life which makes
it memorable. See, life is a story, literature speaks it, and represents it.
than just a story that is made up. Languages is what makes us humans, it
and feelings towards others. Tommy Orange’s novel, There There, is a unique
story that portrays the things that reflects the Native American history, the
beauty, the violence, the recovery, the memory and the identity of them which
is rooted deeply in their heart. This books discusses mainly about the story of
twelve Native Americans whom faces different challenges in their life, searching
the true meaning of who they truly are, their ethnicity, their authenticity, their
Oxendene is one of those 12 characters that the author, Orange writes about
his life trying to make something meaningful and finally being able to make a
to figure out who and what he is. He is often being assumed as many races
actually native, but “only half true.” (Orange 28), in fact Dene himself “is not
Oxendene is also insecure with his scent, thinking how people would actually
smell him and he smells like “piss and shit piss and shit his whole life without
knowing it, that everyone’s been afraid to tell him” (Orange 29). This over-
he took the train he sees how an old guy sitting up while making sure none of
his belongings is left behind; “He looks to his left and sees an old man
slumped down in his seat.” (Orange 29), or when he attentively observing the
speed of the cars of the train: “The speed of the cars is short, disconnected,
Although being hardly seen as Native, Oxendene has already face many
challenges being Native, ‘a burden on his shoulder’, especially with the follow
of Lucas’ tragic death, his uncle. However, this actually pushes him to think of
a new idea to explore which in the same time able to find out more about his
history as Native American while still able to honor his uncle. Dene being a
young man is full of curiosity and ambitious of exploring his culture wanting to
know more especially giving the opportunity to connect with his uncle although
Leo, 3
for only a short period of time. Regardless, his time with his uncle actually
grants him the opportunity to make something memorable, something that has
a special meaning not only to him, but also to his uncle and the society
Oxendene’s uncle allows Oxendene to actually follow his path to enter the
movie world and nevertheless his uncle’s unfortunate death, Oxendene keeps
“Indian stories in Oakland…. There are so many stories here…. That’s just what
our community needs considering how long it’s been ignored, has remained
storytelling, Oxendene believes that the Native people has been long
something new…the Native experience as it’s seen on the screen” (Orange 40).
Oxendene states that for so long Native story in general is being portrayed as
To relate with the “Prologue” chapter from this Novel, Orange actually in
a way describes similarly like what Oxendene’s vision through his movie which
the media has been wrongly portrayed as the so called “Native American
Leo, 4
Indian” which is almost totally different from what it actually is. Orange
Works Cited