84 pages • 2 hours read
Tommy OrangeThere There
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Historical Context: Occupation of Alcatraz (1969-1971)
In There There, characters Opal and Jacquie are brought to the Occupation of Alcatraz protest by their mother when they are children. Organized by Mohawk activist Richard Oakes, Shoshone-Bannock activist LaNada Means, and other Indigenous American leaders, the Occupation of Alcatraz lasted 19 months from November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971. Protesting under the name “Indians of all Tribes” (IOAT), the activists claimed that, in accordance with the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, Indigenous Americans may lawfully reclaim any abandoned or out-of-use federal land. That included Alcatraz Island, the old site of a federal penitentiary which the government closed in 1963. More broadly, the protest was designed to raise awareness of the US’s “Indian termination policy” of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which sought to eliminate Indigenous culture through total assimilation into mainstream American society.
At its peak, the Occupation attracted 400 protesters. But by May 1970, the protest had begun to collapse. Many of the student organizers returned to their universities, and opposing views and approaches between Russell Means and Santee-Dakota activist John Trudell led to fractures in the group’s leadership. With the Occupation in a weakened state, the US government isolated the protesters from the public by cutting off phone service and electrical power to the island. Later, a fire of unknown origin spread through the island, destroying many buildings. In June 1971, when government officers finally evicted the last of the protesters, there were only 15 people left.
Despite ending without the government acceding to the protesters’ major demands, the Occupation led to a significant shift in US Indigenous policy away from cultural termination. In 1970, President Richard Nixon acknowledged this shift when he said, “[S]elf-determination among Indian people can and must be encouraged without the threat of eventual termination.” (Caravelis, Cyndy & Robinson, Matthew. Social Justice, Criminal Justice: The Role of American Law in Effecting and Preventing Social Change. Abingdon: Routledge. 2015.) Moreover, the Occupation set an important precedent for 20th-century Indigenous activism, paving the way for other protest movements like the Trail of Broken Treaties, the Wounded Knee Occupation, and the Longest Walk.
Geographical Context: Indigenous Groups of the Bay Area
Orange wrote There There in part because he felt that so much of the popular storytelling about Indigenous Americans focused on either the distant past or life on reservations. Instead, Orange’s characters all live in a major city, specifically Oakland in the Bay Area of California. The Bay Area is home to 18,500 Indigenous Americans, and that number is likely to grow given broader Indigenous migration trends from rural to urban America. (Bay Area Equity Atlas. “Indigenous Populations in the Bay Area”).
Historically, the Ohlone were the dominant group in the Bay Area. Their numbers first began to decline with the arrival of Spanish colonists in the 18th century. After California became a state in 1850, the federal and state government sanctioned genocide against the Ohlone by militias, as white prospectors flooded the area looking to make a fortune in the California Gold Rush. (Kamalakathan, Prashanth. “The Ohlone People Were Forced Out of San Francisco. Now They Want Part of Their Land Back.” Mother Jones. 22 November 2014.) This left “less than 1,000 Ohlone remaining, a 90 percent loss in their pre-colonial era population.” (Bay Area Equity Atlas. “Indigenous Populations in the Bay Area”).
In 2022, Oakland announced plans to become one of the first American cities to return land to Indigenous Americans. The Oakland city council will vote on a proposal to grant five acres of land in a city park to local Indigenous groups, including the East Bay Ohlone tribe, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation, and the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Although five acres is miniscule compared to the swaths of land stolen from Indigenous communities over the centuries, activists say Oakland’s plan is an important precedent, providing a “blueprint that other cities could follow to return public land to Indigenous communities.” (Gómez-Van Cortright, Guananí. “How Indigenous People Got Some Land Back in Oakland.” Bay Nature. 13 December 2022).
