There There by Tommy Orange

Source of book: Borrowed from the library. 

This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. However, this one was an exception, because I had it on my reading list after it was mentioned on NPR. 

There There takes its name from a line from Gertrude Stein, in which she returned to Oakland, only to find that what she remembered was gone. “There is no there there.” Tommy Orange expands this idea to the concept that for Native Americans, there is no there there anymore, because what they once had lies buried under a conquering wave. The quote is doubly relevant, as the story is about Native Americans living in or otherwise connected to Oakland. 

The book starts with a prologue which is a damning indictment of the Native American Genocide and its lingering effects; all the injustice and cruelty inflicted by the white invaders is laid bare. It is quite a tour-de-force and could stand alone as its own essay. After this opening, the story itself begins. I wish I had done the “Russian Author Notetaking™” approach (I totally made that up) and drawn a diagram of the characters and their relationships. The problem is, I started the book away from home while waiting, and didn’t have paper handy. And by the time I did, I was halfway through the book, and didn’t feel like going back through it. 

Fortunately, afterward, I found a character list - and diagram - online. (H/T to The Lexington Bookie.) 

The book has twelve main characters, all of which get at least one chapter for their stories - and point of view. Some of these are told from the first person, and others from the third person. In addition, there are a large array of minor characters which are somewhat important to the plot. There is quite a mess, as you can see from the diagram below. While all the characters are related in that they either attend or are connected with someone who attends the big Oakland Pow Wow at the end, there are four groups of related characters. 

(Click on the diagram to enlarge)

As you can see, the one at the top is the biggest. The family of Vicky fill a lot of the stories, as the generational trauma plays out over and over. Moving clockwise, the next group has only one main character, and a fairly minor role in the drama. However, it fills in the constellation of dysfunction. 

Dene Oxendene is pretty close to a stand-in for the author himself. He is half white, half Native, and struggles with his identity. He decides to carry on his late uncle’s project of filming Native stories, after his uncle dies of alcoholism. To a degree, the book itself is that project, albeit in a different medium. The final group centers around characters involved in the drug trafficking trade. 

Keeping the characters straight is a challenge, I must admit. The relationships become more clear as the book goes on, fortunately. Some of our club members listened to it on audiobook, and noted that it was harder to keep track when listening than when reading. 

The book reads more like a series of related vignettes than a novel, in some ways. Rather than a narrative arc, it has themes, and seems intent on painting a broad picture, rather than moving from one place to another. It isn’t until the end when the stories converge that it feels connected, but even then, it is a connection of experience, of parallel yet different lives lived. Nothing wrong with this, of course. 

The central theme, as I see it, is one of identity. What does it mean to be Native? What makes one Native? Blood? Culture? For example, is half white Native or not? Does being raised by a white family after adoption make one white? 

All of the characters struggle, to some degree or another, with identity. Some, like the fairly functional Opal, seem to reject their Native roots altogether. Others become “1000 percent Indian,” as one character describes his father. (Probably representative of Orange’s own father - his white mother rejected his father’s culture as “witchcraft.”) For some, partaking in Native traditions such as drumming and dance make them feel connected. For others, they feel as if they are play acting. 

There are no answers, no epiphanies in this book. Orange just tells the stories and lets them hang there, uncomfortably. And he is seriously true to life there. My own experience has touched on these things. The neighborhoods I lived in as a child had lots of people who had this sort of poverty and intergenerational trauma that seemed and seems unfixable. I have seen too much of it in my legal practice too. The book ends kind of abruptly, with a number of threads still hanging. I felt like it was a bit of a “The Lady or the Tiger” sort of idea, while others of our club felt that things had been hinted at enough to figure out. 

One thing that we did agree on was that Orange writes exceedingly well. I wouldn’t say that the writing is beautiful like, say, Amor Towles, but it is language that brings you into an unfamiliar world. It is language that accomplishes its task perfectly. I can think of moments when I literally went back to my childhood, and could remember the very smells and colors of the houses of friends. I could hear the voices of a grandmother of a childhood friend, a mother stressed beyond endurance, an angry shout. It was an experience. If Orange set out to make a world come alive, he thoroughly succeeded. 

I have one other connection with the world of the book. My mom’s parents were missionaries to Mexico when she was a child, but returned to the United States later. For a period of a few years (I think ages 5 to 9 for me?) they lived in Oakland - the part of Oakland described in the book. We would catch the BART from the Fruitvale station and enter that tunnel toward the Lake Merritt station. Or, if we went the other way, the Coliseum was the next stop heading south. All those numbered streets. I can’t remember exactly which one their place was at - I was too young. I do remember taking the 580 to the 13, and getting off somewhere in the range of the 70th Street number. The houses were up and down duplexes, mostly. They ran a Spanish language church ministry of some sort called Harvest House. I can’t find anything about it on Google, so I suspect it is long gone, perhaps a victim of changing demographics. So this book brought back those memories too. Back in the 80s, ghetto Oakland was a crazy mix of colors and nationalities, and you could pass a Vietnamese grocery and see some guys out break dancing on a piece of cardboard. It came as no surprise to me that Oakland has ten thousand or so Native Americans there. 

The book definitely led to an interesting discussion with our club. (I won’t get into all of the personal experiences, as interesting as they were, but I think people revealed more about themselves than in most of our discussions. And I mean that in the best possible way.) 

There There is an example of why reading can be a powerful means of understanding. I lack personal knowledge of certain experiences. Tommy Orange has had some of those experiences, and is able to bring them to life in his book. All of us in the club were able to take a fresh look at a different perspective - and find ways that we shared some of the same feelings in our own circumstances. I’m not going to claim that we suddenly are experts on the Native experience. Certainly not. But we have another voice now that we have heard, and have that much more in common ground. It’s an interesting book, and Orange is a promising young author with a unique voice. 

***

A significant plot point turns on a 3-D printed gun. I wasn’t that familiar with the details, so I looked some up. Of course, improvised weapons are nothing new. I remember a bit of a panic about “zip guns” - supposedly gang members were making them out of auto antennae. I suspect there was more of media hype than reality in this. What does seem clear is that in the US, because it is so easy to get a gun, improvised weapons are pretty rare. 

As far as 3-D printing goes, there are limits. For the plastic kind that feature in the book, you use a nail for the firing pin (that was my biggest question), and they have limited lifespans. You can print a metal one, but the equipment for that costs far, far more than a black market gun. Essentially, then, the only people that would (at present) go that route would be those who just want to print a gun, not those looking for a cheaper way to arm themselves illegally. The plastic ones, in contrast, have the advantage of being very difficult to detect. And the disadvantage that most improvised weapons share: terrible accuracy. 

One thing that did rather surprise me is that in most of the US, it is perfectly legal to make a firearm. As long as you make it detectable by a metal detector. Obviously, if you cannot legally possess a firearm, you can’t legally make one either. 

For more, here is the Popular Science article on the printed plastic gun. Although technology will likely improve with time, it seems that this one isn’t of much use except to smuggle past metal detectors. The printers are expensive - unless you are making a lot, it would just be cheaper to get a black market gun. And those are easy enough to find in Oakland. And are more durable, more accurate, and so on. The smart money would be on them being used mostly by terrorists intent on suicide missions requiring undetectable weapons, not your average drug dealer or redneck asshat. 

One other thing that does come to mind - and Tommy Orange gets it right: ammunition still has to be made out of metal. So you still have that problem. And also, because modern ammo requires high explosives (in the primers) and industrial manufacturing tolerances, it is the ammo, not the guns, which are the weak link in the supply chain. California finally got it right by requiring background checks for ammo, not just guns. Now, to eliminate the ludicrous immunity provisions which prevent lawsuits against the various parts of the supply chain for both guns and ammo. I wager that if they feared getting sued, they would suddenly give (as a legal colleague once said) a “very deep, meaningful shit” about keeping their products out of the wrong hands. 

***

Just for fun, since I haven’t done it, here is the list of books that our book club has read. At least the ones I have read too. Most of these were read for the club, but a few were ones I read previously - those posts pre-date the club discussion - and some I read afterward, because I missed the discussion. 

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Educated by Tara Westover

Stiff by Mary Roach

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Artemis by Andy Weir

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Good Riddance Andrew Jackson

In what has to be one of the most overdue developments, the United States will finally honor a woman on paper currency. We’ve previously honored Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea, but they appeared on dollar coins, which is not that far off from having a plaque in the basement bathroom of a museum.

Harriet Tubman, who was a key figure in the Underground Railroad, which helped countless slaves escape to freedom, will be replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Tubman won the Treasury Department’s poll, narrowly beating out another worthy candidate, Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ll leave the praise of Tubman to others - she richly deserves the honor, and I am thrilled that she was chosen.

I want to discuss Jackson, because I think it is a travesty that he was ever placed on currency in the first place. (Oddly, even the Treasury itself doesn’t know the answer to why he ended up there…)  I also think Jackson is worth discussing because he remains somewhat of a folk hero in many Conservative circles.

Why is Jackson popular? As far as I can tell, there are a few reasons. The one makes sense: he was the first non-aristocratic president, so there is the “common man” vibe about him. Second, he opposed both Federal banking and paper currency. A bit ironic that he would be the face of said paper currency, of course. For those who hate the Federal Reserve and wish to return the world to the Gold Standard, I suppose he could be a patron saint. (He’s also revered in Libertarian circles because during his administration the Federal debt was zero...briefly.) Because of his opposition to the National Bank, he has a reputation as representing “small government” in some sense. This is ironic because in a number of key ways, he represents the closest the United States has come to a dictatorship (credit to a friend and colleague for pointing that out to me), and showed the least respect of any president in history for the rule of law. In fact, if you were to look at who caused the most death and destruction by ignoring the law and using his personal power over the military, it would be, hands down, Jackson.

In another bit of irony, his reputation as a self-made man also doesn’t bear much scrutiny.

Let’s start at the beginning. Jackson was indeed born to a widowed mother, and orphaned by age 14. He worked his way up through the army, then settled on a career as a frontier lawyer. (Back then, not much training was required…) Thus far, so good.

Things took a darker turn, though, in 1794. Jackson formed a partnership with a local judge for the purpose of purchasing lands “without as within military bounds,” a nice little euphemism for taking control of lands which had been previously guaranteed to the Cherokee and Chickasaw Tribes by treaty. Many years later, Jackson would represent the US Government in the “renegotiation” of these treaties, forcing the Tribes from the lands that would eventually become the Memphis area.

In addition to his legal career, Jackson took up cotton farming. So, these lands he stole from their rightful occupants were then turned into a plantation worked by slaves. His zeal for the removal of Native Americans and his use of slave labor were related. He believed that the land had to be “cleared” so it could be used for cotton - grown by slave labor, of course. In this way, he did much to aid the spread of slavery to new areas.

It wasn’t enough for Jackson to own slaves, however. A significant contribution to his fortune was made by engaging in slave trading. Even in Jackson’s own time, this was looked on as morally questionable. It was one thing to own slaves, but another altogether to sell and transport them, breaking up families and so forth.

Jackson served in the military during the War of 1812. He is, of course, best known for his victory in The Battle of New Orleans.

My dad used to sing this song to me when I was kid. 

Less well known are his actions regarding the Creek Indians. The prior commander had negotiated a truce of sorts with them. The terms of this were onerous enough, but Jackson unilaterally tore up the agreement once he took over. Further concessions, including vast tracts of land were essentially confiscated on threat of massacre.

Even less known than this is the incident in New Orleans. After the battle, which essentially ended hostilities, Jackson refused to release the local militia members to return home. This prompted a local legislator to write an anonymous article in the local paper challenging this decision.

Jackson would have none of this. He declared all of New Orleans to be under Martial Law, and arrested and imprisoned the legislator. After a Federal judge granted a writ of habeas corpus for the release of the legislator, Jackson had the judge and the legislator’s lawyer imprisoned as well. All of this was flagrantly illegal, of course, but not much could be done, as Jackson controlled the army.

This would not be the last time Jackson defied the law in his capacity as a general. A few years later, in another military action, the First Seminole War, Jackson decided that the way to “terminate the conflict” was to invade Florida (a territory of Spain at the time). That we were not at war with Spain, and that Congress had no intention of declaring war mattered not to Jackson. Invade first, get forgiveness later. Which is basically what he did. Still, it sparked a major international incident. 

Some modern presidents have been accused of starting wars without Congressional permission. There is some justice to this accusation. At least the President is legally "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces. 

Jackson, on the other hand, while a mere general, took it on himself to invade a foreign country. 

This determination to do whatever he wanted regardless of the law persisted into Jackson’s presidency. Long an advocate for forced removal of Native Americans from the South, he was a key advocate for the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Act narrowly passed, being considered controversial even at the time. (Many realized it was inhumane and unjust, even as others considered the extinction of the Native Americans inevitable.) In 1832, a Supreme Court case, Worcester v. Georgia effectively declared the act unconstitutional by holding that Tribes were sovereign nations with valid treaties with the United States.

This did not deter Jackson. After all, he had the military at his back. As journalist Horace Greeley would later summarize Jackson’s (more wordy) response, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" And so the trail of tears began, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

The deaths didn’t bother Jackson much. As he put it, “Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country and philanthropy has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. … But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another.”

Yeah, too bad we are causing genocide, get over it…

On a related note, the Nazis took inspiration from the Trail of Tears, citing it as the pattern they wished to follow for the expulsion and intentional starvation of the Poles and Slavs in order to make way for the "superior" race. Not something to be proud of.

Jackson’s other legacies aren’t exactly great either. His economic policies - including his shutdown of the National Bank and the demand for payment in gold or silver for land purchases from the government - were significant factors in the Panic of 1837.

His most notable Supreme Court appointment was Roger B. Taney, who was best known for his majority opinion in the Dred Scot decision. You know, the one that held that Blacks couldn't be citizens and remained slaves even in free territory. The one that has nearly unanimously been deemed the worst Supreme Court decision of all time. Nice legacy. 

The other legacy, which persisted nearly until the turn of the century, was the Spoils System, wherein government employment was based on politics, not merit. His views of civil service led to decades of corruption and graft.

And about that whole “limited government” thing? If the proof that he believed he could and should do whatever he wanted, including foreign invasions, arrest and imprisonment of judicial officers, and defiance of the Supreme Court weren’t enough, keep in mind that he also allowed the US Post Office to refuse to deliver Abolitionist tracts, pushed for a Congressional resolution that Abolitionist bills could not even be discussed, and was censured by the Senate for removing government funds from the U.S. Bank without congressional authorization. In other words, he considered himself above the law, first as a general, then as a plantation owner, and finally as President.

I know a lot of people admire him, and will probably take issue with my description of him. Keep in mind, however, that the facts I have cited are part of the public record, easily discoverable with a minimum of research.

So here we have a man who built his fortune by the illegal “purchase” of land from its rightful owners, slave trading, and slave labor. A man who invaded a foreign country without authorization. A man who - in response to a critical newspaper article - imprisoned a judge, lawyer, and the author of the article. A man who disrespected the right to free speech while president.

And above all, a man who championed and ordered a genocide. 

That this man has been on US Currency for 90 years is an embarrassment. Maybe, finally, that will change.

And good riddance.

***
 

Jeremy Kaplowitz for the win...

***

I can’t resist noting that we actually have a modern day analogue to Jackson.

Hmm, a man who claims to have risen to wealth on his merits, while actually gaming the system. Who speaks of committing war crimes and genocide as if necessary to “win.” Who cultivates an image of violence. Who calls for the curtailing of free speech if it criticizes him. A man who believes that governance is a matter of him getting his way through force and disregard of the law. A man whose central platform is the forced expulsion of 11 million brown skinned people.

Sound a bit familiar?

Mesa Verde National Park

This is an installment in my ongoing series on the National Park system.

My wife always wanted to visit Mesa Verde National Park, but her family never quite made it happen when she was a kid. And then, they finally managed to go - after she was off at college, naturally. That’s the way it goes, right? Anyway, we had talked about doing this trip, and the major obstacle was the driving distance. It’s a solid 11 hours from our town to Cortez, Colorado, not including stops for gas or food. With really little kids, that would be a problem, so we decided to wait until the smallest one could handle the time in the car.

We made this a reasonably long trip (for us) by adding Garden of the Gods to our list of attractions. Once this was decided, I plotted out our driving so that we would have time to at least spend an afternoon at a couple of other National Parks: Great Sand Dunes, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison. (Stay tuned for posts on those.) We spent the most time at Mesa Verde, however, a full three days of hiking and exploring.

Mesa Verde is the first National Park we have visited whose reason for existence was for the preservation of cultural and historical value. This is indeed a key mission of the National Parks Service, but usually cultural or historical sites are National Monuments or National Historic Sites or some more esoteric classification. That Mesa Verde was designated as a National Park (which requires a literal act of Congress) is a testimony to the hard work and persuasive power of two women, Virginia McClurg and Lucy Peabody. As a result of their efforts over a decade, president Theodore Roosevelt designated the area a National Park in 1906.

Mesa Verde is best known for its cliff dwellings, the most extensive well preserved in North America. Less known, however, is that the park is home to many more archaeological sites - more than 4300 - the majority of which are located on top of the mesa. Also surprising is just how far back evidence of human habitation goes back in the park. The earliest evidence shows that the first nomadic peoples occupied the area about 12,000 years ago. By 6000 BCE, there is evidence that there was agriculture as well as the prior hunting and gathering. By 1000 BCE, agriculture had become dominant, and regular shelters and other structures have been found.

At this time, the introduction of corn made for a significant change. From then on, until about 750 CE, the “Basketmaker” culture dominated. It was pretty wild getting to see artifacts from this era in the museums. Although time took its toll, the general dryness of the area help preserve things. Also from this era are many pithouses, which can be seen throughout the park.

After this is the era of the Ancestral Pueblo Peoples, when pithouses began to give way to stone dwellings. These were often fairly large communities which housed hundreds of people. Also built at this time were a number of watchtowers and reservoirs. The civilization had become a fairly complex society.

At the pinnacle of development, the famous cliff dwellings were built. These did not replace the pueblos on the mesa, but supplemented them. These were built over a 150 year period between 1150 CE and 1300 CE.

After this, everything was abandoned. The best guess is that drought conditions led to a migration south. The fact of the drought and the migration are pretty well established, but there is no record of whether there was a clear causal connection, or whether other issues, such as warfare or disease may have been causes. In any case, the descendants of the builders of Mesa Verde live on in the Native American tribes of New Mexico and Arizona.

In addition to the archaeological wonders, Mesa Verde holds fascination for those who love geology, biology, or even just spectacular views. The mesa towers over the surrounding area. You can literally see for 50 miles or more in every direction from somewhere in the park.

Cliff Palace from above. One of several villages you can tour.

Kids (and wife) on biggest ladder at Balcony House.

How did one get from the rim to the cliff dwelling and back? 

Toe holds like these. 

Presumably kids learned how to use them at a young age. 

I think my kids would probably enjoy that more than I would watching them.

Far View Community on the rim.

Panorama from overlook

Well, most of us are in the spirit of things...