Even though Oakland is the city where they were born, these characters recognize an ancestral connection to other homelands, and they make Oakland something new in the process. Some of the characters, like Dene Oxendene, Edwin Black, and Orvil Red Feather, are seeking out their Indigenous ancestry to better understand themselves and their place in Oakland. The novel is peopled by characters with some degree of Indigenous ancestry, many Cheyenne-Arapaho like Orange. Of course, Orange’s characters are already familiar with the effects of colonialism. That displacement is itself part of the larger system of settler colonialism. Early on, Dene Oxendene, one of Orange’s dozen characters, encounters a smug outsider who inaccurately references Gertrude Stein’s lament of her changing hometown, that “there was no there there anymore.” This exchange reflects the larger pressure of gentrification as people from elsewhere in the Bay Area look to take advantage of lower rents and vibrant culture of Oakland while driving out the people who have made their homes in Oakland for generations. Tommy Orange’s debut novel There There is grounded in place, specifically Oakland, California.
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