There There Context

     I found all three links regarding the context of Tommy Orange's There There very interesting, but what piqued my interest the most was the first link titled 'What Native Land am I on?'. Although I knew that groups such as the Ohlone used to occupy the area we now know as the South Bay where SCU is located, the first thing that really caught my attention was the fact that there were indigenous peoples mentioned from New Zealand and Australia all the way to Greenland, even Northern Europe and Russia. In addition to seeing how hundreds of different indigenous groups were native to the North and South Americas, the fact that places as far as Russia and Australia were the homelands of numerous indigenous peoples really fascinated me and showed me how diverse and widespread the cultures of these people were for hundreds of years.

    In terms of understanding the novel There There, this activity really helped me get a sense of how relevant the culture and history of indigenous peoples is today – at one point, the entire continents of Oceania, North and South America were inhabited by just these groups of people, and many of them were unjustly removed from their lands as a result of Western imperialism.

    Overall, I found the first link 'What Native Land am I on?' a very interesting way to get a sense of how many different indigenous cultures existed and convinced me further of how learning about their cultures and struggles is relevant and important today.