Setting & Place
This Bay Area train system connects cities like Oakland and San Francisco.
What is BART?
This character goes AWOL during the Vietnam War, reflecting conflict between Native identity and U.S. military service.
Who is Bill Davis? (Jason, Eldon)
This gathering includes dancing, drumming, and celebration of Native culture.
What is a powwow? (Jialiang, Bhaa)
This term refers to trauma passed down from generation to generation.
What is intergenerational trauma? (Lam)
This 1864 attack killed over 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, many of them women and children.
What is the Sand Creek Massacre?
This large stadium in Oakland is the location of the Big Oakland Powwow.
What is the Oakland Coliseum?
This young boy secretly learns powwow dancing through YouTube.
Who is Orvil Red Feather? (Rishona)
This term describes Native Americans living in cities rather than on reservations.
What is an Urban Indian? (Jialiang, Rishona)
This idea shows how Native identity exists and evolves within modern city life, not just on reservations.
What is urban Native identity? (Bhavpreet, Rund, Zobeyda, Naman)
This 1969 protest involved Native activists taking over an abandoned prison island for 19 months.
What is the Occupation of Alcatraz?
This community center in Oakland supports Native Americans and hosts gatherings and programs.
What is the Intertribal Friendship House?
This filmmaker records Native stories in Oakland to preserve identity.
Who is Dene Oxendene? (Sanvi)
This traditional clothing worn at powwows carries cultural and personal meaning.
What is regalia? (Rishona, Isabella)
This black-and-white television image of a Native American, once used for calibration, symbolizes how Native people were turned into stereotypes and targets in American culture.
What is the Indian Head Test Pattern? (Sanvi)
This U.S. policy from the 1950s encouraged Native Americans to move to cities like Oakland.
What is the Indian Relocation Act?
This former prison island became a symbol of Native resistance and activism.
What is Alcatraz Island?
This central character raises her grandsons and is shaped by her childhood experience on Alcatraz.
Who is Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield? (Angel)
This concept refers to the right of Native people to tell their own stories.
What is narrative sovereignty? (Unnat)
This mythological figure or idea represents persistent, haunting trauma in the novel’s prologue.
What is the Rolling Head? (Rund)
This policy attempted to eliminate tribal recognition and sovereignty in the mid-20th century.
What is Indiant Termination Policy?
This BART station represents transition as characters travel to the powwow.
What is the Coliseum BART Station?
This character struggles with alcoholism and works toward sobriety.
Who is Jacquie Red Feather? (Princeton, Helen)
This colonial system measures Native identity as a percentage of ancestry.
What is blood quantum? (Helen)
This theme is shown through the imposition of last names on Native people, illustrating how colonization affected even personal identity.
What is loss of identity (or cultural erasure)? (Nghi)
This 19th-century writer exposed U.S. mistreatment of Native Americans in A Century of Dishonor.
Who is Helen Hunt Jackson? (Lam)