There are Consequences.
We did inhumane things to Native Americans in the name of taking over (settling) our new property. This is not a news flash, you can look it up, there are facts and footnotes in your Wikipedia. Seems like a long time ago-- what with cowboys and such... sepia picture images so far removed from life today. "Wandering Stars" emerges with violence before author Tommy Orange depicts the ceaseless efforts to systematically eliminate any trace of Native culture. How this history effectively shackles today's Native American is what we discover here.
In 1864, approximately 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered and mutilated in the Sand Creek massacre. "Wandering Stars" starts there, with a young Jude Star surviving the attack, only to be captured and sent to Carlisle Industrial Indian School, an infamous re-education institution tasked with assimilating Native Americans into civilized society. The school's founder, Richard Henry Pratt, lived by the expression, "Kill the Indian, save the man." He told students they were being taught to become Carlisle Indians, a new tribe belonging to the school and the U.S. government. The children were whitewashed, severed from any trace of their history or heritage.
This is only a portion of the book. The point is bridging the trauma of the past with today. We see subsequent generations orphaned from their past, only vaguely aware of their ancestors and their folklore. Here are people hurting today, not just mysterious tragic figures frozen in history. Drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, suicide... companions to the sustained dehumanization.
"Wandering Stars" is a prequel and sequel to Tommy Orange's "There There," a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018. You do not have to have read the first book to follow the character or buy into their stories. It is a riveting read and provides an important bridge from history to what is being dealt with today. It is enlightening.
"The so-called Chivington or Sand Creek Massacre, in spite of certain most objectionable details, was on the whole as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." -- Theodore Roosevelt
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
We did inhumane things to Native Americans in the name of taking over (settling) our new property. This is not a news flash, you can look it up, there are facts and footnotes in your Wikipedia. Seems like a long time ago-- what with cowboys and such... sepia picture images so far removed from life today. "Wandering Stars" emerges with violence before author Tommy Orange depicts the ceaseless efforts to systematically eliminate any trace of Native culture. How this history effectively shackles today's Native American is what we discover here.
In 1864, approximately 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered and mutilated in the Sand Creek massacre. "Wandering Stars" starts there, with a young Jude Star surviving the attack, only to be captured and sent to Carlisle Industrial Indian School, an infamous re-education institution tasked with assimilating Native Americans into civilized society. The school's founder, Richard Henry Pratt, lived by the expression, "Kill the Indian, save the man." He told students they were being taught to become Carlisle Indians, a new tribe belonging to the school and the U.S. government. The children were whitewashed, severed from any trace of their history or heritage.
This is only a portion of the book. The point is bridging the trauma of the past with today. We see subsequent generations orphaned from their past, only vaguely aware of their ancestors and their folklore. Here are people hurting today, not just mysterious tragic figures frozen in history. Drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, suicide... companions to the sustained dehumanization.
"Wandering Stars" is a prequel and sequel to Tommy Orange's "There There," a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018. You do not have to have read the first book to follow the character or buy into their stories. It is a riveting read and provides an important bridge from history to what is being dealt with today. It is enlightening.
"The so-called Chivington or Sand Creek Massacre, in spite of certain most objectionable details, was on the whole as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." -- Theodore Roosevelt
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
