Alexandra

“We are the memories we don't remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.”
― Tommy Orange, There There

“B'gwus is famous because of his wide range of homes. In some places, he's called Bigfoot. In other places, he's Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, or Sasquatch. To most people, he is the equivalent of the Loch Ness monster, something silly to bring the tourist in. His image is even used to sell beer, and he is portrayed as a laid-back kind of guy, lounging on mountaintops in patio chairs, cracking open a frosty one.”
― Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach

“We didn't have last names before they came. When they decided they needed to keep track of us, last names were given to us, just like the name "INDIAN" itself was given to us. These were attempted translations and botched Indian names, random surnames, and names passed down from white American generals, admirals, and colonels, and sometimes troop names, which were sometimes just colors.”
― Tommy Orange, There There

“They took everything and ground it down to dust as fine as gunpowder, they fired their guns into the air in victory and the strays flew out into the nothingness of histories written wrong and meant to be forgotten. Stray bullets and consequences are landing on our unsuspecting bodies even now.”
― Tommy Orange, There There