After going through Orange's entire novel, There There, and when building my essay I realized that there are some simliarities to what David was saying back in November to what Orange is saying in his text. There is a heavy focus on the individual in Orange's text, focussing on the individuals different stories about finding their authenticity. David was telling a story about his dad, and how he had never experienced what his own culture had for him. HIs dad assumed that now he has gone through life as basically a westerner, he could not go back to the past to learn about his culture and implement it into his life. David goes on to say that Indigenous people can be authentic anywhere, and even in a city, they can feel Indigenous. On page 11 of the prologue in There There, Orange states that because the city is on the land and the land belongs to the earth. This means that Indigenous people can indeed feel authentic in the city if they could follow some of Orange's solutions. I can't imagine having to deal with these pressures everyday and having people look at you confused, not knowing what to think about you. If Indigenous people want to dress a certain way or not, that should be fine. I don't know why we, as westerners thinnk we can judge the validity of an indigenous person when we are not Indigenous ourselves...

Myself and the rest of western society today have a lot of work to do when it comes to this issue. We have become so accepting of people today based on their beliefs, we should have the same standards for our Indigenous Candadians.

Orange, T. (2019). There There (Reprint ed.). Vintage.