The Road Back to Sweatgrass is a coming-of-age novel by Native-American author Linda LeGarde Grover. It was published in 2014 by the University of Minnesota Press. In the 1970s, Margie, Dale, and Theresa live in the Ojibwe reservation which, like all Native reservations in America, have been purposefully deprived of federal aid.
The pressure placed on the Natives is meant to coerce them to assimilate into the mainstream American society. The government also initiates social programs that legally separate native families by relocating them to far away states, ensuring that these people completely severed ties to their culture and heritage.
From the 1980s to the present, these three women will be put at a disadvantage in everything they attempt to do. They will move around a lot, always at the mercy of fate. Through these hardships, they will emerge as a trio of strong women that embody what it is to live as a Native-American in America. They each go on their separate journeys to discover themselves, always remembering where they came from.
The Anishinaabe people are strong-willed and determined to carve a piece of the American dream for their future generations while retaining their traditions and customs.
The novel is truly such a historical marvel at how relentless these group of people are as it boils down to these three characters, as they birth the new generation of Natives. The Road Back to Sweatgrass was awarded the 2015 World Craft of Native Writers and Storytellers Award for Fiction.
