Kinship and Belonging
The title suggests the essence of the narrative which is the link to culture, roots, and family that defines the Native communities. With sweetgrass as an important plant to the Native people, the Sweetgrass allotment keeps drawing our characters back home. This extended metaphor ties to the childbirth ritual that is usually intended to connect the new generation to the land and ancestors. Through how they were raised the three women struggle with the disassociation to their culture which they work to reinstate. It is a story about the idea of home and the sense of belonging that everyone finds themselves seeking as they mature. They rediscover themselves in their Ojibwe culture that they were separated from at a crucial time of their lives. The connection to the natural world and the tribe’s rites of passage offer a sense of family and belonging.
Deculturation
The narrative finds the reservations going through a paradigm shift that threatens to eliminate the culture and heritage of the Native Americans. The government’s termination laws aimed to disband the tribes and relocate, assimilate and deculturize the Natives into mainstream America. These federal policies pushed to strip away the sovereignty of their tribes by involving laws and programs toward assimilation. Such programs included the boarding school education policy and foster care that separated the children from their homes and culture. Thus, the characters constantly grapple with their assimilated selves and connection to tradition and culture. Nevertheless, the late 20th century saw the self-determination of the Native communities towards the restoration of self-governance and tribal culture.
Intergenerational Trauma
The Mozhay Point reservation akin to other reservations has a shared history of loss, poverty, and discrimination. The different generations of the Anishinaabe people in the narrative illustrate the impact federal policies, government interference and racism have had on the Natives. There is a sense of loss that lurks in the reservation that even the restoration and self-determination cannot fully reconcile. As such, the transfer of this trauma is seen in the three women as they navigate the modern society within the reservation. Furthermore, the economic strains of the Native people are explored in how it affects and worsens with each generation.
