Since the settlement of the Europeans, Native Americans have been faced with discrimination and compression of their culture. In Tommy Orange’s novel, he provides examples and stories of modern discrimination against the Natives. He includes the perspectives of different ages, situations, and lifestyles to show how the different people have been treated and how they handle it. Addiction and trauma are two of the main themes seen throughout the novel, with many characters struggling with these hardships. In the novel There There, Tommy Orange exclaims how addiction and trauma are implied in the Native Culture, this is shown with the characters Tony Loneman and Edwin Black who both deal with trauma and addiction brought onto them by their family …show more content…
Tony’s mother had an ongoing alcohol addiction, and continued to drink even when she was pregnant with Tony. As a result of her actions, Tony was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder which affects his appearance and mental processes, and this led Tony to have struggles such as with his own identity. Tony refers to his syndrome as the Drome, and he states that “The drome is [his] mom and why shes drank, it’s the way history lands on a face, and all the ways [he] made it so far despite how it has fucked with [him] since the day [he] found it there on the TV, staring back at [him] like a fucking villain” (Orange, 16). This quote shows how the effects of his mother's drinking led him to dislike the way he looks. The history of his mother's drinking brought the consequences on to Tony and reminds him of how he looks and thinks differently because of her negative choices. While his mother is an example of addiction in Tony’s life, she is also an example of loss. His mother is in jail, so he does not have a mother figure, and instead he is raised by his grandmother. In Tony’s chapter, he expresses his complicated and distant relationship with his mother when he says, “My mom’s in