Self-Help Book

The self-help book to which the narrator's mother refers symbolizes the displaced and lost nature of the Native American experience. The narrator's mother tells him, "You know what's inside an Indian self-help book? Pictures of other self-help books" (2). While she makes the remark in jest, her comment reveals a darker truth about existing as a Native American in modern times. She suggests that this experience is characterized by the inability to successfully overcome many obstacles and a significant amount of adversity. Nobody in the community, she intimates, knows how to solve the problems they have inherited over the centuries.

Empty Casket

The empty casket for uncle Hector symbolizes multi-generational loss. At the end of the funeral, the narrator says, "I imagined that all my aunts, uncles, and cousins were buried in Hector's empty coffin. I knew my late father was also in that grave" (4). In...