Race and Class

One of the most important themes of the novel is the way that race and class reinforce each other. When racist political structures and racist individuals have the power to make all economic decisions, the result is a racist class structure in which poverty and its effects are unevenly felt by people of different races. This problem is exacerbated when it comes to Native Americans because of the intrinsic differences between their traditional economies and the hegemonic Euro-American capitalist system. At the center of this economic battle is the question of land; over the centuries, all lands held either by or in trust for Indian bands were—and, as the author’s Afterword makes clear, still are—under threat by the capitalist governments and individuals who covet them. In the novel, older characters can remember a time when the entire region was part of...