Culture Clash

Underlying the plot in Animal Dreams is the notion of a clash between two different cultures, white and Native American. The focus for this is environmental degradation. The ravages of modern industrial society are represented by the Black Mountain Mining Company. Codi thinks of the mine, with its "pile of dead tailings," as "a mountain cannibalizing its own guts and soon to destroy the living trees and home lives of Grace. It was such an American story." A similar process is going on in the Jemez mountains in New Mexico, which are being mined for pumice. Pumice is required for the manufacture of the "distressed," or stone-washed, denim jeans that are very popular with the young. Codi launches into a tirade against the practice in her classroom:

They wash them in a big machine with this special
kind of gravel they get out of volcanic mountains.
The...