Two Roads

Even before Cal joins the school at Challagi, educational institutions are demonstrated to have a powerful influence upon the characters’ cultural attitudes. This pattern is first illustrated as early as Chapter 5, when Cal reflects upon the lessons of his old school and considers the stark difference between the bigoted attitudes of the teachers toward Indigenous people and his parents’ much more nuanced and inclusive lessons on the subject. He realizes that his classmates held largely negative views of Indigenous people because the school explicitly taught them to embrace such divisive and harmful attitudes, thus perpetuating racism on a societal level. The very existence of the so-called “Indian Schools” takes this pattern much farther, for in a widespread, Government-Sanctioned Abuse of Marginalized Populations, the United States government funded and perpetuated schools for the express purpose of stripping young Indigenous people of their language, identity, and cultural heritage. Because government officials failed to eliminate Indigenous people by force, they resorted to a more insidious form of erasure, relying upon the powerful ability of the educational system to retrain students’ behavior and beliefs and force them to emulate mainstream white culture instead. Because schools have so much control over the attitudes that people develop, the author implies that Cal will also have to undergo this traumatic process of assimilation while attending Challagi. However, the full extent of this coercive influence remains unclear until the final chapters of the novel.

Despite the attempts of Cal’s father to portray Indigenous people in a positive light, this systematically racist form of education has already influenced the young Cal to the point where he cannot reconcile the idea of his Indigenous father with the negative, stereotypical images he has been taught to hold of Indigenous people in general. While he previously rejected the racist stereotype of “Injun Joe,” Cal himself holds a range of stereotypical views of Indigenous people because he has not knowingly encountered anyone of Creek or other Indigenous ancestry. Combined with the fact that his parents initially raised him to be part of white culture, these learned stereotypes make it difficult for him to perceive his or his father’s own kinship with other Indigenous people. This internal resistance has implications for Cal himself, for he is presented with a new struggle in the process of Evaluating and Assimilating New Identities. Because he identifies so strongly as his father’s son and strives to uphold all of his father’s values, he must learn to incorporate this new understanding of himself as Creek rather than white in order to do full justice to his already-established identity as his father’s son. This initially causes Cal considerable cognitive dissonance because his previous school has taught him to hold negative and uncomplimentary views of Indigenous people, so he does not want to be associated with them. These stereotypes are contrary to the views he has always held of both himself and his father. The revelation of his true heritage forces him to either label himself negatively or adjust his views of all Indigenous people to reflect a more positive reality.

Cal must consider the broader implications of being Creek and of embracing one’s cultural heritage in general when he and his father meet up with Dart. This scene also serves to demonstrate The Influence of Friendship on Identity, for Dart himself had to embrace camaraderie with the French in the war because the United States military refused to accept Black men as soldiers. Furthermore, although he won medals for his honorable service, the societal prejudice against his race continues to hold him back, thus demonstrating Government-Sanctioned Abuse of Marginalized Populations. This harsh reality also makes Cal consider his own place in society. While functioning as a white boy in society, he never had to consider how his cultural background might hinder him because any path would be open to a white person. Upon witnessing Dart’s undeserved difficulties with the local sheriff, Cal realizes that he too may encounter similar injustices if he fully embraces and embodies his Creek heritage. Thus, this new identity, instead of opening up his world, at first makes him fear that his world is becoming smaller and his opportunities fewer.

While there is a distinct hierarchy in Cal’s mind of the different groups of unhoused people, there is also a significant perceived cultural hierarchy between people of different races and ethnicities. This perceived hierarchy plays a critical role in the novel because as a Creek boy who used to believe he was white, Cal experiences a very jarring shift in his position within this hierarchy. Once he is viewed as being Creek and officially enters the school, he will be seen as inferior by many of the white teachers at the school, as well as by many white people in society. Cal has not experienced this level of discrimination just yet, but he does understand the implications of this significant shift in his social status. When the sheriff harasses the residents of the shanty town, for example, even Indigenous people are shown to occupy a higher position in this unjust social cultural hierarchy than Black people have. It also displays the advantages that an individual can exploit by claiming kinship with the culturally dominant white group, for just as Pop showed the man on the horse his white skin in order to save himself from the mistreatment that the man would have bestowed upon a Black man, he also uses his Creek heritage now to provide a likely explanation for the sheriff’s “sighting” of a Black man, thus protecting his Black friend from violent persecution. Both scenes demonstrate that Pop has a firm understanding of how different groups are treated and perceived within the socially condoned and Government-Sanctioned Abuse of Marginalized Populations, and he uses this knowledge to help both himself and others.

The different way that Pop talks to Cal after he reveals that they are Creek illustrates that Pop’s main identity is Creek. Pop gave up this identity in order to have more opportunities for himself and his family. This does not mean he is disloyal to his people, however. Once he reveals the secret to Cal, even Cal notices that Pop starts talking about white men as if they are different from him and Cal. Some of his remarks are actually quite critical of mainstream American culture. Cal notes this change likely because it is in such stark contrast to how he always understood the world. Previously, he saw himself as white and perceived white culture as being superior. Now he is being told that he is half white and half Creek and that white culture has serious deficiencies. All of this information combines to thoroughly confuse the boy as he tries to understand his place in the world, and as the rest of the story unfolds, it will become his personal challenge to begin Evaluating and Assimilating New Identities into a more comprehensive view of himself.