"Everything Comes from Something that Came Before"

... analysis of Tommy Orange's There There

In 1869, scientists began to see that everything actually does comes from something that already exists, which means everything comes from something that existed before.

In his “Urbanity” section of his "Prologue," Orange is defending Urban Indians existence as Indigenous Peoples; being real.

​He points out that land and things have little to do with being Indigenous Peoples. ​Urban Indians were born in the city, whereas some Indians were born on reservations or other places. ​​"Land moves" with Indian people like "memory" because it does not matter where you are born, but that you are born Indian. 

ome Indians may belong to the reservation or city but all "belong to the earth." Methods of living, traveling, housing, walking, eating and the smells and sounds are not from new materials that never existed on the earth (see the periodic table below). 

"Everything comes from something that came before. Being Indian has never been about returning to the land.  The land is everywhere or nowhere" (Orange 11).​

"​The creator of the periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev, in 1869 began collecting and sorting known properties of elements, like he was playing a game, while traveling by train. He noticed that there were groups of elements that exhibited similar properties, but he also noticed that there were plenty of exceptions to the emerging patterns," according to the National Institute of Health's website.

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Works Citied:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/periodic-table/
https://www.chem.purdue.edu/academic_programs/resource-room/periodictable.html
Orange, Tommy. "Prologue." There There. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. 11.

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