There There

There There

by

Tommy Orange

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on There There makes teaching easy.
Dene Oxendene is a storyteller at heart, a man on a mission to collect the stories of Native Americans living in Oakland in order to continue on the project his uncle Lucas died before finishing. Early on in the novel, Dene successfully secures an arts grant which will allow him to pay the participants of his project, incentivizing participation within the Native community. Dene, an amateur graffiti artist in his youth, has tagged the name “Lens” throughout Oakland—Dene does indeed see himself as a kind of lens meant to spotlight the stories of others. He joins the Big Oakland Powwow committee and sets up a storytelling booth there so that he can gather as many stories as possible. Dene never puts his own story on film, demonstrating his belief that the best, most worthy work is lifting up the stories of other marginalized individuals in hopes of making those who hear their stories feel less alone, if even for a little while. Quiet, introspective, curious, and affable, Dene takes his duty as a storyteller seriously while at the same time feeling immense personal gratitude and satisfaction at the chance to hear so many unique, painful, and strange tales of growing up and living as an Urban Indian in Oakland.

Dene Oxendene Quotes in There There

The There There quotes below are all either spoken by Dene Oxendene or refer to Dene Oxendene. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Identity vs. Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Part I: Dene Oxendene (1) Quotes

“There is no there there,” [Rob] says in a kind of whisper, with this goofy openmouthed smile Dene wants to punch. Dene wants to tell him he’d looked up the quote in its original context, in her Everybody’s Autobiography, and found that she was talking about how the place where she’d grown up in Oakland had changed so much, that so much development had happened there, that the there of her childhood, the there there, was gone… […] Dene wants to tell him it’s what happened to Native people, he wants to explain that they’re not the same, that Dene is Native, born and raised in Oakland, from Oakland. Rob probably didn’t look any further into the quote because he’d gotten what he wanted from it.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Rob
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:

[Norma] was crying. Dene […] thought about what it might have meant to her, losing her brother. How wrong it’d been that he’d left, like it was his loss alone. Norma crouched down and put her face in her hands. The camera was still running. He lifted it, pistol-gripped, pointed it at her, and looked away.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Lucas, Norma
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Calvin Johnson (2) Quotes

Dene starts to say something about storytelling, some real heady shit, so Calvin tunes out. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna say when it comes around to him. He’d been put in charge of finding younger vendors, to support young Native artists and entrepreneurs. But he hadn’t done shit.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Calvin Johnson
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Part IV: Dene Oxendene (4) Quotes

He crawls out through the black curtains. For a second the brightness of the day blinds him. He rubs his eyes and sees across from him something that doesn’t make any sense for more than one reason. Calvin Johnson, from the powwow committee, is firing a white gun at a guy on the ground, and two other guys are shooting on his left and right. One of them is in regalia. Dene gets on his stomach. He should have stayed under his collapsed booth.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Calvin Johnson
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dene Oxendene Quotes in There There

The There There quotes below are all either spoken by Dene Oxendene or refer to Dene Oxendene. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Identity vs. Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Part I: Dene Oxendene (1) Quotes

“There is no there there,” [Rob] says in a kind of whisper, with this goofy openmouthed smile Dene wants to punch. Dene wants to tell him he’d looked up the quote in its original context, in her Everybody’s Autobiography, and found that she was talking about how the place where she’d grown up in Oakland had changed so much, that so much development had happened there, that the there of her childhood, the there there, was gone… […] Dene wants to tell him it’s what happened to Native people, he wants to explain that they’re not the same, that Dene is Native, born and raised in Oakland, from Oakland. Rob probably didn’t look any further into the quote because he’d gotten what he wanted from it.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Rob
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:

[Norma] was crying. Dene […] thought about what it might have meant to her, losing her brother. How wrong it’d been that he’d left, like it was his loss alone. Norma crouched down and put her face in her hands. The camera was still running. He lifted it, pistol-gripped, pointed it at her, and looked away.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Lucas, Norma
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part II: Calvin Johnson (2) Quotes

Dene starts to say something about storytelling, some real heady shit, so Calvin tunes out. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna say when it comes around to him. He’d been put in charge of finding younger vendors, to support young Native artists and entrepreneurs. But he hadn’t done shit.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Calvin Johnson
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Part IV: Dene Oxendene (4) Quotes

He crawls out through the black curtains. For a second the brightness of the day blinds him. He rubs his eyes and sees across from him something that doesn’t make any sense for more than one reason. Calvin Johnson, from the powwow committee, is firing a white gun at a guy on the ground, and two other guys are shooting on his left and right. One of them is in regalia. Dene gets on his stomach. He should have stayed under his collapsed booth.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Calvin Johnson
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis: