"Gallup steals our children, Returns them empty and crumbled"

No Parole Today
Laura Tohe writes in a way that puts the reader by her side during all those years she spent clinging to her Dine identity. The poetry is beautiful and weaving. It shows the emotion--pain, fear, embarrassment, happiness, longing. The resentment for the assimilators and assimilatees is very evident.
"Those who choose assimilation we call apples--red on the outside, white on the inside." (p. xi)
The plight she describes is , well, saddening. She jabs throughout the read at the misery of their endurance and the humanless actions of the assimilators. It reminds me of how a person sees an animal/pet: in need of training and refinement in order to inhabit the world of humans in a way that pleases the humans.
"Your quotation, 'Kill the indian, save the man,' binds you to the attitudes that were already in place in your time, attitudes that would subject the indian people to cultural genocide. People of your time speculated on what to do with the indian problem. In the end there are no winners; there are only the victims and the survivors of an inhumane system, whether they are the colonizer or the decolonized." (p. xii)
The number one emotion is feel here is anger. Anger from her, and from me. I an ashamed of the cause of her experience. But I also sense a strength within her. One that has helped her endure and persist. She seems to poke at the hardships and atrocities subtlely and artistically. As if she survived by maintaining an upbeat defiance internally.
"Writing is a way for me to claim my voice, my heritage, my people, and my history." (p. xii)
It is also a way to release turmoil. To ponder, remember, understand, and pave the way for change. It is a way to keep history where it belongs- in the past, rather than allow it to reappear in the future.