Rez Dogs

Malian’s grandparents sit with Malian on the porch and look at their family photo album. Malian’s grandparents laugh when she comments on the handlebar mustaches that all the men have. Her grandfather explains that it was a way to look different from the stereotypes white people had of Indigenous people. Malian’s grandmother collects books about the Indigenous American nations, most of them written by white people. She tells Malian that she reads them to find out what white people think of them. Laughing, Grampa Roy says that one ethnologist wrote that “all of us Wabanakis are anal-retentive, whatever that means” (125).

Malian asks to see the pictures of her grandparents when they were her age. The school uniforms and serious expressions of the children in the old photos make Malian think of her own parents. She suddenly feels homesick, even though she FaceTimes with her parents daily. Just that morning Malian’s father had told her that she reminds him of the protagonist in a traditional story about an independent, brave, and kind woman called “the Woman Who Walks Alone” as a way of thanking her for helping her grandparents (128).