“Some Indians feel that to spend too much time

among white people is to risk losing everything

we call our own, even though that idea is itself

loosely defined.”

Throughout much of Apple, Eric Gansworth interrogates how Indigenous identity can feel precarious in the face of white colonialism and cultural genocide. Many people feel a strong need to protect Indigenous culture and hold onto what is left after colonization.

“As he built up his resistance to new diseases, he also

developed resistance to walking away from the world

where his roots lay, growing deeper and tougher with each

trip back to the homestead.”

Gansworth’s grandfather escaped the full effects of the residential schools because he spent so much time at home, recovering from illness. As a result, the school was never able to fully cut him off from his culture, as they did so many Indigenous children.

“After you had been wiped clean of the only name

you’d ever known, next came your clothes and your

hair, your language, then your religion, your way of

understanding the world, your culture, your self.”

Residential schools aimed to completely erase everything Indigenous about the children who attended them, from their names to their language, religion, and clothing. This is one of the major forms of cultural genocide in North America.