1. This chapter presents, through the perspective of Henri Day across a few vignettes, a snapshot of both race/ethnicity and sex/gender in 1900s Ada. What new information is presented here that we haven’t seen before? How does this compare to what we’ve already learned from previous chapters? In particular, do you see any similarity between the story about the squatters in this chapter and “When This World Is All on Fire” from Walking the Clouds?

2. What do we learn about Henri Day as a character during this chapter? Which characters does he have connections to, and what do those relationships look like? How is Henri’s perspective used here to give us insight into other characters? (For example: we learn that Ezol’s mother passed away when Ezol was very young, which is similar to what happened with Lena). In particular, we learn about Henri’s political involvement with the Four Mothers Society as well as his attempt to run for mayor. What insights does this more political dimension add to your understanding of the story?

3. On pages 113-115, Henri has an interesting exchange with a woman named Nellie Bennett. Over the course of this exchange, Henri becomes frustrated with her perspectives on Native Americans; in particular, she expresses a desire to consume stereotypical images of “savage” Native Americans. How does the idea of cultural appropriation connect with the concept of “tourism” that Nellie expresses here? How do viewpoints such as hers connect with the filmmakers in the Prelude? And given Henri’s negative opinion of cultural stereotypes during Chapter 6, why do you think he agreed to participate in the film in the Prelude?

Other’s forum post:
This concept of cultural appropriation is related to the idea of tourism because people have this set idea in their mind of where Native Americans live, and in this case tipis. He is shocked about how white people would go out of their way to “gawk at wild Indians” (114). But, comes to the conclusion that he is also doing the same thing by building a baseball park where people can watch Indians play. But, throughout the conversation, Henri is polite to Mrs. Bennett, but he is making side comments in his head. Even to this day, we have this image of how Native Americans should look like. Long hair, minimal clothing, and dark complexion. I believe that Henri agreed to be in the film to show that not all Natives are the savages that the world has painted them to be. Their culture is much more diverse than the images that we are so used to seeing.