Sherman Alexie very deftly raises some of the complex issues related to the interplay of cultural assimilation and cultural preservation —or, more aptly, reservation— and he does so by way of the central theme of definition. After all, what makes for assimilation if not an agreement to assign the same meanings —the same definitions— to particular places and events? What makes for reservation but an unwillingness to accept or to offer alternative definitions, or, considering the externally enforced nature of the reservation for native Americans, a hegemonic disavowal of the viability of a particular set of definitions that does not match those maintained by the hegemony?