Finding One’s Identity

Both Jamie and Daunis’s stories focus upon the importance of finding one’s identity especially in terms of their relation to their Native American tribes. Before Daunis learns that Jamie is an undercover police officer, she and Jamie bond over their feelings of separation from the group to which they belong. Even though she knows to which tribe she belongs, Daunis feels as if she is an outsider because she is not an enrolled member. Jamie, on the other hand, knows only that he is Cherokee.

Daunis is surprised when Jamie tells her aunt that he did not grow up around his tribe or any members of his family. She cannot imagine a life without her family. While he claims to be Native American, Jamie does not seem to know much about his own culture. For instance, Jamie asks about Daunis’s...