The physical and cultural genocide of Native American peoples forms the skeleton of both the poem itself and the American history it speaks to. in the poet’s lexicon, reading American history without the context of this systematic oppression and brutalization is like reading a blank book: it is a cloudy, ghostly sheet meant to cover up the fact that “some many who live / because so many of mine / have not, and further, live on top of / those of ours who don’t” (Lines 9-12). The poem is informed by the absence of the many people of the poet’s kind who haven’t lived. Thus, the poet draws attention to the erasure of Native American peoples, whose population was decimated by at least two-thirds from the 16th century onwards. America is nothing if not a place where “we once were / in the millions” (Lines 17-18). The juxtaposition of “once” with “millions” shows the scale of the violence against Native Americans.

According to one census, the population of Native Americans in California dwindled by 90% during the 19th century, ostensibly due to disease. However, Native Americans were forced into conditions that enabled disease transmission and mortality, such as exposure to Afro-Eurasian diseases and life in the missions where they were made to live in cramped, unsanitary conditions.