America is a leap of the imagination. From its beginning, people had only a persistent idea of what a good country should be. The idea involved freedom, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness; nowadays most of us probably could not describe it a lot more clearly than that. The truth is, it has always been a bit of a guess. No one has ever known for sure whether a country based on such an idea is really possible, but again and again, we have leaped towards the idea and hoped. What SuAnne Big Crow demonstrated in the Lead high school gym is that making the leap is the whole point., The idea does not truly live unless it is expressed by an act; the country does not live unless we make the leap from our tribe or focus group or gated community or demographic, and land on the shaky platform of that idea of a good country, which all kinds of different people share.
- Ian Frazier, On the Rez, p.213
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