But rapid changes to the climate are disrupting many of the seasonal patterns encoded in many Indigenous calendars. Warmer weather and disrupted cycles of storms and precipitation are transforming the very character of the seasons while also shifting them forward or backward in time. Some cycles that used to be in sync—such as the ice freeze-up and the whitefish migration—now no longer are. Climate change is shifting the schedules of plants and animals, making seasonal events harder to predict and key activities harder to plan. As Western scientists plot the extent and details of these changes, many Indigenous people are feeling them viscerally through their calendars as their practices, identity, traditions, and sense of seasonality are disrupted.
Seeking a way forward, some communities are exploring ways of adapting their calendars to new conditions so they can continue their traditional ways in a warming world. “As Gwich’in people, we have this idea that we are spiritually connected to the land,” Charlie says. “We still want to rely upon it. We still want to trust that we can harvest and travel out on the land [safely].”
If you were lucky enough to get assigned to the morning shift, nothing much was expected of you beyond basic, regular friendliness. You could call customers “guys,” hide imperfectly-made pastries behind the register and take a bite in between taking orders, and go to the bathroom without asking permission. Even the swing shift wasn’t too bad. But the evening staff had real managers on the floor, and they expected you to memorize the specials and dress as if we had a company uniform. They didn’t want to provide us with company uniforms, so they’d just send you home if you wore a collared shirt that didn’t seem white enough, that sort of thing.
The "tiny things" of the title are not merely metaphorical, they are the unspoken tensions, cultural misunderstandings, emotional burdens, and quiet betrayals that accrue in every immigrant story. Okonkwo writes with a calm confidence, where she refuses to rush her revelations. And by the end of the novel, we are reminded that what weighs us down most isn't always the trauma we left behind, but the identities we try to build or abandon in the name of survival.
“Lonely Crowds” is both a coming-of-age novel and what the Germans call a Künstlerroman, an account of the artist’s growth. Wambugu doesn’t dwell overmuch on the details of Ruth’s or Maria’s work (both do end up in New York pursuing creative lives), but she’s adept at sketching the details, and the stakes. In short, blunt sentences, the book devastatingly portrays the realities of money, race, sexuality, ambition — along with the gossipy competitiveness of any insular scene — that both Ruth and Maria confront in New York.