I found the repetition of “we” at the end especially powerful. Harjo does not simply say that Native people live in America; she insists that they are part of what America itself means. The line “we still want justice” also makes the statement more complicated, because belonging to America does not mean that the country has treated them justly. I think “We are still America” works both as a claim of belonging and as a criticism of a nation that has repeatedly excluded Indigenous people from its own history. The final isolated “We” makes their continued presence feel especially strong.

This line stood out to me because Harjo rejects the idea that land is something that can simply belong to one group of people. Instead of saying that the land belongs to Indigenous people rather than to others, she says, “We are this land.” I think this changes the relationship between people and land from one of ownership to one of connection and responsibility. It is especially meaningful in the context of forced removal, because even when Indigenous people were physically separated from their homelands, their connection to the land could not simply be erased.