Alcoholism
Alcohol and alcoholism are an unfortunate part of Jemmy's daily life. Her experience of family is connected to alcohol in ways that even Jemmy doesn't understand. She knows that her father drinks, and she knows her family life is dysfunctional, but the reader might see even more clearly than she does all the ways that her father's alcoholism shapes her psychology. She struggles to feel important, knowing that booze is his first love.
Native American culture
The experience that Jemmy has with her community is deeply connected with her aesthetic appreciation for the art, history, and legend of her community. She understands what being Native American means through that tradition of imagery. When she encounters art later in life, she realizes that it could be a helpful outlet for her own expression of her love for community. Culture is a secret passion that she absorbed her whole life, because it helps her understand the context of her own life.
Ostracizing imagery
The imagery of Jemmy ostracizing is subtle. Obviously her rejection in her own family should be noted, but she knows it is more than that. Her mixed ethnicity makes her the target of negative energy, and she knows by looking and seeing others that they are often kinder to each other than they are to her, and more welcoming of others than they are of her. She knows from imagery that she is a pariah. She doesn't quite understand all of what that entails, but she understands it enough to struggle with depression.
Art and expression
The encounter Jemmy has with Otis Chapman and his art project at Eagle Rock does way more for Jemmy than just give her something pretty to look at. She sees the way that art can be a simultaneous expression of the private revelation of one's pain and point of view and also of the communal influence of culture. For her, the art becomes a promising encounter with expression, and her involvement in the imagery of Otis's painting is a promise that she can be art herself.
