Content Warning: This section contains discussions of anti-Indigenous racism, colonial violence, and cultural genocide.

The impact of white colonialism is central to Apple. Indigenous people across North America have experienced countless profound losses over the last few centuries. Eric Gansworth notes that the earliest agreements between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and European settlers were based on equality, friendship, and mutual cultural respect. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is still fighting for those ideals today. Instead of respecting Indigenous cultures, European settlers enacted violence and an ongoing campaign of cultural genocide against their new Indigenous neighbors. In Apple, this cultural genocide is most clearly represented by the legacy of residential schools. Gansworth is two generations removed from the members of his family who attended these schools, but his life is still shaped by their intergenerational trauma. His mother refused to let him participate in traditional activities because her own mother considered Onondaga and Tuscarora traditions “backwards.”

Likewise, colonialism is responsible for many of the hardships Gansworth experienced as a child while growing up on a reservation. Limited economic opportunities, limited access to affordable education, and very poor infrastructure and social services all contribute to an ongoing cycle of poverty in Indigenous communities.