The Aleut Cousins Character Analysis

The Aleut Cousins are three American Indians from Alaska that Jackson first discovers crying on a bench while looking out over the water. Jackson describes that the Aleuts, like many others, came down to Seattle on a fishing boat to earn money, but then spent it all on alcohol and became stranded and homeless with no way to return home. The cousins explain that they are sitting on the wharf waiting for their boat to come back. Jackson returns to the cousins throughout the course of the story: he cries with them, asks them to sing him ceremonial songs, and finally spends the last of his money treating them to a meal at a diner. The cousins’ boat never comes, and later Jackson hears from other homeless American Indians that they’d waded out into the sea and disappeared. While some insist that they walked on the water and headed back to Alaska, others claim that they witnessed them drown. The cousins’ tragic fate represents the fact that it’s impossible for many American Indians to return home or regain the land that once belonged to their people.