[...] We girls - not one indigenous student among us - received a standing ovation as we gathered at the front of the stage in our costumes, linked arms, and took a grand, ecstatic bow. We were being raised to understand that the world was ours for the taking, because that had long been true, even after the gold dried up, even after the cities burned or failed to be built at all, even after our origin stories were revealed for what they were and we outgrew our costumes and our grandparents and then our parents began to die - heroically or no - even after our memories failed and the stories flew away.