He was born there.

He grew up there.

He died there.

His family was there.

The people who knew him before the Marine Corps and before the photograph were there.

The community that exists today on the Gila River reservation carries its own understanding of who he was — not primarily as the figure in the famous photograph, but as one of their own.

That understanding includes the knowledge of what his community has endured and survived and continued through.

The Akimel O’odham have maintained their presence on the Gila River for longer than any written record of the region extends, through the Spanish colonial period, through the Mexican national period, through the American territorial period, through statehood, through the dispossession of the water, through the boarding school era, through termination and relocation, through the partial restoration of the water rights.