His story is not primarily about overcoming.

It is about navigating.

The distinction matters.

Overcoming suggests that the barriers were surmounted — that Parker got past them in a way that left them behind.

The actual history shows something different: the barriers moved with him.

The citizenship bar was never formally repealed during his lifetime — it was set aside for him personally, twice, through exceptional arrangements that left the underlying rule intact for others.

The political forces that attacked him as Commissioner were not the lingering residue of a discredited prejudice; they were the active expression of interests that had not changed because a Native man was now in charge of the bureau.