	In interacting with Luciente and others, Connie struggles to understand the different take on identity in the utopia. Upon seeing the bodily diversity of the tribe, Connie is rather put off when Luciente tells them they are Wamponaug Indians, and justifiably so. 

Connie has created a distinction between who she thinks is Native American, where the Native American identity is met with disbelief. The assumption of the Wamponaug identity, perhaps because of her prior experiences in Mattapoisett, is met with critical disbelief though; the Cree are automatically placed in the realm of the “real Indian” in contrast. This difference is manufactured by Connie, where her beliefs about how identity is generated triumphs over the forced assignment of a culture but also guided by how Mattapoisett represents the Ecological Indian. Connie is allowed to be within Mattapoisett and interacting with the people there, but her interactions with them are not informed by Mattapoisett’s Wamponaug identity. While Connie may be distrustful of this assigned diversity and identity, it is with good cause as she is set as the ecological other, in direct contrast to the Ecological Indian, something she has no control over. 
The manufactured diversity that Connie is up against is a product of environmentalism, as Ray suggests while discussing how Silko’s Almanac of the Dead treats diverse landscapes. Understanding landscapes, Ray suggests, requires understanding the people who live on it, and how they are interconnected. 

Connie doesn’t understand the relationship of those in Mattapoisett to the land they are on or their assigned identity in the same way she understands the Cree, perhaps because it is difficult to see the inclusive, diverse Mattapoisett as “real” Native American. These kinds of feelings would have come from her initial conversations with Luciente and others that instead of highlighting their Wamponaug identity, made it clear they were the Ecological Indian and therefore ecological subjects. Identity is just as constructed as the wilderness Connie is in, yet her own constructed identity of external ideas about what it means to be Connie, mentally unwell, poor, and brown skinned, are what she clings to, giving her a sense of normalcy. Connie can’t read the land, but more importantly she can’t read the connection between the land and the people, making her unable to appreciate or assume the Ecological Indian ideology that Mattapoisett has, rendering her other. 
Connie’s most ecologically othering experience comes in reaction to the naming ceremony of a child in Mattapoisett. This tradition drops the child in the wilderness for a week and afterwards becomes a full member of the community, a retreat not unlike some that occurred during the 1970s. In to Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America by Peter J. Schmitt, he explores the move from urban to rural by both adults and children, where the environment became a place for personal development and growth. Programs like the Fresh Air Charity were created in metropolitan areas like New York City with the intention to take poor children into the country so they could literally get a breath of fresh air, while also allowing them to experience nature with the intention of fostering an interest in the environment. This blossomed into the creation of the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, groups that were created explicitly to do what Schmitt highlights from a scouting pamphlet “to become strong, self-reliant, resourceful and helpful, and to get acquainted with nature and outdoor life”. These skills are what the naming ceremony tests and what Camp Fire Girls taught, as Native American traditions and survivalist occasions were a part of their curriculum. A significant difference between these two events, though, was that the girl, Innocente, had always been the ecological subject while Camp Fire Girls were not. Rather, the Camp Fire Girls used the practice of the Ecological Indian in order to get children into nature while also allowing them to become ecological subjects. 
