Analysis Of The PoemThe Theft Outright, By Heid E. Erdrich's Poem

In Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” the narrator portrays both internal and external conflicts throughout his journey to success. Arnold Junior Spirit is a fourteen-year-old boy who believes that in order to pursue his dream he will have to choose between staying in his Spokane Indian reservation or moving out to an all-white school in the neighboring farm town. But things aren’t as easy as they seem when Junior tries moving schools because he know has to be part of two communities. Many conflicts form within the Spokane Indian reservation and the Spokane Indian reservation as well comes into conflict with the white community.

Sherman Alexie, in “Indian Education” tells his experiences in school on the reservation. Some of his teachers did not treat him very good and did not try to understand him. In his ninth grade year he collapsed. A teacher assumed that he had been drinking just because he was Native American. The teacher said, “What’s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.” Sherman Alexie didn’t listen to the negatives in school. He persevered and became valedictorian of his school.

Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his

In the essay entitled “How to Fight Monsters” by Sherman Alexie, an Indian boy named Junior faced challenges in handling bullies in his school. One morning Junior's father drives him to his new school in Reardan. He tries to comfort Junior that he is better than the white kids, but Junior thinks otherwise as he feels weak and insecure. He arrives at the school with a black eye from Rowdy, a boy who bullied him in his previous school (Alexie, 124). The kids waiting in front of the school stare at him like he was "a Bigfoot or a UFO" and he immediately felt that he doesn’t belong there. What is worse is that the only other Indian at the school is not a person but a mascot (Alexie, 125).

At first Junior didn't like himself; he was constantly beaten up, he had a lisp and stuttered so he had no self-confidence. When he made the decision to go to Reardan, a white school, even Rowdy left him. Rowdy thought Junior was betraying their school by going away and transferring so Rowdy didn't talk to Junior anymore. Without his best friend, Junior completely lost hope. He was scared of the white people and did not expect them to welcome him. He was right. Most of the Americans were cold to him and he did not try to raise his status. Many of the white people made fun of him, and when one guy, Roger, said "Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers f*** buffalo?" (pg. 64) he felt that he had to stop it. So he punched him. Junior was expecting to get punched back, but he didn't. In the Indian Reservation, he

One of the main obstacles Junior overcomes is stereotypes. Junior is an Indian who lives on a reservation. Indians have many stereotypes that are towards them. For instance one stereotype is that they have no hope. Junior had a conversation with one of his teachers about his future, which involved him switching schools. Junior knew that if he stayed at the reservation high school he won’t be able to make a future for himself. So when his parents got home he asked them who has the most hope, “’White people, (Alexie45)’” his parents told him at the same time. Even

Education —an institution for success, opportunity, and progress — is itself steeped in racism. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Education” from his book The Longer Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is set in two places, the Spokane Indian Reservation and a farm town nearby the reservation. The story is written in a list of formative events chronologize Victor’s youth by depicting the most potent moment from each year he is in school. Alexie addresses the issue of racism in education by examining examples of injustice and discrimination over twelve years in a boy’s life. Victor faces his initial injustice in first grade when he is bullied by bigger kids, but his understanding of injustice becomes much more complex in grades two through twelve as he experiences discrimination against his American Indian identity. Familial experiences of a Native woman, Alexie’s style and humor, and Victor’s awareness of discrimination from grade one to twelve all reveal the grim reality of growing up and being schooled on an American Indian reservation.

Growing up on a reservation where almost everyone has lost hope, Junior feels like an outcast for having a passion to chase after his dreams. When he moves to Reardan to find hope, he is gawked at and teased because he is the only Indian there. Junior faces internal conflicts within himself figuring out how to balance his two selves. According to Junior, “traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, [he] always felt like a stranger. [Junior] was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was [Junior’s] job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn’t pay well at all” (Alexie 118). Junior is determined to discover his identity as it is evident in his choice of words. Feeling like a stranger wherever he goes, he believes that he is too white for the reservation while being too Indian for Reardan. The people on the reservation live in an atmosphere where they trust only each other and stick up for one another. However, when Junior goes to the reservation after being exposed to a community filled with white people, the Spokane’s do not see him as a true Indian anymore, hence the reason why Junior

Erasure. Imagine having almost every detail of your life – your beliefs, your family, your culture, and success – erased by those only focused on their own personal gain. That is what happened to Native Americans over the course of American history. Due to the settler colonialism that laid the foundation of our nation, many Native Americans became the victims of horrific abuse and discrimination. As “whiteness” became the ideal in society, Native Americans lost their voices and the ability to stand up for themselves. Through her memoir, Bad Indians, Deborah Miranda reveals the truth of the horrific pasts of California Native Americans, and gives her ancestors’ stories a chance to finally be heard. In the section “Old News”, Deborah Miranda writes poems from the “white man’s” perspective to show the violent racism committed against Native Americans, as well as the indifference of whites to this violence.

Initially presented as an autobiography by a Native American, The Education of Little Tree perpetuates the stereotypical roles of Native Americans as written by a seemingly former white supremist. At a first read – and should the reader be unaware of the truth about the author ‘Forrest’ Carter – it does not seem as though The Education of Little Tree does anything inherently racist. If anything, the story appears to be sympathetic to the plight of protagonist Little Tree, a five-year-old orphaned Native American boy, and his grandparents for the displacement they have from their culture into a society that does not accept them and perpetually oppresses them.

So many Native Americans are dropping out of school because of the indignities that they are dealing with and not feeling like they are welcome at school. Not many of the Native American families are giving the students the guidance that they need to be successful either. A quote on page 53 really struck me "Everyone in the school knew that if a white kid and an Indian kid got into a fight, the Indian kids would be forced into signing an affidavit and hauled away." I think that this quote bothered me so much because the Native Americans know for the beginning that they will not have the opportunity to tell their side of the story if they when up against a white kid in a fight. Some issues that they still face today would include racial discrimination

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Unfortunately Native Americans have deep roots with racism and oppression during the last 500 years. “In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven,” Sherman Alexie tries to show racism in many ways in multiple of his short stories. These stories, engage our history from a Native American viewpoint. Many Native Americans were brutally forced out of their homes and onto Reservations that lacked resources. Later, Indian children were taken from their families and placed into school that were designed to, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” In the book there are multiple short story that are pieces that form a larger puzzle that shows the struggles and their effects on Native Americans. Sherman Alexie shows the many sides of racism, unfair justice and extermination policies and how imagination is key for Native American survival.

Being born into a difficult and a poverty place makes it difficult to sometimes face some of the challenges that come in their way. Junior then describes himself as “a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family

In an effort to expand his horizons and break out of the mold the reservation creates, Junior, the protagonist decided to attend school off the reservation. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the reservation schools only taught kids “how to give up” (42). Junior was told by Mr. P, a white teacher at his school, that if he stayed on the reservation, they were “going to kill” (42) him because he cannot fight forever. Junior has always been beat up for looking different. Additionally, as a child, Junior “fought off brain surgery” (42), “seizures” (42), and “drug addicts” (42) because he had hope. Now, he is the only one with hope left on the reservation, which means he needs to leave the reservation and “go somewhere where other people have hope” (42). Mr. P’s words stuck with Junior so he asked his parents’ permission to attend a school off the reservation, Reardan. It was surprising any Indian would leave the reservation and many, especially Junior’s best friend, Rowdy, thought he had betrayed them. He was going to attend a primarily white school and leave the reservation behind. In their minds, he is no longer an Indian. Junior even says, “I always felt like a stranger” since “I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (118). But attending another school cannot change your entire identity.

Coinciding with the independence of colonized nations, stereotypes of the indigenous cultures were brought back with the colonizers to their mainland, and were usually of a negative connotation. Words like “catastrophic” or “savages” were terms associated with these nations, and this was not necessarily the truth. Consequently, literature was created with these stereotypical identities of colonized people. Since storytelling has a major impact on the development of one’s identity, many people from once colonized nations succumb to the dishonesty told about them in literature. A speech given by Chris Abani stresses that, “What we know about how to be who we are comes from stories. It comes from the novels, the movies, the fashion magazines. It comes from popular culture (Abani).” With that being said, a majority of the literature that is written about decolonized nations depicts them in an inaccurate way, representing the nations as disastrous and in need of help. Since this narrative is repeated often, colonized people give into it, and see themselves as the media does. The poem “How To Write the Great Indian American Novel,” by Sherman Alexie, also addresses the issue of stereotypes of marginalized groups in literature. Throughout the poem, Alexie uses a sardonic tone to implicitly explain that books are written in a certain way that does not necessarily demonstrate truth, saying that in books about Indians, “All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and