Examples Of Identity In Thank You Ma Am

When first read by the reader many different things could be going through their minds, one assumptions could be that the “Indians” that the author is

Racism has great effect on how both Indian men gain access to a proper education. Alexie says, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis”. (495) “We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid”. (495) He was the only

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).

“We’re all trapped by other people’s ideas” (Alexie 63). Labels that are put on people limit them to succeed because they are so worried about themselves and have no confidence to strive for their dreams and reach their limits. In the short story “Flight Patterns” by Sherman Alexie, the story focuses on how individuals are treated due to their skin color. Alexie uses elements such as characters, plot, and tone to communicate the idea that due to racism Americans often misjudge each other. William, the Native American businessman and Fekadu, the Ethiopian taxi driver both identify each other incorrectly due to their skin color making false assumptions. William and Fekadu can relate with one another because they both faced similar problems dealing with fear, family, and race. William hates leaving on business trips because he fears something will happen to them while he is away. Fekadu also has the same fear and pain when he had to leave his family behind when he fled Ethiopia.

Another story about the young George Washington was about he had thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac River. These stories are just myth, but it shows a reader that if someone makes up moral stokes about someone, especially a man of high power, that the person they are making the stories about must be a very moral person. This is exactly what young George Washington was. He was very kind, compassionate, and hard working. His father died when he was eleven years old and it is very plausible, that, because he was the oldest male still left in the house, he became the new “man of the house”. This is where he learned his character of hard work and responsibility.

A person has always been able to choose to what extent their cultural experiences affect their perspective. Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds,” Bharati Mukherjee’s, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” and Robert Lake’s, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” all show how the main characters have chosen to let their experiences have an effect on their cultural identity. A person’s cultural experiences shape perception based on their own identifications and they may chose to assimilate to different cultures.

Do you wonder what it is like for people who are different? How their life is affected by others opinions and thoughts? “Society looks down upon freakish and extraordinary individuals alike and views them with suspicion… they especially fear loners, those mysterious creatures who pursue their own values…?” (par.4). This quote from, “The Sociology of Leopard Man,” can be true to some people because society does do this to people who are different. Many people can agree with this statement about society looking down on individuals with different thoughts. These individuals change their appearance to get attention and no matter what they do society will not like these individuals beliefs. These are reasons why society looks at them in a bad way.

People are judged for their appearance all over the world, every day. People with brown, ragged clothes are assumed to be less intelligent, or homeless. People with long hair are assumed to be female. There are many stereotypes that limit the social actions of many people, and it is not just in real life. Rodman Philbrick shows that these stereotypes are not always true in the book “Freak The Mighty” in the form of Maxwell Cane, Kevin, Loretta, and Iggy Lee. All of those characters are misjudged by others, and in some cases, even by themselves. The message that your appearance does not determine who you are is very important, and applies to everyone everywhere.

Throughout the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the main character Junior Spirit is torn between the two worlds of Native Americans and White people. This denied him of finding a true identity in which humans sought after through William Glasser’s 5 Basic Needs Theory, which states that a human’s identity is affected by their needs of power, survival, love and belonging, freedom, and fun. Arnold Spirit is put on a path where he is forced to overcome adversities and the

This is explored in the short story ‘’Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play The Star Spangled Banner At Woodstock’’ when Victor and his father have a conversation about war. ‘’And besides, why the hell would you want to fight a war for this country? It’s been trying to kill indians since the very beginning.’’ as stated in the short story. This illustrates that due to what America had done to Native Americans in the past, Victors father feels unpatriotic about America Due to him being Native American his perception of America is unpleasant. Furthermore, we see how race affects the American experience is when Victor's fathers leaves him and his mother. It states’’ On a reservation, Indian men who abandon their children are treated worse than white fathers who do the same thing. It’s because white men have been doing that forever and indian men have just learned how. This demonstrates that because of the deep-rooted negative past between Indians and white Americans, Indians who do similar things like caucasians are perceived in a negative way therefore, race affects your view others and how other view

Being a minority in America was burdensome, especially after the events of 9/11. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Flight Patterns”, these burdens are exemplified through a fictional story of a man of color, or to be more specific, a Native American. This character’s name is William. William is a workaholic businessman whose job requires him to constantly take flights to different locations. Throughout the story, we see the life of a minority through William’s eyes as he wakes up to take another flight and complete his daily routine. On the way to the airport, William takes a taxi cab that will forever change his life and perspective of the world. This journey helps to define the main conflict of the story; the racism and preconceptions of skin color in the society of America and how it affects the lives and self identity of these minorities as well as the wish of many minorities to fulfill their American dream and the inner conflict that the main protagonist goes through.

Moreover, Native Indians have been assimilated into the white society in a way that they lose their faith in their ethnicity through being willing to mix with whites and enduring the racial discrimination. For example, Junior has a white girlfriend called Lynn, who chose to abort a baby because she was not ready to marry an Indian (Alexie 224). Without a doubt, the two races had ideological and historical conflicts that manifested in their relations. Also, Checkers are eager to be a white girl by saying that “I just looked at that blond hair and blue eyes and knew I wanted to look like that.” Even though Indians experience physical violence, unfair treatment, and prejudice, they endure these experiences. Consequently, the Native Indian lose their confidence and faith in their ethnicity and fully fallen for the white culture and values.

Introduction: As one who comes from a non-American background, with not enough knowledge of African American history, other than few course readings including James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree, there have been unanswered questions in my mind pertaining to the background of atrocities and injustice that take place in the United States of America, in the name of racial and ethnic differences. While growing up in Pakistan, I had been quite unaware of the main-stream and sub-cultures in the U.S, especially the idea about viewing a person from another race as “different” or inferior to oneself. One of the primary reasons for that is the Indian sub-continent has been predominated by the Hindu religion that even after experiencing conversions

She demanded that they be clean and well behaved. This stayed with Washington for the rest of his life. He notes, "Even to this day I've never seen bits of paper scattered around the house or on the streets that I didn't want to pick up at once."

There are many things that can cause sudden change. Sudden change is when someone who does else starts to realize what they should have done.also a sudden change could be when a bad person does something bad and the good person explains why they shouldn't have done it and the bad person suddenly has a change of heart. A example of sudden change is in the story “Thank You Ma’am”. Roger, comes and tries to steal mrs jones’s pocket book and instead of calling the police she takes roger to her house and clean’s him and feeds him.