Indian Education Maya Alexie Analysis

2. The brief conclusions all serve to indicate cold, harsh, and impactful conclusions to his yearly cycle which further emphasize the schism between school years. Some of the conclusions serve different functions, though. For example, when he ends his third grade segment with “I’m still waiting.” it is short and impactful; but, when he ends the fifth grade segment with a rhetorical question “Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost innocent choices that the Indian boys were forced to make?” the segment seems to linger on for a moment longer, portraying that the event had a stronger impression than the previous, shorter conclusion.

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

Maya Angelou and Amy Tan discuss religious problems and culture differences in their literature. The authors have captured these differences by their past experiences of friends and family. Both authors come from a diverse culture, but both face the same harsh society of the American culture and beliefs. The Author's both tell about situations in their short stories of being outcasts and coming from different racial backgrounds and trying to triumph over these obstacles. Angelou and Tan both have a very unique writing ability and style in their short stories.

Authors write for many reasons; most often because they want to tell a story. This is definitely the case with Sherman Alexie, “a poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker known for witty and frank explorations of the lives of contemporary Native Americans.” He grew up on the Spokane and Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservations, and has devoted much of his adult life to telling stories of his life there. Alexie expertly uses language and rhetorical devices to convey the intensity and value of his experiences.

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.

At the beginning of Alexie’s life teachers and classmates demonstrate the racism. Sherman Alexie’s classmates are the first example of racism, with racist nicknames and bullying that start the chain of hardship in his life. Alexie narrates, “I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch” (Alexie 3). This quote is important because it conveys the racism that Alexie’s see in the early parts of his life with racist nicknames and the bullying that is brought. One way that this quote is racist is that Alexie refers to these nicknames as “Indian names”. It also depicts the bullying that Alexie endured with getting his lunch stolen, getting bloody noses, and falling down. Although this is a minor plot point to the story, this sets the reader up for the more and more detailed hardships that racism brings. Another example of racism in Sherman Alexie’s life is his teacher who bullies him for no reason. She makes him stay in for recess, hold books for fifteen minutes, and force him to cut his braids, and on top of all that she uses a negative connotation when describing

“Graduation Day” illustrates Maya Angelou’s experience on her graduation day. All of Angelou’s feelings, reasoning, and thoughts of her graduation day are depicted between the pages of her short story. Her text covers multiple different aspects of a segregated community’s lifestyle and explains their decisions on coping with their limitations. The power of words impacts the community in several ways during Angelou’s story. Because words impact and shape people, they influence individuals into themselves.

In Alexie’s essay “Indian Education”, he talks about “hearing voices from the girls’ bathroom, nervous whispers of anorexia and bulimia” which rings so clear to me. I know he sees it at self-pity due to his upbringing and starvation not being a choice, but I also see it as a way to gain some sort of control in the midst of complete chaos. I understand his thoughts about it and why he says, “there is more than one way to starve.” So many families starve by unfair circumstances which saddens my heart, but some of us starve ourselves for other unfortunate reasons. In my experience, I could not control what was going on around me and this was a way to gain some type of grasp on something in my life. Another reason for choosing to starve myself was being made fun of for not being a stick figure like everyone else. Regardless of what the reasons may be, it can be devastating to the mind until we fight our way back to some type of normalcy.

Their experiences both have a similar tone with having their race not identify who they are. Rather they want to pave their own identities; to be known not for their race but the qualities they possess. In a world where race is a big issue but is avoided at all cost because of the discomfort. These authors bring up this issue front and center and put it in their own perceptive. Sherman Alexie tells his story in a fiction way while Zora Neale Hurston goes the nonfiction route.

The early to mid-twentieth century was a time of racial inequality in the United States. Maya Angelou and Amy Tan shed light on what it was like to be part of a minority group growing up in America at this time. Angelou presents the reader with a first-hand experience from her childhood during the nineteen thirties and what it was like to be an African-American in a predominantly white town. Tan on the other hand tells the reader of the frustration many second generation Chinese immigrants faced when placed at odds with their native culture and American culture. As minorities the two protagonists are subjected to discrimination, judgment, and even harassment. Maya Angelou describes a time where her people were thought of as sub-human and disposable,

When I read the Alexie’s work ”Indian Education” I immediately noticed it was segregated into each grades. What it seems like his memories in snapshots presented in a family portrait-style. It addressed many of the nuance problems children experience trying to “fit-in” to society. After reading the story for the first time, it strikes many negative and bitterness how cruel society can be to each other. But the narrator did a great job in putting humors in the passage. “I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down” (Alexie, 1). The symbolism of the hair was Native-American have braid hair as part of the heritage. But this young boy, did not have the characteristics of his heritages. It was amazing how the author started

On his response to Gurdon’s comment he says that he spoke to sixty students, who’d have come from sixteen different districts, and these students have survive depression, poverty, racism, and etc.. in order to graduate These students have read his novel “the Absolutely Diary of a Part-Time Indian” and had been inspired . In the first chapter of the novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” the main character, Junior talk about his disabilities and how it affect his life. “My brain was drowning in grease” (Alexie 2). The people on the rez are calling him a retard and beat him up and how their white dentist giving them half the Novocain because the dentist believe that they only felt half as much pain as white people did. This shows that Sherman Alexie understand what he’s writing about as he writes what people have experience and to give hope to them.

Within the confines of “Graduation Day” by Maya Angelou lies the intricate story of an African American girl graduation the 8th grade, who struggles with the societal imbalance of the 1940s. Although various issues claim responsibility for this social imbalance, one major contributor to this predicament includes communication and word choice. Angelou, in her essay, struggles personally with understanding her role in society. At one point, she falls in to a depression in the essay. However, the loving and encouraging words of those around her bring her out of her depression and sadness.

I think everyone have to do something to prove themselves but the two authors that i´m going to to talk about went through so much to prove that they were meant for greatness.The two authors who i am going to talk about are Sherman Alexie and Maya Angelou, their stories are ¨Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian¨ and ¨Occupation: Conductorette¨. This essay is about two stories that talk about overcoming racism and diversity to prove that they are more than what people assume about them.