Sherman Alexie Indian Discrimination

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

The imagery reveals from the very beginning of the book Junior explains that it's already hard for him off the rez because he is an Indian, and its purpose is to show that Junior label's himself as a social outcast and when he goes to his new school off the rez he faces many problems based on his origin. It's only right to say that Junior himself even hate's himself to a certain point just for being who he is just as much as what he must put up with because of where he comes from or who he is. Well as the text from one of the documents based on exiting the rez, making a clear point to how difficult it can be because of what you need to think or take into account. Many people from the rez will look at you differently, you can begin to miss the

Junior has been an outcast in Wellpinit for the majority of his life. He was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid in his skull, already setting a difference between him and the Wellpinit community, as most of Wellpinit is not accepting of this. “Everybody on the rez calls [him] a retard about twice a day. They call [him] a retard when they are pantsing [him] or stuffing [his] head in the toilet or just smacking or just smacking [him] upside the head...Do you know what happens to retards on the rez? [They] get beat up” (4). Through calling Junior “retard” and violently harming him, the people of Wellpinit harass Junior. Harassment leads to feeling less of a part of the community and more of an outsider. Junior would not be harassed by the community if the community cared about him, revealing they do not. Also, when the people of Wellpinit discover Junior decides to leave the reservation to go to school at Reardan, they are dissatisfied. When Junior gets beat up by three guys in Wellpinit, Junior knows, “Mostly they just wanted to remind [him] that [he] was a traitor” (79). Junior goes to Reardan to receive a better education in order to procure a better future. The three men jumping Junior due to disliking his decision exhibits a lack of support for Junior and his dreams of a better

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian tells the story of a Spokane Indian teenager who is born with disabilities into a community of poverty. He decides to leave his home reservation to go to another school in the white community. There, he experiences racism and other challenges. Throughout the story, he is affected by poverty, loss, hunger, and racism, all part of Author Sherman Alexie’s message that survival techniques are needed to exist in two worlds. Alexie uses conflict, cartoons by Ellen Forney, and symbolism to convince the audience to care about his message about poverty, loss, and racism.

Plaguing us not only in the forms race, religious beliefs, and social class like it did in the past, but through gender, sexuality, differing age groups such as the elderly, and people with disabilities both mental and physical. In this book Junior falls prey to discrimination based mostly on his race and social class. He is ridiculed at Reardan for being an Indian and for being poor. On the reservation his fellow Indians scorn him for abandoning his clan for the “white man.” During his early days at Reardan Junior must deal with being put down for his red skin and lack of money before he becomes friends with the popular children and joins the varsity basketball team, then everything becomes close to being all right at school. Back at the reservation it is not as easy to end the cruel behavior. Junior’s fellow Indians continue to not only speak rudely about him but also physically injure him on multiple occasions - that is until his grandmother dies of course - it took the death of such a well respected woman in the community to cause them to finally leave Junior to mourn in peace. Discrimination does not affect me in the same ways that it affected Junior. I am blessed with having something most commonly recognised in the media today as “white privilege.” I may though be soon facing discrimination for being female. Across the world females have always been discriminated against in one form or another lest it be

In the novel, Junior’s dad tells him that “those white people aren’t better than you” as he prepares for his first day at Reardan, and then proceeds to tell Junior that he is very brave and is a warrior (55). Junior doubts himself and his father’s words, but a positive father-son relationship is shown through this overcoming of racial stereotyping. Junior will eventually conquer his fears of being an Indian in an all white school, but his family’s support is what drives him. Also in the novel, Roger, Junior’s primary bully at Reardan, begins to call him “Chief.” He asks Junior if he would like to hear a joke, and Junior complies. Roger proceeds to say, “Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo” (64). Junior knows that he cannot let Roger get away with saying something so derogatory, so he punches him. This may not have been the most appropriate action to take for Junior, but on the that is how problems were solved on the reservation. Junior reacts in the only way he knows how, and earns Roger’s respect because of it. This is a controversial scene, but Junior overcomes his fear and stands up for himself, thus showing that it is possible to stand up to a bully instead of cowering in fear, while also overpowering racism. Another display of a racist situation turned

Junior starts going to a high school off the reservation after he was handed a 30-year-old textbook with his mother’s name on it. This set him off because it would be hard for him to continue with his career goals if he was learning material that was at least 30 years out of date. This then prompts him to start going to a white high school off the reservation. He was the only Native American there, so he was then faced with even more challenges, like the school being 22 miles away and his family frequently ran out of money, so they couldn’t afford gas so Junior ended up walking to school, but he ultimately prospered at his new

The novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, written by Sherman Alexie, enables the reader to look into the life of Junior as he encounters situations that allow him to discover his identity and self-esteem. Identity and self-esteem represented in the novel display how important it is to be part of a community, providing a sense of belonging. Throughout the story, Junior experiences circumstances where he faces and realizes his split personality of being Indian and white at the same time. Sherman Alexie demonstrates this by saying, “They call [Junior] an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside” (132). In addition, this describes how Junior has to embrace being white at Reardan and he also has to embrace his Indian self back on the reservation.

This draws a connection to the erasure of Native American culture in history, they are seen as rare and different from the ordinary, and for some people their existence is completely forgotten or denied. His own comments of not belonging at a white school, because of his nationality and family history further show the division of race that he can see at Reardan. Junior’s cursing accentuates how frustrated and pathetic he feels, viewed as less than everyone at his school, and constantly rejected and isolated by his white peers. The negative, demeaning mindset of those white kids is that Native Americans do not deserve anything from white people, not their time, attention, care, or even a proficient education. According to Jens Manuel Krogstad at Pew Research Center, Native Americans have the second highest high school dropout rate- eleven percent. This is very high, especially when compared to the white or Asian dropout rates- five and three percent, respectively. Additionally, it says Native Americans have the second lowest percentage of bachelor’s degrees, only seventeen percent, compared to the two highest, white and Asian, at thirty three and fifty percent (Krogstad). Many Native Americans today are not allowed a chance at education because of poverty at reservations, and lousy, penniless schools. These issues are not thought about or spoken of often, because they are simply not

On Junior’s first day at Reardan he already starts to notice this difference. The whites, when faced with their first Indian student, are a little afraid so they resort to what they were always taught to do when faced with an unfamiliar situation. They start to insult him by calling him names like Chief and Red-Skin. They also did this because they feared Junior. While explaining his first day at Reardan he says, “None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer. So mostly they called me names. Lots of names” (Alexie 63). This shows that they fear him just as much as he fears them. Soon, they realize he is not a threat to them, and they quickly became friends with him. This is shown when the Reardan crowd cheered Junior on after seeing the way the Indians treated him at the first basketball game. They also booed the Indian team upon their arrival to the Reardan gym. This shows how the whites use a verbal approach to deal with

1. In the beginning of the book, Junior explains that he was "born with water on the brain". Junior has brain damage from surgery he went through to remove fuild in his brain, this left Junior with many physical problems: He has forty-two teeth, is skinny, has an over-sized head, hands, and feet, has poor eyesight, experiences frequent seizures, stutters, and lisps. (Page) These problems also caused him to be bullied by other kids on the reservation, Junior is beaten up and given names such as "globe" and "retard" making fun of his physical difference. To add to this his family like most of the reservation is extremely poor. They show this when Junior's adopted dog Oscar begins to suffer from intense heat exhaustion and Junior's father is forced to kill Oscar with a rifle to avoid having to pay the expensive veterinary treatment necessary to save him. (Page) This scene gives Junior and the people on the reservation immediate character with telling very much about them. It lets the readers sympathetic with Junior making the actions that he does later in the book more meaning-full to the reader.

Junior didn't know what to do when he transfers to the new school named Reardan. He doesn't know how or what to say to the "white" people and he is kinda of scared of them. Soon though, he makes friends and decide it's okay , even though the white people aren't bad even if some are racists. The theme of this book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, says that you shouldn’t dislike yourself because that's just going to make your life more harder. Accept yourself will make life more easier than before and it also make yourself even more

When junior barely started going to Reardan high school, all he saw was white kids and white teachers and they all did not like him. On his first day of school he thought that he will be seeing a school full of white kids that are bullies and he will get beat up every day. When he arrived, everyone looked at him with a surprise because it is not common for a Native American kid to go to a white school. He was scared because compared to the white kids, he was very small and poor in many ways. It is evident in the book that while everyone had backpacks to carry their school items in, he had a garbage bag because he can not afford the money to buy a backpack. When he started school, he was worried that he was going to get bullied by big white

Growing up as an outcast is never easy, no matter the circumstances. Mental, physical, and social differences can all be challenging. In the adolescent novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, he outlines the difficulties, stereotypes, and discrimination that can occur in today's minorities. Arnold Spirit, a high school student born with hydrocephalus “water on the brain” is athletically gifted as well as unusually intelligent. Stuck on an Indian reservation, also know as the rez, Arnold, who goes by Junior, must make some life changing decisions regarding his future. Is it time to break the cycle of self destruction? No matter how ambitious, those on the rez feel as though they amount to nothing; nothing but drunks with dead end jobs and pessimistic views. Outside of the rez, the future is unknown. Going to Reardan, an all white high school, looking for a better education and life seems reasonable; nonetheless, overwhelming confrontation is inevitable. Forevermore, change is taxing, especially when the surrounding individuals are different.

Junior was part-time Indian because of the fact he lives on a reservation and he has an Indian heritage and he 's part White because each and every day he spends half of his day going to a predominately white school.