The Bullied Indian Valedictorian By Sherman Alexie

Theodore Fontaine is one of the thousands of young aboriginal peoples who were subjected through the early Canadian system of the Indian residential schools, was physically tortured. Originally speaking Ojibwe, Theodore relates the encounters of a young man deprived of his culture and parents, who were taken away from him at the age of seven, during which he would no longer be free to choose what to say, how to say it, with whom to live and even what culture to embrace. Theodore would then spend the next twelve years undoing what had been done to him since birth, and the rest of his life attempting a reversal of his elementary education culture shock, traumatization, and indoctrination of ethnicity and Canadian supremacy. Out of these experiences, he wrote the “Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools-A Memoir” and in this review, I considered the Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd publication.

Throughout the story, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior goes through many ups and downs. This story is about how Junior, an indian from the Spokane reservation, decides to go to Rearden, the school for non-indians because of how run-down his school is and has trouble fitting in. Some of the ways Junior dealt with those downs include his uncanny sense of humor, his love for his friends, and the want to fit in and prove he’s just as good as everyone else at his new school.

Purpose: Alexie highlights how he ultimately overcame the hardships suffered during his early years due to his Indian ethnicity and displays how Native Americans were, and continue, to suffer from discrimination.

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

Alexie suggests that people should not limit themselves based on stereotypes of their environment or backgrounds. The author supports this by claiming, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person…” (6). Here, Alexie is showing that when someone overcomes the stigma surrounding them, they can be a force to be reckoned with. Alexie also discusses the personalities and habits of Native kids. He states, “We were Indian children expected to be stupid…” (6). He then goes on to describe how Indian children struggle with basic reading in classes but can seem to remember dozens of traditional Powwow songs. Lastly, Sherman Alexie also alludes to how Indian kids are expected to fail in the non-Native world. “Those who failed were accepted by Indians and...pitied

"Double-consciousness this sense of always looking at one 's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one 's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity" (Dubois, 8). W.E.B. Du Bois had a perfect definition of double-consciousness. The action of viewing one 's self through the eyes of others and measuring one 's soul. Looking at all of the thoughts good or bad coming from others. This is present in the main character of the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. The Absolutely True Diary is about a boy named Junior that is fourteen years old and living on the Spokane Reservation. Junior was born with too

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

Sherman Alexie choose to reflect on his experience through the education system with the purpose of highlighting the mistreatment of Native American both inside and outside their own culture in “Indian Education”. This was accomplished through the structure of the narrative and use of techniques throughout it. For example, Alexie structures his writing into short, segmented parts based on his level of education going from the first grade to post-graduation. This type of structure allows for a fast-paced narrative where only the most impactful moments of Alexie’s education are shown. Moments such as him being ostracized by those at his reservation because he, “kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe”(Alexie par. 43) or when he overcame his bully and “the little warrior in me roared to life and knocked Frenchy to the ground” (Alexie par. 4) all demonstrated how his culture affected his life. Furthermore, Alexie uses a combination of dark humor and irony throughout the narrative in order to help explain his purpose. In the eighth grade, Alexie makes fun of the bulimic girls in his school by saying “Give me your lunch if you’re just going to throw it up”(Alexie par.51) when the irony of the situation is that Alexie is starving because he lives in poverty while these girls are wasting their food by throwing it up. Sherman Alexie's way of storytelling through short, fast-paced, segmented parts intertwined with dark humor and irony helps achieve his purpose for writing the narrative which was that Native Americans were not only persecuted outside of their culture, but

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

Throughout literature many pieces of work can be compared and contrasted to each other. In “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie discusses the challenges he faced as a young Indian adult, who found his passion of reading at an early age, living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He challenged the stereotype of the young Indian students who were thought to be uneducated while living on a reservation. Likewise, in the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez shares his similar experience of being a minority and trying to break stereotypes of appearing uneducated. He shares the details of his life growing up learning a different culture and the struggles he faced becoming assimilated into American culture. In these two specific pieces of literature discuss the importance of breaking stereotypes of social and educational American standards and have similar occupational goals; on the other hand the two authors share their different family relationships.

Institutional structures have the power to configure adolescent growth through repression and liberation. The capability that adolescents have to create their own destiny and choose their own social institution can be limited, but not impossible. In Trites article, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” the author argues that kids have personal power, whether they acknowledge it and use it to their own advantage or not. Michel Foucault declares that “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (Trites). Power is inevitable, there will never be no such thing as power in this world; it will never diminish or fade. Trites also conveyed that, “power not only acts on a subject but, in a transitive

Internalized oppression is just one factor that contributes to the inescapability of intergenerational trauma. Alexie uses figurative language to demonstrate that the cycle of oppression is further perpetuated by the concept of racial inferiority, poverty, and failure to achieve an education in his short story “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore”. The main character, Victor, sits on the porch with his friend Adrian as they reminisce their past and hope for others futures. Victor claims that “Indians [could] easily survive the big stuff... It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins” (49).

In Alexie’s vignette, “Indian Education”, these themes of racism and discrimination come up very often when Victor describes the challenges he faced going through school. Victor recalls how his second-grade teacher made him “...stay in for recess for fourteen days straight.‘” (Alexie 172) but he explains that he didn’t do anything to deserve a punishment like this. In this situation, Victor’s teacher is denying him a privilege because of his race. In another circumstance, Victor’s teacher makes Victor apologize for “‘Everything’” (Alexie 172) she then makes Victor “...stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand.” (Alexie 172-173). During this situation, Victor is forced to perform a specific action as punishment for nothing, this unjust treatment of Victor sparks from the grounds of his race. Once again in second grade, Victor receives another chastisement out of the disapproval of his ethnicity when his teacher, “...crumpled up the paper and made me eat it.” (Alexie 173). Lastly, Victor’s teacher, not accepting Victor’s cultural differences, “She sent a letter home with me that told my parents to either cut my braids or keep me home from class.” (Alexie 173). Victor’s braids are symbols of his culture and ethnicity, and when Victor’s teacher threatens to take away his education if they are not removed, discrimination against Victor is very prominent.