The Code Talker Sparknotes

Kristofic and Darren started Ganado Primary School. Kristofic was teased by being called “Bilagáana” (The white Apple) and bullied by his classmates (Kristofic, 2011, pp.8-10). As days went by, Kristofic started making new friends and did not hate Ganado so much anymore. He learned things he never knew before. He first learned, that Navajos are not Indians (Kristofic, 2011, p.13) and Navajos are called “Dine” (Kristofic, 2011, p.47). As years went by, Kristofic started to appreciate the culture, tradition, and started to learn the language. Within the first few years, Kristofic’s mother dated a Navajo man and married him. Kristofic mother had two children for him. A girl called Yanabah (Kristofic, 2011, p.99), and a boy called Glen (Kristofic, 2011, p.120). After graduating middle school in Ganado, Kristofic and his family moved to the Navajo Generating Station outside Page, Arizona (Kristofic, 2011, p.125). His mother got another job in this location to be able to have college savings for both her sons. Kristofic and Darren both attended Page High School.

The schools were overcrowded, students were malnourished, and “the federal government neglected to provide Native children with even the most basic necessities in the schools where they resided.” (32) This chapter also discussed the assimilation process. “Government schools taught students to be ashamed of their names, their tribal languages, and even family surnames derived from tribal language.” (29) The next chapters speak of the homesickness many students felt because of the assimilation policies keeping children from returning home on breaks and of the diseases that spread rapidly throughout the schools such as tuberculosis and trachoma. Through the use of letters between students and parents, Child paints a portrait of the emotional hardships families faced from being separated with little

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.

Taking away Native American children’s language caused many challenges at home. Many children were confused, homesick, as well as resentful. Many of the children attending these boarding schools did not understand why their parents sent them to boarding school. For many it was because family members were, “sick then. He don’t want to take care of a little one so he pushed me to school” (Burich 5). Many children would not understand why they were being sent to these schools, especially since the schools were changing their worlds

Let’s start with the language portion of the Peoplehood matrix and the affects that settler colonialism has had on Navajo. In Peoplehood, it is stated that the language portion of the Peoplehood matrix is “a group-particular language, by way of its nuances, references, and grammar, gives a sacred history a meaning of its own, particularly if origin, creation, migration, and other stories are spoken rather than written” (Holm, et al. pg. 13). Especially in the late nineteenth century, Navajo children like many other indigenous children were sent to boarding schools. Settler colonialism resulted in a need to as Native Words Native Warriors puts it “eliminate traditional American Indian ways of life and replace them with mainstream American culture.”

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

This book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, is about a boy called Arnold Spirit aka Junior. He is a Native American that lives in an Indian Reservation. He isn't really satisfied with his life, since he's pretty poor, but he gets along. He doesn't really accept himself, since he has multiple medical problems, and he has been beaten up since he was little. When he starts to gain more friends in this new (American) school, he starts to like and accept himself more than before. In this book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" (by Sherman Alexie), the main theme is about Arnold trying to accept himself.

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

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book about a young boy just entering high school who leaves his best friend and family to go to school mostly occupied by white people. This whole book follows him through his first year in this school where he tries to get a better education than he can get on the Rez, in the hopes that he will one day get off that reservation and out of his soul crushing poverty. “The Absolutely True diary of a Part-Time Indian” ATD, Sherman Alexie uses unfortunate events, social class and conversations to show that not everyone gets the support they need to follow their dreams.

If you were a Navajo boy, forced out of your own culture and made to live in the brutal world of white man's racial standards; could you survive that reality? The book code talker, written by Joseph Bruchac, biased on the historically fictionalized story of Neds Begay's life. Ned as a child, is herded into the extremely deprecative atmosphere, of boarding school. Ned, eventually goes on to fight for the same country that implemented him into the hardship he was forced to endure; at the same time making friends that would be so loyal as to sacrifice themselves for him. Ned’s friends talked to cheer each other up and be were always there for Ned or anyone else if things got tough for them. They would laugh, talk and overall have such a strong connection with each other that even if it was for a second Ned would forget

They would make him stay quiet in class because most of them did not like to speak during class with their non-Indian teacher. Even though at home they would talk nonstop about anything. These kids did not grow up to have opportunities they could have had because they were not given a proper education. The non-Indian teachers did not push the kids to learn and they did not care about their student's education. The kids knew that they were expected to fail with their education, and they grew up knowing it was okay to fail because they were Indian. However, Alexie did not accept that. He knew he could pass and that he was smart, so he challenged himself to learn out of the classroom. Reading became the center of his education; he read late into the night, at recess, during lunch, after class, and whenever he could make time to. As a boy he read everything he could find with words on it including all the books his dad had at home, newspapers, library books, cereal boxes, posters, manuals. Even though he loved books he knew reading saved his education and his entire life. His future was opened up to new opportunities because he was educated.

This book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, is about a boy called Arnold Spirit aka Junior. He is a Native American that lives in an Indian Reservation. He isn't really satisfied with his life, since he's pretty poor, but he gets along. He doesn't really accept himself, since he has multiple medical problems, and he has been beaten up since he was little. When he starts to gain more friends in this new (American) school, he starts to like and accept himself more than before. In this book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" (by Sherman Alexie), the main theme is about Arnold trying to accept himself.

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

Tapahonso’s novel is filled with poems and short stories that encompass her Native American tribe the Navajos. As you follow along the journey she takes you, you are able to learn about the importance of a child’s first laugh, the creation of her people, and even how in “Tune Up” children have to come home in order to feel at peace with themselves, their lives, and their culture. “The port presents her memories— ‘long time ago stories,’ as she calls them—as explanations of the Dine way of life to her grandchildren (Vasquez).” This novel is written more for her family and tribe then it is for an outsider. However, as a reader you feel that you are invited into a private world that rarely gets seen.