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The Theme Of Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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Access to equal opportunity can be limited by personal, cultural, and historical but only to a certain extent. It’s easier to miss out on the opportunity set forth if you aren’t in the ‘white’ population, but it more depends on how you work against it. This becomes evident in the Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie when Junior’s basketball coach connects in a way never before seen with Junior. Junior is determined to play against the reservation basketball team and he gets hit in the head with a coin and gets kicked out the game for bleeding. He then has his uncle stitch him up so he can get back out there, and he gets injured again and is forced to go to the hospital. His coach then recognizes him for his amazing …show more content…

It goes back to when Junior’s old teacher, mr. P has this to say “when i first started teaching here, that’s what we did to the rowdy ones, you know? We beat them. That’s how we were taught to teach you. We were supposed to kill the Indian to save the child.” This foreshadows how Junior has a big rip within himself and begins to drift away from Indian culture and adopts white culture. Even though in the eyes of the white kids he’s Indian, he begins to do something a lot of people do, he becomes a “white” indian. He begins to be more accustomed to white communities and becomes a watered down image of a native american. This is helped by the fact that the reservation does nothing but push him away.He isn’t aware that he’s doing it, and the people on the rez aren’t helping. The people basically said that he can’t have both so they’re pushing him away from his Indian roots. My next quote comes from Leaving The Reservation, an article by Gyasi Ross, where he describes his life off of the reservation and the experiences he had being “the Indian '' and he had to say this “Still, this was a definite theme. "Indian question? Ask the Indian guy!"” This relates to how the fact that he’s Indian makes it so whenever the topic comes up, he’s the first one to be asked

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