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Examples Of Alcoholism In The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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The Truth behind the Stereotypes
In 2010, a five hundred million dollar lawsuit was filed by the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Whiteclay, Nebraska against several major beer companies and four local stores. Whiteclay is a small town of 14 people that is home to 4 stores which have sold nearly 5 million bottles of beer averaging 13,000 bottles per day. On the Reservation itself, one in four children suffer birth defects due to alcohol, and eighty percent of the population is unemployed. One in ten deaths is reported to be from alcohol directly and two thirds of those deaths were from people under fifty. Even more astounding is that over half of the residents live below the poverty line or $1.25 a day. In The Absolutely True Diary of a …show more content…

The most common theme throughout the book is the use of alcohol and alcoholism among Native Americans. The use of alcohol in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, shows its inappropriate role in Native American society. Junior’s writing after his sister’s death exemplifies this when he says that he, “Knew everybody would tell stories about Mary… and the whole time, everybody would be drinking booze and getting drunk and stupid and sad and mean” (pages 211-212). Alcohol has taken Junior’s sister from him, but in the process it reveals the truth of the stereotype of alcoholic Native Americans. Alcohol is used in a nonchalant manner and becomes normal to Native Americans. This happens so much that it becomes a way to deal with sufferings in life. Even when mourning a death of a loved one, who died due to alcohol, their society accepts that alcohol is a tool for grief and is commonplace in their everyday life. Furthermore, this stereotype is very dangerous for the Native American people as a whole and for the integrity of their culture. In the book, alcohol has been assimilated into Native American culture and this widespread use is only adding fuel, and even truth, to the

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In the first video Sherman Alexie is asked a series of questions regarding alcohol. Sherman Alexie talks about his experience with alcohol he started by saying how drinking becomes a serious problem when it affects your relationship with people, job and school. He also talks about his family and tribe are filled will alcoholics. Some Indians think it’s a sort of stereotype they been label but Sherman says that there just in denial and indeed they have a drinking problem. In the second video it focuses on a specific reservation in South Dakota.

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Indian Horse, a severe painful yet beautiful novel by Ojibway writer Richard Wagamese, concerns Saul Indian Horse, a former hockey star undergoing treatment for alcoholism. Saul chronicles his life story as a means of identifying the source of his addiction. His autobiography is a familiar vehicle for conveying the novel’s plot. At the same time, it demonstrates how knowing your own story can heal a broken spirit.

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Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.

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Sherman Alexie’s text The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfights in Heaven impacts the way the society thinks about Native Americans. Everyone of his short stories talks a little about what life was like being an Indian in the 20th century. This includes life outside the Indian reservation, poverty, etc.… A quote from the book that helps explain that is, “Books and beer are the best and worst defense”. There are always books and beer to go to when things get rough, but that 's not

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Junior Spirit from the novel “ The absolutely true diary of a part -time Indian” has many dreams and hopes he wants to achieve. He has to go through many obstacles to get what he desires. The whole novel itself has many different outcomes for a theme but in my opinionn, his dreams are the main one. Junior Spirit is a 14- year old Indian boy who lives with his family and other Indians in the rez. In the rez, Junior is more of an outsider than a popular kid.

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The novel There There by Tommy Orange is an influential social commentary on the contemporary issues of violence and addiction in Native American communities. These issues came from historical trauma, and continue to affect Native American communities today. The first key issue that is exposed

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The Whiteclay Conspiracy One course, offered at Nebraska Wesleyan University, is Women’s Global Health. In taking this course, one of the required activities involved watching the documentary, “The Battle for Whiteclay.” The responses from fellow classmates were coherent in the fact that most had never heard of Whiteclay, Nebraska nor the plight of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe members living just to the north on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The images of Native Americans intoxicated and slumped over on sidewalks and against the various liquor establishments located within Whiteclay was deplorable.

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Alcohol is an epidemic within the Indian reservation as well as all over the world. There are many themes present in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. One particular theme that is present throughout the story is that alcoholism kills and ruins lives. In this section I will use quotes to show and prove why Junior hates alcohol and how it affects him as well as others. My first quote is “Yep, my grandmother was pow-wow famous.

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Alcohol is at the root of many stories of Indigenous people that are heard on television and the news. Alcohol always seems to be the root cause of car accidents, murders and assaults. The stereotype of the “drunken Indian” plays such a vivid role in way people perceive Indigenous people . Because of the misunderstanding and marginalization that these people face, they get stereotypes placed on them that do not showcase their culture and way of living but instead showcase the mistakes and problems that they may be suffering from. Instead of bringing up the mistakes that some Indigenous people are dealing with, there should be steps taken for these people to rectify the substance abuse problems that they are facing .

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Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.

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“In the middle of a crazy drunk life, you have to hang on the good and sober moments tightly.” (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie page 216) This is a quote from the book that shows how Junior learns how to appreciate the good moments in life. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie the character Junior faces problems caused by drinking. The book starts off with his family living on the Indian reservation suffering from poverty and death.

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1320 Words | 6 Pages

Some issues that “Native Americans have the highest rates of unemployment and low rates of high school and college completion, and they are less likely to have medical insurance and access to healthcare” (Native Americans and Alcoholism). They state several issues that can cause them to become alcoholics. Unemployment it creates depression knowing that you can get a job help your family out and it can cause you to turn to drink. Since the Native Americans have a high rate of unemployment it can cause them to go into depression and turn to alcohol. Another thing that they state is that they have low rates of high school and college graduations.

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ANELISWA NALA 2015317601 ENGL1624 DUE: 28 OCTOBER 2016 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has one mutual theme that associates all the other themes in the novel together. In the chapter titled; “Valentine Heart,” we encompass the most prominent and most cognisant theme of them all- grief. This chapter conveys the most detectable attributes of grief that functions as both an individual and collective process of dealing with loss. Argumentatively one could say that grieving has its fair share of adversities.

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Alcoholism has been a pervasive problem in Native American communities for many years. The reasons for this are complex and multifaceted, but historical trauma, cultural displacement, and lack of access to resources are often cited as contributing factors. In this essay, we will explore the effects of alcoholism on Native Americans, as well as the root causes of this issue. Alcoholism is a significant health concern for Native Americans, and it has far-reaching consequences for individuals, families, and communities. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Native Americans have the highest rates of alcohol abuse and dependence of any ethnic group in the United States.

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In all the different tribes, none of the women are seen as less than the men, however in European culture at the time, the women were seen as weak and lesser beings. Gunn Allen tackles this issue using ethos logos and pathos by appealing to the readers through logic, emotion and her personal experiences. With Ethos Gunn Allen makes herself a credible source by mentioning that she is a “half breed American Indian woman. ”(83) making her story worth paying attention to rather than if it were a story by an outsider who truly has nothing to do with the American Indian women.

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