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Growing Up In Poverty, By Sherman Alexi

867 Words4 Pages

Sherman Alexi points out the fact that growing up in poverty can affect morale,resources,and relationships. And all of these issues can lead to low self esteem and mental health issues which Junior will try to balance constantly. Junior struggles with morale because of the poverty he grew up in. Junior is a teen who grew up on the rez in a poor household, this caused Junior to feel hopeless as he believed that poverty was a cycle and that he couldn't get out of.“Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”(Sherman Alexi 13) Junior believes that poverty is something that he can't overcome and this makes him feel down as if he won't ever get out as he believes that …show more content…

Oscar, Juniors dog and best friend is put down as Juniors family couldn't afford to take care of his sickness. This destroys Junior mentally.“After Oscar died, I was so depressed that I thought about crawling into a hole and disappearing forever.”(Sherman 15) This shows Junior the potential effect poverty could have as his own dog had to die because of it, which just worsens his feelings as he already feels he can't escape the poverty he was born into. The death of Oscar depleted Juniors morale and made him fall into deep depression which could have been easily avoided if he didn't live in poverty. Poverty also causes a lack of resources for Junior. An example of this is when Junior realized that the book he was using in math was the exact book his mom used 30 years before. This made him furious and embarrassed.”That means I was staring at a geometry book that was at least thirty years older than I was. I couldn't believe it. How horrible is that?”(Sherman 31) Junior already has been set back in life by being born on the reservation but being poor has doubled the set back, as he has almost no resources to progress in maybe the most important thing in his life …show more content…

Because of the embarrassment poverty brings to Junior he lies to the ones he cares most about in an attempt to hide the fact that he's poor; this ends up being a waste of time in the end as Penelope finds out.“Can I ask you something big? Yeah, I guess. Are you poor? I couldn't lie to her anymore.”(Sherman 127) Junior knew he couldn't escape his poverty so he lied in hopes to be liked more in Rearden. He hoped that he could make people think his family was middle class but couldn't hold the act or build any strong relationships with anyone because his social life was a

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