When Junior is in Reardan (the little white town),he is “half Indian,”and when he is in Wellpinit (his home reservation),he is “half white.” “It was like being Indian was my job,” he says, “but it was only a part time job.And it didn’t pay well at all.” At Reardan High,why does Junior pretend to have money than he does,even though he knows that “lies have short shelf lives”?
Before, I begin,I would like to point out that Junior is obviously poor and lives on the reservation. His family grew up poor,and now he's growing up poor. Junior stated, “Poverty=empty refrigerator + empty stomach.” (8)
In my opinion, I believe Arnold/Junior pretended to have more money than he had, even though he was poor, to become popular,and look upon as the “cool kid”. He was friends with
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Junior stated, “I thought that she’d start paying more attention to me and that everybody else would notice and then I’d become the most popular dude in the place.”(81) He was obviously the only Indian guy in school and didn’t have many friends at all,except 2 people,Roger and Penelope. This situation turned into wanting more friends,less enemies,and wanting to impress Penelope. Junior was obviously poor and lived on the reservation. His family grew up poor and now he was growing up poor. In other words,he didn’t really have extra money to spend because he was poor himself. “I wish I were magical,but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation.”(7)Impressing Penelope was his main goal.He wanted her to be in a deeper relationship with him.Therefore, he would do anything in order to pretend to have more money