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Sherman Alexie's Influence On Native American Culture

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Sherman Alexie is a Native American trying to prove to the people how hard being a Native American is. When Sherman was born the discovered he had a disease called hydrocephalus. This disease is caused when there is fluid buildup on the brain, he got surgery when he was only a few months old. Sherman writes poems and stories about his own experiences when he was younger. Sherman Alexie promoted Native American culture through his works “The Business of Fancydancing”, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven”, and War Dances. Sherman Alexie’s poem “The Business of Fancydancing” impacted Native American culture. “The Business of Fancydancing” is about having a good time. He is trying to prove that you can have a fun time without having any worries. “Something we can hold, in twenties, a dream we reach.”(Alexie). The quote means you can do what you want and enjoy yourself and have fun. This was written because, it shows that Native Americans can have a good time and should be able to do what they want to do. Sherman Alexie’s short story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” impacted Native American society. “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” is about a guy named Victor and his girlfriend move out of the …show more content…

The chapter I read was about how Native American culture was different. They do many different things that they believe they should do. “I don’t even want to be here,” the other Indian said. “But my dad started, like, this new Indian tradition. He says it’s a thousand years old. But that’s bullshit. He just made it up to impress himself. And the whole family goes along with it, even when we know it’s bullshit. He’s in the delivery room waving eagle feathers around. Jesus.” Native Americans can do whatever tradition they want because it's there culture. The importance of the text is that Native Americans have culture and they can do what they

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“Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock,” Sherman Alexie, the author, depicts a very rare, but normal image of a Native American family. Victor, the narrator, father beat a National Guard solider during an anti-Vietnam war rally. The incident was documented, seeing that his father a Native American. In result of this incident, Victor’s father was imprisoned for two years. After being released from being imprisoned, the first thing his father did was go back to Woodstock, where he says he was he was the only Indian to see Jimi Hendrix’s famous performance of the “Star-Spangled Banner”.

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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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522 Words | 3 Pages

The first time one is able to comprehend the meaning of a word is a momentous childhood moment that is forever engraved in one’s memory. Books and reading are significantly impactful to people’s lives; Mark Twain said that, “books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.” This statement is apropo for Sherman Alexie, who was a Native American living on a reservation during the time he learned to read. Sherman Alexie convinces his audience that an education is crucial to being successful by using personal anecdotes to captivate and create a connection with his audience and repetition to reiterate the importance of having an education. Alexie's use of personal anecdotes fortifies the impact he has on his audience.

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The narrative offers an account which can be used to describe the particularly puritan society based on the ideals of Christianity and the European culture. It offers a female perspective of the Native Americans who showed no respect to the other religious groups. The narrator makes serious observation about her captors noting the cultural differences as well as expectations from one another in the society. However, prejudice is evident throughout the text which makes the narratives unreliable in their details besides being written after the event had already happened which means that the narrator had was free to alter the events to create an account that favored her. Nonetheless, the narrative remains factually and historically useful in providing the insights into the tactics used by the Native Americans

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Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.

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Gloria Bird VS Sherman Alexie     Gloria Bird’s Turtle Lake and Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” are two stories written by Native American authors. When reading these two stories, one would not make any type of connection between them. Both are unique in their own way, but if he or she looks a little closer the similarities and differences become clear.     To begin, both of the stories are distinct in their own way.

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The novel Reservation Blues, written by Sherman Alexie reveals different struggles encountered by the Native Americans on the Spokane Indian Reservation through the use of history, traditions, and values. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a pureblood Indian, forms a band with his childhood acquaintances Victor Joseph and Junior Polatkin called Coyote Springs. Alexie uses a variety of scenes and personal encounters between characters and their dialogue to portray the meaning of tribal identity throughout the novel. A cultures goal is to prove their identity and be superior to one another; The American culture has achieved dominance through white hegemony while the Spokane American Indian tribe is in a battle of oppression struggling to preserve their tribal identity. Spokane Native Americans are very passionate about their tribal identities yet are envious of the power that the white hegemony holds against them, leading them to their depression.

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933 Words | 4 Pages

I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open… I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.” Being like Sherman Alexie meant he was neither accepted as a smart non-Indian boy, nor was he accepted as a dumb Indian boy. He was lost in the shadows, to never be welcomed into either group. Which in his case was a good thing, there in the shadows he had even more time to gain intelligence, he could read and increase his likelihood of forcing open the cement door that stood in his way.

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883 Words | 4 Pages

Native Americans’ social structure was very different from the way Anglo-American’s believed was the correct way for men and women to live. This created a major conflict as the Anglo’s begin to press on the Natives’ land. Anglo-American’s believed that the best thing for the Natives’ was to be assimilated and transformed into their way of life. The Anglo’s intervened into the Natives’ life with a Civilization Program, removal and reservations, and boarding schools. The ramifications had lasting negative effects on the Natives’ gender roles.

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728 Words | 3 Pages

Although Native Americans are characterized as both civilized and uncivilized in module one readings, their lifestyles and culture are observed to be civilized more often than not. The separate and distinct duties of men and women (Sigard, 1632) reveal a society that has defined roles and expectations based on gender. There are customs related to courtship (Le Clercq, 1691) that are similar to European cultures. Marriage was a recognized union amongst Native Americans, although not necessarily viewed as a serious, lifelong commitment like the Europeans (Heckewelder, 1819). Related to gender roles in Native American culture, Sigard writes of the Huron people that “Just as the men have their special occupation and understand wherein a man’s duty consists, so also the women and girls keep their place and perform quietly their little tasks and functions of service”.

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929 Words | 4 Pages

Being a writer of many different styles, Sherman Alexie started off as a poet before writing novels and short stories. His poetic manner continues in the story “Indian Education”. He has a wide array of dry statements mixed with metaphors and statements that are not meant to be taken literally. The trend for each years is that he starts off dry and literal and ends poetic and metaphorical. His description of his interactions with the “white girl” in seventh grade is a great example.

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1106 Words | 5 Pages

They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans

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1124 Words | 5 Pages

Native Americans have a really diverse culture and one report is not enough to talk about all of their cultures. They have fourteen tribes so it is obvious that they will have a lot of different cultures and traditions between all fourteen tribes. It is impossible to have fourteen tribes with different people and expect them to all believe in the same things so some of them have different beliefs and different traditions. They worshipped a lot of gods and even some of the gods had dolls made for them. Some tribes worshipped the sun or fire or some serpents.

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571 Words | 3 Pages

Despite the negative stereotype of American Indians, the objections and disapproval of fellow Natives, and the criticism of others, Sherman Alexie went on to become a successful writer that has inspired many. Alexie overcame many obstacles that would have deterred him from his goal, but he was able to remain steadfast and continue on in his pursuit of writing. As a result, he has published many literary works that include several short stories, poems, and a variety of novels. He allows his culture to seep into his writing, and continues to inspire young American Indians who also desire the path of knowledge.

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Their beliefs were rejected by the white-american culture which made it difficult to assimilate or control the tribes by the United States. The U.S. was trying to convert the plains tribes from hunter-gatherers to farmers in the the European-American tradition. Native Americans tends to focus around nature. Their religion includes a number of practices,ceremonies and traditions. Their religion ceremonies included feasts, music, dances, and other performances.

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