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The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

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“I was looked at as weird, odd, not fitting in Morgan Brittany.” The desperation in trying to fit in is a struggle that many people will find themselves the victim of in some point of their lives. The urge to fit in the crowd is a human one and applies to everyone regardless of culture, ethnicity, society, and race. The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie ,brings light to the fact how common it is to feel out-of-place. The novel unintentionally sends the message that all cultures are susceptible to feeling excluded or out of place. The message that racism is also capable of happening regardless of person or location is also very clearly portrayed throughout the novel. In the novel The Absolutely True …show more content…

“And what’s more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.” Even when he goes to the dentist he is suffering from scientific racism which is the untrue idea that certain races have lower pain tolerance compared to other races. This kind of thinking hints to the negative stereotype that Native Americans are emotionless people who can withstand pain and torture. One of the most detrimental stereotypes that Arthur's faces are the idea that Native Americans are violent, ruthless beings. “None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer.” -Junior p.63 Early inhabitants believed that they were barbaric and primitive, knowing this Junior believes that his caucasian classmates at Rearden view him the same way as their racist ancestors. That is not to say he is not bullied at home because they are all the same race. On his reservation Wellpinit, Junior is a target due to his physical disabilities(a stutter, and epilepsy) but at his school, he is the direct result of years of stereotypes. Rachel Ann Reyes writer of the article “Young first-generation Americans often struggle to find cultural identity” writes about her personal experience of feeling like an outsider due to a language barrier in her community. “ They know. I don’t speak Tagalog, or any other Filipino language for that matter. And suddenly I feel like an outsider.” She then goes on to explain that she is the child of Filipino immigrants and believes that is causing her to have a more challenging time finding her identity compared to those who have lived with us for generations. Then she quotes the Pew research study concluding that “34 percent of second-generation Asian Americans think of themselves as very

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Argument for Banning “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Book in Middle Schools Published in 2007, “The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie says about the moving story of a Native American teenager named Arnold Spirit who made the bold decision to attend an all-white high school from Spokane reservation to find hope for the future in the Reardan. This volume won the National Book Award in 2007 and won several other awards. Even though this novel can be power of education, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” paperback should be banned because this is not appropriate for middle schools.

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People have the tendency to forget that racism surpasses just Black and White, frequently forgotten, the Indians have also been faced with a great deal of racism. “… True to Mr. Tipper’s unwanted observation, white people sit on one side of the restaurant, Indians on the other” (Highway, 193). In order to prove to the community that white people were superior, the restaurant in the town of Prince William segregated Indians from white people. The author uses the “Indians only” sign as an allusion, in order to remind readers of African-Americans and how they were treated in the same way, furthermore they felt maltreated. If people were committed to living in a world where all humans were considered equal, they would not live in a world full of

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She states this because Whites are the majority; therefore they have the

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The novel Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, By Sherman Alexie it show how Indians or African Americans struggle with who they are and who they want to be. Arnold learns how to live through and with his struggles because of how his friends accepted and helped him. In this book Alexie shows how all of Arnold’s friends helped him through different aspects in life. If he didn’t have those friends than his life would have been so much harder.

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The book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, shows many examples of intolerance of another race. These intolerances of another race lead to the result of the word racism. Unlike all the other Indians on the reservation, Junior decided to be brave and go to an all-white school. Once Junior got to school,

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In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

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Junior’s father’s drinking problems and the lack of funds to afford decent living conditions on the reservation are prevalent issues throughout the book that provide an insight into this theme. This proves that the author has written this novel to exhibit the hardships of those in poverty are detrimental to a child’s future. First, the novel shows the hardships of poverty by showing the discrimination made against Junior. On page 86, Junior states he “remembered when I [he] used to be a human being,” (Alexie 86).

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After everyone compliments his suit, he realizes it is okay to be different. Another example of this lesson is when Junior goes to Reardon, knowing he is going to be the only Indian there. Junior knows he will be the only non-white student at reardon, yet he goes anyway. Even though he has to deal with being picked on, and standing out, he learns to cope with it. In conclusion, Junior is not afraid to be different, since he has had a lot of experience as always being different in his life.

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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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Amara Crook Harmon—L202 Major Paper 3 Clever Title Countee Cullen’s “Incident” explores the concept of unprovoked and unwarranted racism through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy. In his short yet powerful poem, Cullen uses a single incident in which a young boy “riding through old Baltimore” (1) is singled out and called the N-word by another very small child, despite having done or said nothing to offend the boy. Although this incident is clearly hurtful, why is this incident in particular so important?

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At first I wrestled with where my identity lay. The strong values and traditions of the Indian culture sometimes made it difficult to fit in with the crowd. As I grew older, I began to understand that I was not part of an individual culture, but a fusion of two rich and colorful histories. I recognized that there is remarkably more to an individual than where she comes from, and more to her than where she currently lives. Importantly, being from two cultures allows me to incorporate the best qualities of both.

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