The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

“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

“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