In Arnold's case, poverty is a very serious situation, which has impacted his life into many negative aspects. Poverty among Native Americans affects them more physically than academically or socially because they have limited services and transportation. In the book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, Arnold has a very difficult time getting to school because he lives on the reservation and his school is 22 miles away. In one situation, Arnold said "My dad was supposed to pick me up. But he wasn't sure if he'd have enough gas money...If they didn't come, I'd start walking...Twenty-two miles. I got blisters each time" (Alexie 87-88). Arnold's biggest struggle everyday is trying to get to school. There…
The book, Lakota Woman, written by Mary Crow Dog, gave the reader a personal view of the feelings shared by most Indians living in the United States during this present day. The book dealt with the time period of Crow Dog’s life along with some references to past events. Crow Dog attempted to explain the hostility felt towards the white men in the United States by the surviving Indian population. She used her own life as an example in many instances to give the reader a personal perspective. The main point in writing this book was to present the reader with the Indian viewpoint on how they were treated and what the effects of that treatment has done to their people over the years.…
In the short story “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie, the narrator’s life parallels Alexie’s in many ways. The narrator of this story is a boy named Victor who lives on a reservation with his two parents. Like Victor, Alexie grew up on a reservation in the state of Washington. Both boys were teased and bullied by their fellow classmates and initially decided to go to school outside of their reservation for greater educational opportunities.…
In Zitkala Sa’s “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala herself was ill-informed to the intentions of the white people. She ignored her mother’s wishes for her not to go to the assimilation school, and because of that, when she returned home her mother could see her “suffering” with being back in her Indian culture (Sa 1099). Zitkala’s newfound unfamiliarity with both her Native American and white culture caused her to be unhappy in either culture. Another case of ignorance leading to discontent was in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun”. Joe Dagget spent “fourteen out of…fifteen years” of their engagement “in Australia, where he had gone to make his fortune” (Freeman 656). Dagget was selfish in his thinking that Louisa would be patiently waiting for him at home, still as in love with him as she was before. In fact, Louisa felt “consternation” when she first saw the man she was to marry (Freeman 657). The misinformation given in this case, led to the misery of two people, no longer in love, but who both felt they owed it to the other to continue on with the marriage. In all these cases, ignorance of the truth was the root of each character’s displeasure in their…
During the 1920s and 1930s being a Native America was very hate because you were a different skin color than a normal person skin color which was White but that didn’t affect Marie. When Marie started to dance, she became special to the people of the dancing world but people they weren’t in the dancing world disliked her because she was Native American, as stated on lines 18-20. When Marie and her family moved to California from the reserve in Oklahoma, she became a victim of prejudice because she teased and bullied because of her heritage and her last name, which was Tallchief, stated on lines 19-22. When people stated to single out Marie for being Native American, it didn’t affect or lesson her pride in being a Native American, stated on lines 23-24. Even though Marie faced prejudice when she was young, she overcame it and didn’t care what people thought of her.…
The Whites felt like the Indians didn’t have any guidance. Indian women made their food, nurse, and raised the children. It was stated in the story, “If we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as to be without any rules of politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some remains of rudeness.” That’s where the differences took…
“Its was really frightening to find ourselves in this place where they ridiculed and humiliated Native people so openly, and so unchallenged for so many years. This prejudice seemed so invisible and unnoticed by anyone, even other people of color that these caricatures didn’t seem to be out of the norm”(Charlene Teters). When Charlene questioned what was going on to the people whom had recruited to she was told “you can;t do anything about it so just keep your mouth shut, get your degree, and then get out of here”, which at the time for Charlene this seemed to be the best option because with a population of 36,000 students she felt overpowered and voiceless. Since there was no Indian population there was nobody to challenge what was occurring through the University. She felt that since she arrived their her presence challenged the prejudice. The presence of her and the other two Native Americans was challenging the stereotype that the people around them believed to be…
This intense, short story contains flashbacks of a woman named Lena’s childhood. She was constantly embarrassed of her culture and family. She yearned for assimilation and could not handle the pressure of being different all her life. Lena finally decides to leave the reserve and pursue her life journey in the city, where she would also be schooled. Not only does Lena find out that the city is not the greatest destination, she realizes that again, she does not fit in amongst everyone - in this case the “white society.”…
In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian the theme i chose for this essay is Individual versus society based on what Junior had to go through for leaving the reservation. I believe this is the most important theme in story because Junior had to go deal with the hate from mostly everyone in the reservation, the racist view everyone has on indians, and is life at Readen.…
Indian education is a change in point of view.” While the idea of assimilation is at its core an incredibly racist and terrible policy. Lewis Meriam at the very least improved the overall quality of the schools so that they could attempt to fulfill their given purpose. Fortunately the policy of assimilation would be abandoned in the later part of the 20th century but the schools no longer contributed to the gross poverty or physical and social decay of the reservations youth.…
For his father, he took it a little harder than his son did, academically, because of the teacher’s lack of understanding of their culture’s way of teaching the children. But socially, the son, Wind-Wolf, took the criticism of his peers and his friend’s mother hard, because he was afraid to live his life according to his culture, publicly and privately, in which he’s altering his culture and what he does according to the judgement being passed and the “American beliefs.” His father states that,”He is not culturally disadvantaged, but he is culturally “different”(Lake 76). Being picked on at this of an age by other children, and even adults, it’s bound to tear him down, and that is very discouraging, fortunately for others, they aren’t phased by judgement. On the contrary, we come across a girl who was also exposed to harsh…
Language was not always easy to speak, write, and understand when I first moved here from India. Understanding two different culture shocks from Indian culture and American culture, was surely one of the toughest part about moving to the United States was. Everything was very different from my skin color to the way I spoke English. Every time I passed by people in the hallway, everyone would stare at me because they all knew about “the new girl from India.” Slowly as months passed by I started realizing the difference in culture, lifestyle, and behavior. Looking back before I moved to the US, growing up with a single parent impacted my view in society. My mom always taught me to be the hardest working person in the room. She always told me…
As I said above, It is still terrible, I didn’t know how to speak English at all. I have always been studying while working in two or more part time jobs, I always cursed my situation for why I had to live this hard. But recently I found that my situation was very normal after learned few people who have studied in a much more difficult environment than myself and have become successful writers. By the 1960s, Alexie was living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Even his family were poor, Alexie’s father always read and inspired to Alexie to read. There was a lot of racial discrimination, Alexie was expected to fail and remain uneducated. He writes, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children expected to be stupid” (Alexie 17). Alexie was not frustrated by his situation and able to save his own life. He broke the stereotype of being just another uneducated Indian…
Every human being will face personal challenges and what makes it different is, how we accept those obstacles and how we make decision to overcome those challenges in our life. The absolutely true dairy of part time Indian by Sherman Alexie clearly shows how a typical Native American faces challenges in his life. In order to become a better version of ourselves, Arnold and myself had to overcome challenges like getting better education, adapting to new life style and believing ourselves and we both experienced racism. Arnold Sprit and I have to face obstacles to get a better education.…
Our Chapter Young Historians On a bright sunny day, we had our SSC class. When are teacher came and started discussing about what do historians do? And that’s we started our chapter ‘ YOUNG HISTORIANS ‘.…