The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian

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Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is a charming coming of age story that tells the story of a young boy named Junior. However, while it seems to end well and warm your heart through the reconnection of Junior and Rowdy, it has a very serious and political sub-theme under all of that.


Alexie accurately describes the Native American reservation culture in the twenty first century. He details the rampant alcoholism and extreme poverty that has ingrained itself into the culture over the years. You can see both the result of the rampant alcoholism and extreme poverty in this one quote,”When the holidays rolled around, we didn’t have any money for presents, so Dad did what he always does when we don’t have enough money. He took what little money we did have and ran away to get drunk” (Alexie, pp. 150)


I believe Alexie made this a main sub-theme for the narrative is because he wanted to make a point and send a message. I think he wanted to show the rest of the world what had come of the people on the reservation. The grittiness and sadness showed is real. I think he wanted to show people what decades upon decades of systematic oppression and lack of opportunities can do to future generations. This is more than an alcohol problem this is the result of intergenerational racism, oppression, and an illogical fear of anyone of color. Years ago the government put them in these boxes and left them for failure.





I think that as a whole, people are getting better to accept others and there are more policies set in place to make the world a more inclusive space. We have seen a lot of progress for minorities in the past couple of decades. However, something I never hear improvement or anything about is Native Americans or their reservations. I feel that the government and society wants us to just forget about them. With authors like Sherman Alexie showing us the reality of the situation for some Native Americans experience we will never forget.

Comments

  1. Tiara A WintonSeptember 9, 2019 at 8:42 PM

    Thank you! I honestly couldn’t agree more with you. Today almost any topic related to other culture is considered taboo and people fall
    Over themselves to try not to offend people of opposite ethnicity. Let’s be honest we mostly see that between white and black citizens. Don’t get me wrong I love how we are approaching these topics more sensitively, but I can’t help but think are we giving all cultures the same opportunity. I hardly hear about the native Americans struggle and it wasn’t until this book that I became aware of some common issues on native Americans reservations.

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