The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Lissette Franco

Mr. deWit

 

Hope against the System

Many people claim that everything in life happens for a reason; it’s up to us to figure out whether we want to accept our life’s path or change it. In Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a young boy named Junior goes through obstacles to find his true identity and fight society’s expectation as Native American. With the support of his family and his inspirational teachers, he left his reservation to achieve goals that only some Natives Americans can dream of achieving. Graduating from high school and going to college was difficult for people who lived in the reservations; they couldn’t financially support each other nor give them the resources to find financial help. Since it was a poor community, all the reservation people were just expected to work and pay the bills. Without the support of Junior’s parents and hope that his teachers has given him that things will get better, he would have submerged in the system that has been created for that community.

 Junior wasn’t an ordinary child, he was bullied as a young boy and never thought that things were going to get better for himself. With personal experience, I was bullied as a young child like himself and found no hope that things were going to get better. I lived in a poor community were all was expected was to go to school and at the age of eighteen, start working. My teacher once told me that the only way I will succeed in life is if I leave this city. Junior was told the same by his white math teacher. When all hope nearly gone Mr. P gave a pep talk to junior advising him the all the lives he has seen go to waste and all the hope that was destroyed because of how the system worked in these poor communities. “‘All these kids have given up’ he said. ‘All your friends. All the bullies. And their mothers and fathers have given up, too… We’re all defeated’” (42). Mr. P knew Junior was special and is capable of great things that can change people perspective on that community’s capability; the only way junior’s intelligence was going to be seen is by leaving the reservation, before the people around him fill his mind with low expectations and only want to achieve insignificant goals. “‘If you stay on this rez,’ Mr. P said, ‘they’re going to kill you… You can’t fight us forever.’… ‘You’re going to find more and more hope the father and father you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation’” (43).  As described in the book, not many people in the reservations make it out of the region or state. It relates a lot to the lives of working lower class families here in the United States; many lower class people live in a survival environment where they hardly make enough money to support their family or get financial help since low full time pay won’t be enough to pay bills. This proves to the readers that to make it out and become successful, you are going to need to leave your reservations and give yourself the confidence that you will do something greater than expected.

Lower class civilians have a bigger disadvantages than other classes in the system. People in the reservation are struggling to bring enough money to support the family or themselves for the rest of the month so they can get by and do this again the next month. “It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that somehow you deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly. And then you start believing then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian your start believing that you’re destined to be poor” (13).  Society has placed this theory in their head, this gives them the disadvantage and loss of hope that they will be greater and powerful like other social classes. Junior fights against the stereotypes, insults, and put downs; giving him strength to stand up and make a difference and help him and his people to get that that theory out of their heads and live up to what you true dream/ goal is before you are submerged by the obstacles life throws at you. “‘I have to prove that I am stronger than everybody else. I have to prove that I will never give up. I will never quit playing hard… I’m never going to quit living life this hard you know? I’m never going to surrender to anybody’” (186). By proving to the world that he will make it out of school and become something great is a goal that can be achieved; Junior states that no one will bring him down even at his weakest points. After losing many loved ones within months, many expected him to surrender and come back to the rez, like nothing has happened, but with the will power and support from his family, this has come to prove that nothing will make him give up and he will fight against anyone who will try to take him down.

The sad truth about being poor is that it’s harder to be noticed in the real world; it will take you a longer time period achieving your goal than other people who have the benefits of getting the sources on how to reach your dream career, etc. “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor” (13). In reality, being poor doesn’t make life a great experiment on how far you can make it, it made for  poor people to stay in the bottom class and not get back up because it is believed that poor people won’t be any greater than minimum wage workers. Junior’s sister, Mary, left the reservation with her husband to make life better than what it was seemed in that region. “It was courageous of her to leave the basement and move to Montana. She went searching for her dreams, and she didn’t find them, but she made the attempt. And I was making an attempt too” (216). Junior influenced his older sister that there is more to it in life than be in the reservations and not do anything that was productive in life. Inspiring his sister without him knowing, made him push himself to be something greater than just any Native American; no one was going to stop him from dreaming. This proves to the readers that after hard work and motivation, no one will be able to stop you from reaching that ambition of becoming who you want to be.

With that said, without dire, motivation, support and hope, junior wouldn’t have made it so far in life. He would have submerged into society’s stereotypes and left him working in a low income job to suffer and live forever in reservations.