1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-316-01369-7.
2. PLOT SUMMARY
Arnold Spirit Jr. is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He's never fit in with his own people on the Spokane Indian Reservation because of his disabilities and figures that life can't get any worse than being dirt poor, bullied, and brain damaged. When he decides to attend the mostly white, wealthier public school off the reservation at the urging of one of his teachers, Junior finds out how far away from rock bottom he actually was when the whole reservation and his best friend turn against him.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a unicorn among young adult literature. Its protagonist is a 14-year-old boy, a Spokane Indian, who lives in the modern day. Stories featuring present-day Native American characters are special and rare finds, particularly when this book wins the National Book Award. Author Sherman Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an authentic, fictionalized inner look at the struggles Native Americans face on the Spokane Reservation.
The story is written as a diary that the protagonist, Arnold Spirit Jr., keeps. Junior is addicted to comics and loves drawings, but he also writes about his experiences. Junior's life is not easy. He was born with excess cerebral spinal fluid on his brain that required a surgery when he was an infant. He was not expected to live through the procedure, but he did. Though his physicality and neurobiology were forever affected by the brain damage, Junior survived -- to face more challenges like being beaten and bullied, mostly from peers at school, but there were other people on the reservation who were quick to anger and fight. In fact, Junior learned the rules and culture of fighting on the reservation at a young age.
What excites Junior, besides comics, is math. And when he finds out his poor public high school, Wellpinit, on the reservation had been teaching with the same textbooks that were used when his mother attended, Junior gets angry, misbehaves to the point of hurting a teacher and gets suspended from school for violence. His teacher, recognizing Junior's frustration with the lack of challenge in his school, asks him to consider transferring to Reardon, a public school 22 miles away, that had better educational opportunities -- because mostly white children with money attended. "I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation" (7).
Figuring he had nothing to lose, Junior asks his parents "Who has the most hope?" And instantly his parents both respond with "White people" (45). The different cultural rules at his new school surprise Junior, but the constant flow of white privilege doesn't. "Let me tell you, we Indians were the worst of times and those Reardan kids were the best of times. Those kids were magnificent. They knew everything. And they were beautiful. They were beautiful and smart. They were beautiful and smart and epic. They were filled with hope. I don't know if hope is white. But I do know that hope for me is like some mythical creature" (51).
Alexie focuses a lot on Junior's constant inability to see himself something other than poor and useless in the world. But slowly, in his new environment, Junior forms friends, finds success in sports and gets introduced to different concepts (like donating to the homeless) and cultural ideals than those he was raised with on the Reservation. But this new knowledge comes at a great cost, when the reservation acts angry toward him, particularly his best friend since birth, Rowdy. Assimilation into the white school is seen as a betrayal. In addition, Junior changes parts of himself to fit into white culture. For example, the Reardon students call him by his first name Arnold and not Junior.
On the reservation, Junior is very aware of the influence of alcohol on the lives of everyone he loves. His father is an alcoholic. He refers to his mother as a former alcoholic. His father's best friend has issues with alcohol and Rowdy's Dad gets so angry he abuses Rowdy. Community events and fairs often include alcohol. Alcohol can be viewed as both a contributor to the poverty that exists on the reservation as well as a coping mechanism of all the hardship the community has faced historically. Poverty seeps into a lot of decisions and choices Junior has to make. He is often walking the 22 miles to school or hitching rides to get there because it's too much gas for his parents to transport him or sometimes his dad forgets to pick him up.
In basketball, the racial tensions between the high schools come to a head when Junior plays against his former reservation school on the varsity team. The whole crowd literally turns their back on him as he talks the to the court, and then Rowdy used the game to knock Arnold unconscious.
But the real heartbreak of the story is the tremendous loss experienced within Junior's family, especially knowing how much family means to the Spokane tribal culture and Junior's family. The tragedies just keep building, exploding, and building again, while the drama goes from bad to worse. Junior is met time and time again with loss and sadness and the ugliness of what has happened to his people at the hands of white people and the long-term effects that include depression, alcoholism, violence, etc. What frustrates Junior, even more, is how oblivious white people filled with guilt appear to be too extreme hardship his people live with. "Do you know how many white strangers show up on Indian reservations every year and start telling Indians how much they love them? Thousands. It's sickening. And boring" (163). And Alexie lets his readers in on a not so quiet secret: the white invaders are often misinformed entirely about the Native American experience in America. And the effect on Indian culture by white people has altered their acceptance of their own people on a basic level in society. For example, Junior recognizes that people with epilepsy and people who were gay were once seen by Spokane Indians as magical until white people arrived and pressed religion on them. "Ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance" (155).
Illustrator Ellen Forney does a tremendous job drawing the actions and feelings Junior has about his life into his diary. They are fun and compelling and sad and sobering to complement Alexie's writing. Illustrated with pen or pencil sketches and done on hand-drawn notebook paper, Forney focuses on using materials Junior is likely to have available to him.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is not a happy book. It is laced with reality on steroids regarding race relations, family drama, and abusive behavior within the tribal community for a fiction piece. And although, I am more of a supporter of books that have less trauma and more positivity in regards to portraying minority cultures, that is entirely a reflection of my own privilege. Teen life is hard. It's especially hard if you're poor and not part of the dominant class -- and living with a disability. In that sense, Junior's survival and determination are extraordinary. Alexie leaves no rock of hard reality unturned in this novel. Readers are forced to feel all of Junior's loss, which Alexie writes as if it is just a regular part of the teenage American Indian experience. Since he writes from viewing his own experiences on the reservation, they very well may be the reality of Spokane teens. This begs the readers to extend their empathy and consideration to all racial groups in America who are pushed into segregated spaces, provided underfunded schooling and health care, and treated as second-class citizens.
In addition, Alexie's work does a number of noble things. First, it addresses several present-day cultural markers for the Spokane Tribe including dressing in what you have and can afford (Grandma was my favorite), festivals and powwows where native song and dance are still displayed and enjoyed by young tribal adults, and recognizing the importance of the "rez," where generations of his people lived and died. Secondly, Alexie also recognizes the struggle characters like Junior's sister, Mary, experience when leaving their people for more opportunities off the reservation and how that separation impacts their psyches. And third, Alexie doesn't allow Junior to idealize any of it. Junior tells it like it is through the whole book. Younger readers might find his struggle difficult. The fact that physical violence, disappearing alcoholic parents, bullying, ostracizing, and death are common to such a young character with disabilities made my younger middle school son put the book down -- for now. But even though my son couldn't get through the first two chapters, he understands that Junior's voice is authentic and real and age appropriate. Indeed, many other 14-year-old boys who understand the world as a harsh place will relish Alexie empowering Junior with honesty.
4. AWARDS and REVIEW EXCERPTS
National Book Award Winner, 2007
YALSA Best Book Award for Young Adults, 2008
American Indian Youth Literature Awards, American Indian Library Association, Best Young Adult Book
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction, and Poetry, 2008.
From Booklist
"Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited for his young audience, and he doesn't pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt."
From The New York Times
"Sherman Alexie has explored the struggle to survive between the grinding plates of Indian and white worlds...The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian may be his best work yet."
5. CONNECTIONS
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been banned in various schools in the United States. Talking with students about banning books. Provide them a list of other books that have been removed from middle schools and high schools for their contents. Have them find common themes: sexuality, religion, swearing, violence, etc., as they related to young adult protagonists. What roles do these themes play in teen life? Are books like these helpful to understanding the diverse human experiences in the world or do they play a role in promoting risky or disrespectful behavior among young adults?
On the ALA annual list of banned books, how many of them are written by diverse authors writing about authentic life experiences? Have the students research the list for the last 5 years. Is there a common theme? Are schools banning diverse voices more? What is there to be afraid of?
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