Traitor or Warrior?: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

On March 17, 2012, Sherman Alexie posted on Twitter, “You realize that approximately 70% of Natives live in cities, right? We are not Amish-in-eagle-feathers.”  This statement is one that needs to be heard by everyone who has not read Alexie’s book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  It is all too easy to imagine that the Indians either do not exist or are all happy living on perfectly rich reservations where the government takes excellent care of them.  I must ashamedly admit that I, from a Native bloodline, am not very educated on my heritage or Native Americans in general.   My great-great grandfather was Cherokee, but there is no one from my family who seems to know or discusses this aspect of our lives.  I may begin doing a bit of detective work this coming weekend to find out more about my family tree. 

On that note, after the initial shock of graphic language and content, I found Alexie’s book to be quite informative and engaging from the very start until the last page.  He took me on a realistic, emotional journey with a young adolescent named Junior Spirit as I attempted to figure out if Junior was a traitor or a warrior.  The astounding character development placed me right beside Junior in his many adventures.  I could almost feel Junior’s physical pain from being beaten, Rowdy’s anger when he was the one fighting people (and minivans!), and the swaying breeze from being nearly 100 feet high in the monster pine tree.  I loved the illustrations by Ellen Forney that captured the essence of Junior and his life.   

Alexie brought to life the typical reservation-style life along with a minority student attempting to fit in within a majority white school.  The poverty and drunkenness lingering throughout the reservation did come as a surprise to me.  I never truly realized the poverty and drunkenness that lingers in so many reservations.   I was one of the people who had a stereotypical image of a Native American in my mind when I heard the word Indian. 

As Reese (1997) points out, “250 elementary school students [were] asked how they would know if an Indian walked into the room… ‘They’d be wearing feathers,’ ‘They’d have war paint on,’ and ‘They’d be carrying a tomahawk’” (p. 160).  This was the exact imagine I held in my mind during school.  No one bothered to point out or explain that Native Americans did not all fit in this preconceived, stereotyped mold.  I was a child always exposed to the “good” stories as Reese (1997) states, “These good stories were about the Indian as a free child of nature, or the courageous and brave Indian.  The “bad Indian” stories were not well received…The focus…was the ‘disintegration of the traditions and values and the extreme poverty and destitution of reservation life’” (p. 158).

My earliest memories of Native American’s are ones of uncivilized savages always ready for war.  I found the quote included by Reese (1997) to be both profound and unsettling…

           

            He says we’re warlike when we’re peaceful. He calls us savages, but    

            he’s the savage. See. He calls this headdress a warbonnet. Sure we 

            used it in war, but most of the time it was for ceremony, not war. 

            Each feather stands for a good deed and I have thirty-six in mine. 

            It’s not about war; it’s about who we are. When we sing songs he 

            calls them war songs. But they’re not war songs, they’re prayers to 

            God. We have drums, so White Man calls them war drums; but 

            they’re not for war, they’re for talking to God. There’s no such thing 

            as a war drum. He sees how our warriors paint their faces, so he calls 

            it war paint.  But it’s not for war, it’s to make it so God can see 

            our faces clearly if we have to die. So how can we talk to the White 

            Man of peace when he only knows war?

From reading The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian and the chapter from Reese, I am now more educated about using and presenting Native American literature in my future classroom.  I will make sure that the literature is authentic and without stereotypes.  This holds true of any type of multicultural literature that is used in the classroom.  It is important to make sure that it all is well researched before presenting it to the students. 

I do not envision teaching The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian in my future classroom.  While some of the content may be true-to-life for some teenagers in America, I would not feel comfortable having middle school students read content that used graphic language and had sexual references throughout.  I think it is a book more appropriate for an older audience of perhaps upper high school to college level.  There are some portions that could be used as a mentor text or read aloud to middle school students.  One of my favorite quotes from the book is, “I wanted to live up to expectations.  I guess that’s what it comes down to.  The power of expectations” (Alexie, 2007, p. 180).  Isn’t that what life is all about, expectations from ourselves and those around us? 

 

Alexie, S. (2007). The absolute true diary of a part-time Indian. New York, 

          NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Alexie, S. (2012). Twitter status. Retrieved from: 

          http://twitter.com/#/!/Sherman_Alexie.

Reese, D. (1997).  “Native Americans in Children’s Literature.”  Using 

          multicultural literature in the K-8 classroom. Norwood, MA: 

          Christopher-Gordon. 154-185.