African American Indian Analysis

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Junior shows throughout The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian that not only does he have to deal with the usual self-doubt and anxieties of growing from a boy into a man, he has to do this faced with issues and circumstances far more challenging than what most white people could directly relate to. The book is not even a full page long before the first-person, limited, reliable narrator – Junior, whom the reader is positioned to warm to immediately – first signifies some of the differences in circumstances that American Indians have to put up with compared to white people; “…the Indian Health Service funded major dental work only once a year, so I had to have all ten teeth pulled in one day”. This is only the first of many insights…show more content…
People’s living quarters, surroundings and community have a great degree of impact on their self-worth. American Indians now control a meagre 0.48% of the land they did before white settlers arrived. Because of this, overcrowding is a real problem on Native American reservations, indeed over 30% of American Indian families live in overcrowded housing and 18% are severely overcrowded with 25-30 individuals sharing a single home. These rates are over six times the national average. As well as this, one in five homes on reservations lack complete plumbing facilities and less than 50% are connected to the public sewer system (http://www.walkingshield.org/the_need.shtml), startling statistics. For American Indian children growing up on under-privileged reservations, how are they supposed to dream of having a chance of having a better life when all they see around them is disadvantage and destitution? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that they will end up in similar conditions when they grow up as it’s all they’ve ever known. Dreams of happiness and prosperity seem a long way away when there is nothing nearby to provide inspiration…show more content…
In the Claire Bradford reading, the quote “Western readers, socialised to accede to the view that stories…circulate freely within an open marketplace, frequently struggle with the idea that some societies observe strict rules about who can tell and hear stories” sums this up. In some indigenous communities for instance, members of the tribe who are deceased should not be referred to by name, nor should photography or film footage of them be used. This is considered a sign of respect to the mourning family. It is important that customs such as this are understood and observed by Westerners. BIBLIOGRAPHY <http://www.walkingshield.org/the_need.shtml> Sherman, A 2007, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Little, Brown & Company, New York Anderson, M & Collins, PH 2000, Why race, class, and gender still matter, eds. Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, pp. 1-16 Bradford, C 2011, Reading Indigeneity: Ethics of interpretation and representation, and Bruchac, J 2011, Point of departure, eds. Handbook of Research on Children’s and young Adult Literature, New York and London: Routledge, pp.

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