Native American Literature Anthology 2.0
Sara Downs
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie was born in 1966 and grew up apart of the Spokane Indian tribe. He was raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Although he has published poetry, he is most famous for his collections of short stories. His most famous published work is The Lone Ranger and Tonton Fistfight in Heaven; a collection of short stories that circulate around Victor Joseph and his life on the reservation.
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Indian Education
...I passed out during a slow song. As my white friends revived me and prepared to take me to the emergency room where doctors would later diagnose my diabetes, the Chicano teacher ran up to us. "Hey," he said. "What's that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian Kids. They start drinking real young." Sharing dark skin doesn't necessarily make two men brothers.
The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor
"If you say anything funny ever again, I'm going to leave you," Norma said. "And I'm fucking serious about that." I lost my smile briefly, reached across the table to hold her hand, and said something incredibly funny. It was maybe the best one-liner I had ever uttered. Maybe the moment that would have made me a star anywhere else. But in the Powwow Tavern which was just a front for reality, Norma heard what I had to say, stood up, and left me.
This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona
Thomas was a storyteller that nobody wanted to listen to. That's like being a dentist in a town where everybody has false teeth...Thomas Builds-the-Fire walked through the corridors of the tribal school by himself. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near him because of all those stories. Story after story...Thomas Builds-the-Fire told his stories to all those who would stop and listen. He kept telling them long after people had stopped listening.
In this short story, Sherman Alexie goes through the years of schooling in the Indian Boarding Schools. In this excerpt, Victor, or Junior (depending on the reader), has passed out during a basketball game. The people around him help him regain conciousness and he is brought to the emergency room. The source of this blackout is diabetes, however the teacher suggests it could be from alcohol. A big stereotype, and real life problem, on Indian reservations is alcoholism. Because this character is Indian, the teacher automatically credits the pass out to alcohol. The last sentence of the passage is the most powerful. One might think that minorities would unite together to fight against the oppression that effects them both. In this story, however, it is not the case. Alexie highlights the fact that it's every man for himself. The teacher will oppress his student just as everyone else does, instead of uniting against the injustice.
I chose this passage simply because of that last sentence. Out of everything I read for the semester, this line spoke to me the loudest. I don't know exactly why it hit me so hard, but when I first read it all I could say was, "wow." This is Alexie's spear straigh the heart. It doesn't beat around the bush or use some fancy metaphor. It is a simple sentence that portrays a complex societal structure. This also illustrates the minority hierarchical structure. This is seen most clearly in the school system. When teaching about the history of America, I learned more about slavery, the civil war, and the civil rights movement than any other minority/race struggle. Only a few times was the oppression of the Latino people mentioned: even fewer times was Asian oppression mentioned. Least of all was Native American oppression addressed, and this is including only racial oppression, I haven't even taken into account sexual or gender oppression. I don't know if Alexie was purposefully trying to illustrate such a heavy topic, but as I read, that is how I comprehended it.
In Alexie's short story "The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor" he depicts a character that loves to laugh and joke around. James Many Horses is faced with an eminent death by fatal tumors throughout his body. Before this excerpt James has pushed his wife to the brink of her sanity because he can't stop joking about his tumors or death. In the first line she warns James not to make another joke about his situation or else she will leave him. This makes James pause for a moment becuase he does love his wife, but his humor gets the best of him and he cracks one of the funniest one-liner he's ever had in his life. In turn, Norma gets up and walks out on him. Even with the threat of abandonment, James can't keep his humor at bay. The most common explanation for this would be the idea that James uses his humor as a coping mechanism. What else can an Indian do besides self destruct and produce alcoholism? Instead of turning to the drink, or turning to despair, James turns to humor to cope with his feelings of fear, hopelessness, and uncertainty. However, this coping mechanism has become just as destructive as alcoholism. He has ended up isolating himself from those he cares about the most because he would rather push them away then to see him vunerable side. He doesn't know when to stop.
I chose this passage because of the contradictory of it. On one hand James has found a good, clean, way of coping with his pain. He isn't morbidly alcoholic, and isn't on the brink of self destruction. He seems to have it all together. Instead of letting the pain get to him, he laughs about it instead. However, this need to laugh and be funny is also detrimental to his relationships. His need for laughter is so extreme, he cracks jokes at the most inopportune moments. This goes on to hurt the ones he cares about the most. In the end he ends up both hurting himself and others. At first I thought this was a good clean way of being able to cope, but after reading into it more, I realized it can be just as destructive as alcohol or drugs.
"This Is what It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona is probably one of Alexie's most recognized stories. Most of this has to do with the film portrayal of the story in the movie Smoke Signals. In this short story Victor finds out that his father has passed away and must go to Phoenix to bring his dad back. Because of little funding, he is forced to travel with Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who in return for helping fund the trip, asks to accompany him on the journey. Though friends at one point, Victor and Thomas drifted away. Most of the town drifted away from Thomas. The selection above shows just what everyone thought of the storyteller. He was like a plauge and no one wanted to get near him. This is disheartening because the position of the storyteller was prestigious in Native American tribes. The storyteller held a position of power in the tribe. Now, with all the assimilation the tribe is drifting further and further away from tradition; further and further away from Thomas. However, this wouldn't derail his persistence. He kept telling stories long after people stopped listening. He didn't care if he had to carry the tradition of the tribe all by himself, he was going to make sure it wouldn't die completely.
I chose this passage because I really liked the movie Smoke Signals. Thomas was one of my favorite characters and this story featured him heavily. I also liked the significance of his character. He brought so much depth and knowledge to the story, and it was sad to see him so rejected by community. I also liked the symbolism attached to the character of Thomas Builds-the-Fire. He is one of the few living traditions left in a community that has been robbed of it's identity, and yet people don't welcome him. They're too worried about fitting in and not drawing attention to themselves. Thomas also represents hope. If one person keeps the tradition alive then more have the option to follow suit. One person can start a movement to bring back the strong Native American tradition back to his people.
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