Identity is a combination of many factors, such as family, culture, economic status, and community. Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian showcases the strong relationship between identity and place; each affect each other and help to shape Junior and his path in life. Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation […]
Read more "Competing Identities in Conflicting Spaces"After reading, discussing and generally obsessing over The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I decided to see what other Sherman Alexie gems my local library might have. His 2007 book Flight was the very first book in the paperback section. The cover’s primary colors and the story’s first sentence—“Call me Zits.”—suggested that this […]
Read more "An Intense Flight"“How can you criticize our history? You did the same thing in America to the Indians.” I was on the Perth subway with several classmates two days after arriving in Australia. In a casual conversation with the stranger, a classmate had explained that we were spending time with members of the Noongar tribe in Western […]
Read more "Bringing History Home"In late November 1969, a group of San Francisco Bay Area Indians seized Alcatraz Island after the San Francisco Indian Center burned down. Then, in February 1970, they drafted a grant proposal to convert the island into a cultural-education center. [1] Ironically, shortly before, Alcatraz was one of the nation’s most prominent high-security prisons. However, […]
Read more "Between the Rock (aka Alcatraz) and a Hard Place"