Tyson Howes Kati Lewis Humanities 1100 October 16, 2013 Reflection I chose The Absolutely True Diary

of a Part-Time Indian because I in my lifetime I have personally seen kids go through what happened to Arnold. I feel that conflicts arising from hybrid identities has a huge impact on kids and adults in this country. The othering that happened to Arnold is the same thing that I have seen happen to numerous kids in school because of different ethnic backgrounds. Some of these kids really do internalize this racism and believe what these people and structural violence is telling them. I believe that this identity crisis is linked to many other topics such as freedom, justice, and responsibility. I believe as a nation we need to drop the structural violence that has been set in place for centuries if we are ever going to stop this idea of a division among people due to ethnic/racial backgrounds. Like in the story Arnold is othered because of a different ethnic/racial background. I feel that too often this is happening in many other parts of this country, and I believe it is halting this nation in advancing forward out of this long held system of binaries held by people. Ironically American's have long held our Declaration of Independence as a source of inspiration. "We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is one of the most famous quotes of mankind and one that we hold highly in our beliefs in this country. Yet we take it so lightly and we still other certain groups and factions of people. Ironically too these different ethnic cultures are othered for coming to this country in search of better opportunity. But if we look back in history we find that the groups doing this othering came to this country for the same reasons new immigrants are. This country has become more exclusive than inclusive. For instance in the town of Reardan Arnold is rejected for being a Native American Indian. Arnold is only searching for better opportunity, and he is being othered because of his background. In doing this adaptation I found the picture of the two girls telling secrets about another person. And it made me think about the concept of losing your identity due to the othering of other people. This does not just happen because of different ethnic/racial backgrounds. It could happen between even the same racial/ethnic backgrounds. Also looking at the picture of the pueblos, native American, and the urban city makes me think of how Arnold was even othered by the people on the Reservation. His own people othered him because he was leaving the reservation. They may have known he was leaving to find better opportunity, and instead of wanting to pummel, mutilate, crucify him if he were to return I would think they should be congratulating him. I'm not quite sure how we as a culture with such heavy influence of

structural violence can break this structure and begin to set a structure with less racism and prejudice in it. Maybe like through stories like Alexie had wrote younger generations can learn from an early age how ignorant it is to show racism and prejudice to others is.

"Just remember this.... Those white people aren't better than you."

"But he was so wrong. And he knew he was wrong. He was the loser Indian father of a loser Indian son living in a world built for winners."

Arnold shows up to class and everyone stares at him like bigfoot or a UFO.

The next few days at school Arnold was othered and teased.

Binaries

Loss of Identity