Tanvi Patel Ms.

Boughton English 1/ 2A 3/1/11 Response to Indian Education In todays world, and even in the world hundreds of years ago, there is one very large similarity that is shared with Indian Education that is the unfortunate fact of racism or segregation of any kind. Since the earliest civilizations, there has always been a class system, this person is better than that person, for any reason. These reasons can do with earnings or they can do with religion, culture, and maybe the most prominent, skin color. People have many preconceived notions about people that are different than them. Today these are usually along the lines of, Muslims are terrorists, Hispanics are dumb, and that Indians (from India) are business owners; these are only a few. It seems to be human nature to judge people without meeting them or using one person as the basis of judging an entire group of people. It is obvious that this is not fair and very few people will ever accept that they do this but everyone does it. It can be with a good pretense, such as a parent not wanting their child to date a person because they do not think that the person will not amount to anything. This is every parents job but judging their opinion on the persons race, religion or culture is not fair. In Indian Education, Junior doesnt fit in anywhere, not in the reservation, and not in the farm town. This is because in both places, the people have preconceived notions about him. They do not look at him but at their idea of him. The Native Americans think that he is trying to be white and the white people think that he cant fit in because he is not one of them. Not only the whites, but even the Hispanics that he meets are rude to him. These are people who believe that they are not accepted in America but they are also not being accepting either. In Indian Education you can see what had become human nature, to not like any but your own. This short story is very applicable to our essential question for the quarter. The question is With other people continually trying to define me, how do I learn to make decisions for myself? In this story, the main character is faced with a similar, if not dame situation. He is forced to live a life in which everyone only expects him to fail, his kind and others. They have all, already decided that he has no chance then what is he trying for? These are questions that he faced with everyday, but he still fights. He doesnt care even if they have decided for him; he will still make his own decisions. He does this and graduates high school as valedictorian, and not of the reservation school but of the white, farm town high school.