Description of Alexie's New Autoethnography

1285 Words3 Pages

Sherman Alexie’s novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” centers on a Native American boy living on an Indian reservation. Junior, who has been living on the same reservation that his family has been living on for generations, leaves the reservation his freshmen year of high school to attend a white school. Through his transition of cultural boundaries, Junior encounters white Americans speaking the language of white, common, American teenagers. Through his experience, Junior writes a diary. The language Alexie uses for Jumior’s communications in his “diary” establishes the novel as an autoethnographic text, but in the sense that the different “languages” are actually within the same language.
In her 1990 keynote address at the second Modern Language Association Literacy Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mary Louis Pratt coined and defined the term “autoethnography” as a “text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them” (Pratt 501). In other words, autoethnography is when a person from one culture speaks about themselves in the terms of another culture so that people of that culture can better understand the speaker’s culture.
Pratt’s terminology becomes more complex when introduced alongside the definitions of acculturation and assimilation. Acculturation means adopting cultural traits or social patterns of another group. Assimilation is the merging of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups. Delving deeper into the definition of acculturation and assimilation reveals the terms marginal and metropolitan. A marginal culture is one which its people lose importance and are not fully integrated. A metropolitan...

... middle of paper ...

...of the speech community, because he is bound to the community by a common language. This allows Junior’s writing to be that much more truthful and natural.
By reading and understanding that Junior’s language is similar to his or her own, the reader can identify that much more with the character. Although the reader cannot identify on the exact same level of Junior’s culture and ancestry, through the common speech, the reader can identify with the commonality in the language as a human quality, not a quality of culture, as is the nature of Alexie’s new type of autoethnograpy.

Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Print.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Ways of Reading. Ed. David
Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Se Habla Español

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Se Habla Español,” is written by a Latin author, Tanya Barrientos; and Amy Tan, a Chinese author, wrote “Mother Tongue”. In both literate narratives the authors write about their experiences with language and how it impacted their lives. In This essay we will be discussing the similarities as well as the differences in the stories and the authors of “Se Habla Español” and “Mother Tongue”. We will discuss how both authors use a play on words in their titles, how language has impacted their lives, how struggling with language has made them feel emotionally, and how both authors dealt with these issues.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Superman And Me

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alexie shows a strong difference between the treatment of Indian people versus the treatment of white people, and of Indian behavior in the non-Indian world versus in their own. A white kid reading classic English literature at the age of five was undeniably a "prodigy," whereas a change in skin tone would instead make that same kid an "oddity." Non-white excellence was taught to be viewed as volatile, as something incorrect. The use of this juxtaposition exemplifies and reveals the bias and racism faced by Alexie and Indian people everywhere by creating a stark and cruel contrast between perceptions of race. Indian kids were expected to stick to the background and only speak when spoken to. Those with some of the brightest, most curious minds answered in a single word at school but multiple paragraphs behind the comfort of closed doors, trained to save their energy and ideas for the privacy of home. The feistiest of the lot saw their sparks dulled when faced with a white adversary and those with the greatest potential were told that they had none. Their potential was confined to that six letter word, "Indian." This word had somehow become synonymous with failure, something which they had been taught was the only form of achievement they could ever reach. Acceptable and pitiable rejection from the

    Read More

  • In Richard Rodriguez's Mother Tongue And A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of From Hunger Of Memory: The Education Of Richard Rodriguez

    1079 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Aria,” from Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Richard Rodriguez shares his autobiography of when he first entered his classroom at catholic school. He writes of his transition through emotions of fear, insecurity, and self-doubt as he transitions from the privacy of his home to the public world. Richard develops an understanding that his that private language that is used in his home is different from the language that is publicly acceptable in school. His school teachers pushed his americanalization which led him to discover his identity, since he indeed was an American but grew up in a Spanish speaking home. Through this journey of journey of assimilation he discovers that learning this new language brought him a sense of comfortability and acceptance. Richard Rodriguez heavily relates to the Crevecoeurian immigrant because he was willing to learn a new language, leave his culture behind, and embrace his American identity.

    Read More

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

    222 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the article Mother Tongue, Amy Tan indicates that American immigrants have limitations on speaking English and emphasizes the fact that different language styles interpret people’s unique identities. Tan’s personal experiences show that mother’s “imperfect” English influences her for a life time, and even changes her writing languages.

    Read More

  • Themes of Language and Racial Identity in Native Speaker, By Chang-Rae Lee

    2640 Words  | 6 Pages

    Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. Throughout the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately identify one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their cultural identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since one’s language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ...

    Read More

  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

    1132 Words  | 3 Pages

    Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue by Amy Tan

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...

    Read More

  • How Does Sherman Alexie Overcome Stereotypes

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up on a reservation where failing was welcomed and even somewhat encouraged, Alexie was pressured to conform to the stereotype and be just another average Indian. Instead, he refused to listen to anyone telling him how to act, and pursued his own interests in reading and writing at a young age. He looks back on his childhood, explaining about himself, “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (17). Alexie compares the life and treatment of an Indian to life as a more privileged child. This side-by-side comparison furthers his point that

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).

    Read More

  • Sherman Alexie's Indian Education

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.

    Read More

  • Immigration And Immigration: The Second Generation Of Immigrants

    886 Words  | 2 Pages

    Assimilation, different from accommodation, implied that the “outsider” group actually came to accept and inter­nalise the values and culture of the native group which usually shows up at second generation of immigrants. They grow up with two different cultures and they will have to face the difference between these cultures and form their own opinion and tendency which may eventually coming out a behavior stander of the combination of two cultures. People in this period will have more individual understanding because they have chance to choose they life they want to live. It also means this period is not only the most important time for assimilation but also the most struggling time. Just as what Eric’s mentioned in “Notes of a Native Speaker”, “Being an ABC certainly affected me another way. It made me feel like something of a greenhorn, a social immigrant”. Most offsprings of immigrants will have the same confusion because they get their early education from their parents, but after experiencing social contacts(generally after they go to school), a new sense of value from the society will refresh their brains. Some people says that these kids are blessed because they have chance to aware two cultures and get benefits from both, but some would say they are cursed to live in a life like this because they have to face so many confusions in a young age. What

    Read More

  • House Made Of Dawn

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    Momaday makes me view language in a new way. He has forced me to think about how I speak and treat each word with respect so that I am able to grasp the picture it paints. And I now believe that every word can have a picture if placed correctly, whether it be obvious or merely a color associated with an emotion. The way in which some people abuse words and let them become only the words on a questionnaire is horrifying. It’s as if they lose an emotion, their speech being monotonous and drab. Momaday stresses these points and I feel he has a right to show the revere with which Native Americans regard words and the inconsequence with which many white people view words. If the reader is willing to open their mind’s eye to see the beautiful picture words can paint, Momaday has achieved what he wanted to, as well as brightening the life of that reader.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the essay “Mother Tongue” Amy Tan, the author, gives a different, a more upbeat outlook on the various forms of English that immigrants speak as they adapt to the American culture. Using simple language to develop her argument, she casually communicates to the audience rather than informing which helps the audience understand what is being presented at ease. Her mother plays an important role in her outlook of language, because she helps her realize that language not only allows one to be a part of a culture but create one’s identity in society. Amy Tan shares her real life stories about cultural racism and the struggle to survive in America as an immigrant without showing any emotions, which is a wonderful epiphany for the audience in realizing

    Read More

  • ELT Cultural Representation

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... (2001) suggests placing fluent international English speakers using English for cross-cultural communication into the central circle without mentioning they are native or non-native. Modiano’s model is of great value because the global use of the English language calls for global cultural awareness rather than focusing only to the target language culture, which is American or British only.

    Read More

More about Description of Alexie's New Autoethnography

Open Document