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Similarities and differences between cultures
Similarities and differences between cultures
Comparing and contrasting cultures
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“I am breaking down the door.” Superman is breaking down a door to catch a villain. In the essay “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, there is an extended metaphor. Sherman Alexie has a connection with the fictional character, Superman. Indians were expected to fail. Superman was expected to please people. Alexie had a connection with Superman. “The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose.” Alexie and Superman have to work together. Teamwork results in awards. “At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs…” Alexie is like a paragraph in his family. Alexie is like a paragraph to Superman. Indians were expected to fail. “... we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world.” Indians were not treated right many
years ago. People thought Indians were supposed to be stupid. “We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid.” Once again, Indians were expected to be stupid. Superman was supposed to please people ,but he fail. Superman was expected to please people. “Superman fails!” Superman was expected to please people ,but he failed. Alexie is used to failing. Superman never fails to please people. “One failure and you forget all the good I’ve done.” Superman never fails at his job. He fails one time ,and people forget all the good he has done. Sherman Alexie was an Indian when Indians were not treated right. Alexie had a connection with Superman. Indians were expected to be stupid. Superman had to please people. Superman failed at pleasing people one time.
Sherman Alexie illustrates through the short story, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” how he developed the same reading and writing skills taught in a classroom solely from a Superman comic book. Alexie’s situation was unique from not only non-Indians but Indians as well. Alexie’s family was not privileged, which was the case for most of the people who lived on the Indian reservation. They, Indians, had access to very limited resources which ceased any aspirations they had at being successful. Alexie, as a young Indian boy, was not supposed to be educated by the societal norms expressed of his era. However, Alexie refused to fall victim to a stereotypical uneducated Indian boy. As a product of an Indian reservation, Sherman Alexie informs his audience, mostly dedicated to Indian children that he did not fail simply because of the joy he had for reading and writing.
Educational systems in America are impaired, and the very educators that are meant to teach are the one’s pulling it down. That is the apparent message that Davis Guggenheim attempts to convey in his documentary “Waiting for Superman”. He uses many strategies to get his message across. Some of these include cartoons, children, and those reformers that are attempting to pull the system out of the ditch that it has found its way into. He makes his point very well, and uses facts and figures correctly. He does leave out some of the opinions of the opposing views, but it does not take away from his point that the educational system in America is in need of repair.
out against the injustice and urged the Indians, “to unite in claiming a common and equal right in
Sherman Alexis a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian who wrote “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and me”. In the short story explains how he learned to read and write even with limited resources on the reservation where he grew up. He starts his story by using popular culture describing how he learned how to read using a comic book about “Superman”. He also explained why Indian children were never supposed to amount to anything in life and that they were supposed to be dumb among Non-Indians. He wanted to let other Indian students that reading is what saved his life. It opened up his mind and made him a better person today.
The author warns us in the foreword that the book is not neutral and fair-minded study of the removal of the Indians which in its self would make historians pass judgment. The author has predetermined that white Americans were at fault and that the Indian were faultless. W...
The quote “i read with equal parts joy and desperation “, from the passage superman and me by sherman alexie, helps to refine and develop his claims and further the story . this quote he talks about reading out of desperation ,what he means by this is that reading is the only this quote furthers the claim by emphasizing the fact that he has to learn to read to save his life.
American Indians shaped their critique of modern America through their exposure to and experience with “civilized,” non-Indian American people. Because these Euro-Americans considered traditional Indian lifestyle savage, they sought to assimilate the Indians into their civilized culture. With the increase in industrialization, transportation systems, and the desire for valuable resources (such as coal, gold, etc.) on Indian-occupied land, modern Americans had an excuse for “the advancement of the human race” (9). Euro-Americans moved Indians onto reservations, controlled their education and practice of religion, depleted their land, and erased many of their freedoms. The national result of this “conquest of Indian communities” was a steady decrease of Indian populations and drastic increase in non-Indian populations during the nineteenth century (9). It is natural that many American Indians felt fearful that their culture and people were slowly vanishing. Modern America to American Indians meant the destruction of their cultural pride and demise of their way of life.
...Indians ended up in massacre. Their cultural process of doing things ended up enabled the social construction of Indians as the lowest in the social hierarchy.
As America moved westward the Indians had finally run out of places to live. The Indians were moved to reservations, and the parents were convinced that their kids could develop better lives by abiding and living as a white American in the east. After they reached the east they were looked upon as savages, uncivilized and dirty. As they walked through a town they were looked upon as being the conquered and mocked. Children at the sight of them had much fear. People did not understand the culture of the Indians.
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
...ative Americans were kind and polite to everyone and wear raised to see everyone equally. The Americans took advantage of their politeness and monopolized them because they knew that they did not know what they were doing. Once again this shows that it was not the Indians were “savages” but in fact the Americans were.
“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.”
...ribal Indians had to face yet once time passed, all was forgotten and now American Indians continue to be oppressed yet they are not speaking or activating on their struggles as they once did.
The Natives faced many hardships during their lifetime, including that the Americans were not the nicest people especially towards the Natives. “Americans and Indians
The early and sustained policies of the United States against the Indians are irreversible and negatively impacted the Indian culture because white settlers forced the change of Indian society by bullying them to accept the American views of civilization, religion, and government.... ... middle of paper ... ... The Web. The Web.