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Alcoholism introduction research paper
Native american alcoholism essay
Alcoholism introduction research paper
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“Alcoholism is an epidemic among Native Americans”(KCTS9). Many people believe that alcoholism is in the Native’s blood, but it is truly just a situational problem. On the reservations a majority of families are poverty ridden, and these families normally stay on the reservation their whole lives. Junior, a 14 year old Spokane Indian, manages to break the cycle of hopelessness and alcoholism in his family by leaving the reservation school to go to the white school in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Another character that Sherman Alexie brings to life, Arnold, is the typical alcoholic indian stereotype who allows alcohol to affect the course of his life in the movie Smoke Signals. In both Smoke Signals and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, author Sherman Alexie shows how alcohol on the reservation can cause accidents, funerals, and heartache.
Nobody is perfect and every person has their fair share of accidents, but in the movie Smoke Signals Victor’s dad, Arnold, makes a mistake that changes his life. On a drunken stumble Arnold shoots a roman candle into Thomas’ parent’s house on Independence Day in 1986. It is an accident that caused by his intoxication, and an
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More specifically in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior talks about the many funerals he has attended in his lifetime. A majority of these funerals he is attending are and effect of alcohol related accidents. His grandma is killed by a drunk driver, Eugene is shot in the face over over one last sip of cheap wine, and his sister is burned alive because she becomes too drunk to save herself. After all of the comparisons that junior has made between white people and indians, he decides that the amount of funerals they have been to is “Really the biggest difference between indians and white people” (Alexi
would sign any treaty for her (Alexie).” However, alcohol only made their lives worse. Native Americans throughout the story began to realize that sticking to tradition was more important than following the negative roads of white American culture.
The novel The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian and the movie Smoke Signals both originated from the mind of a man named Sherman Alexie. The novel and the movie have some similarities, but each similarity has a subtle difference. Some subtle differences between the topics in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian, and the movie Smoke Signals is the emphasis the author puts on each of the topics. There are a few topics that are shown in both the novel and the movie such as racism, identity, and loss. These topics are expressed very strongly in the novel but are vague in the movie.
Alcohol was introduced into Native American culture many years ago and has been a source of suffering since. In Flight, Zits states that his father “was more in love with vodka than with him and his mother,” and it is this statement that helps drive the story along (Sherman 4). Zits addresses the stereotype that come along with being Native American. The major one mentioned in the story is that Native Americans consume a lot of alcohol. This follows what is known as the firewater myth, which says that Native Americans “…may be genetically predisposed to crave ever increasing doses of alcohol…”—this was and still is believed by several researchers (Lamarine). This alcoholism leads to instability within homes and leaves the child to suffer. A perfect example of this is when Zits says that his father “vanished like a magician” shortly after he was born (Sherman 5). It was fear that made Michael’s father run, but it was fear mixed with alcohol that...
Sherman Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene tribal member (Sherman Alexie). He began his personal battle with substance abuse in 1985 during his freshman year at Jesuit Gonzaga University. The success of his first published work in 1990 incentivized Alexie to overcome his alcohol abuse. “In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations” (Sherman Alexie). When developing his characters, Alexie often gives them characteristics of substance abuse, poverty and criminal behaviors in an effort to evoke sadness with his readers. Alexie utilizes other art forms, such as film, music, cartoons, and the print media, to bombard mainstream distortion of Indian culture and to redefine Indianness. “Both the term Indian and the stereotypical image are created through histories of misrepresentation—one is a simulated word without a tribal real and the other an i...
Arnold Spirit is fourteen years old, and he has already attended forty-two funerals. “And you know what the worst part is? The unhappy part? About 90 percent of the deaths have been because of alcohol.” In the acclaimed novel and award winning audiobook The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, author Sherman Alexie tells the realistic, yet fictional, account of Arnold Spirit, better known as “Junior” on the Spokane Indian reservation where he lives. Junior’s family even expected him to “croak” at six months old when doctors cut open his skull to remove the water in his brain. But, he lives. ...
Junior says that he has been to 42 funerals and that, “About 90 percent of the deaths had been because of alcohol.” This shows that Junior should be majorly affected by alcohol because the closest people to him died because of alcohol. His sister, his grandma and Eugene have all died because of alcohol. In almost all Indian homes in his tribe someone drinks in their house. Junior overcame it by getting away from it and going to Rearden where alcoholism is not an issue. The importance of alcoholism in his life is so that he could get away and find hope although most native americans face it in their lives and do not get away from it and it becomes a problem their whole
Have you ever wanted something really badly, but couldn’t afford it? This is a common occurrence, but what about food? Have you ever went to be hungry because you couldn’t afford to eat? Unfortunately, Junior, the main character in the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, felt exactly this way for food. Even though Junior didn’t have as many resources as the other “white kids,” he still chose to look at the positives. This novel shows that even in times of great hardship, people can still choose to have hope and look at the good in their lives.
Sherman Alexie has made a name for himself as a prolific contemporary Native American writer, taking inspiration from his own past and experiences with modern Indian life. While there are many enduring themes throughout Alexie's writings: Native identity, modern reservation life, alcohol abuse etc. when it comes to his collection War Dances, the most apparent motif is fatherhood. Community and family are the heart of Native American cultures, with the father archetype holding great honor and expectation. However with alcohol abuse, poverty, and school drop rates running rampant through Native American reservations it is no surprise that more and more Native children are growing up in broken homes. In an alarming poll by the Kids Count Data Center, a national census, in 2011 out of 355,000 polled 53% live in single-parent homes. The lack of a leader, a strong male role model is a major factor in many of the abysmal statistics facing modern reservation children. The despotism of Native American culture has always been based on the deprivation of power, status, equality, and home. This presents a paucity of male dominance, many of these men feel helpless in a society where they have no real identity. They are forced to live in the idea they have no personal potential so it is understandable why the majority of Indian males may feel inadequate and unable to care for their families. Alexie himself struggled in a home with an alcoholic and neglectful father, and like many Native children he almost gave into a similar chain of abuse and alcoholism. This is what inspires him to write, to expose the corroding inner workings of the modern Native peoples brought on by centuries of autocracy. Oppression and the idea of fatherhood is a common ...
SAMHSA’s expert panel also put together a fact sheet about homelessness among Native Americans, they state facts such as how “behavioral health problems, disrupted families, domestic violence, and housing shortages” play a major role in homelessness (1). However, Native Americans face even more challenges such as “acculturation, traditional values at odds with modern life, racism and stereotyping, and unresolved grief from historical trauma” (1). There are many stereotypes about Native Americans. Some of those include being alcoholics, gamblers, and not being mentally stable. Jackson, the main character in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” is homeless out on the streets in Seattle. He has a drinking problem, which has given him health problems, and he doesn’t spend the money that he receives wisely. This shows that the stereotypes that are associated with Native Americans are, in some cases, extremely likely to be true. Homelessness and stereotypes are the central points for this short story and it is brought up throughout and through the Homeless in Seattle painting. To coincide with those stereotypes, the SAMHSA conducted research on the health of homeless Native Americans. They have concluded that “high rates of alcohol and substance abuse, mental health disorders, suicide, violence, and behavior-related chronic diseases in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are well documented” (7). Many of the health problems that Native Americans face are because of their own individual behavioral health problems. In other words, the way they consume alcohol causes many of their health problems. The SAMHSA has found out that for Native Americans, “the alcohol-related death rate is over five times greater than the U.S. rate for all races”
Adolescents experience a developmental journey as they transition from child to adult, and in doing so are faced with many developmental milestones. Physical, cognitive, social and emotional changes are occurring during this tumultuous stage of life, and making sense of one’s self and identity becomes a priority. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian addresses the challenges of adolescence in an engaging tale, but deals with minority communities and cultures as well.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is a humorous and intuitive novel written by Sherman Alexie. The reader gets an insight into the everyday life of a fourteen year old hydrocephalic Indian boy named Arnold Spirit, also referred to as Junior Spirit. He is living on the Spokane Indian reservation and is seen as an outcast by all the other Indians, due to his medical condition. Against all odds, Arnold expands his hope, leaves his school on the reservation and faces new obstacles to obtain a more promising future at a school off the reservation. The novel is told through Arnold’s voice, thoughts, actions, and experiences.
Growing up on an Indian Reservation is a tough thing to do. Everyone is poor, and almost every adult is always drunk and unhappy. Junior’s own father suffers from alcoholism. His father will sometimes forget about Junior and never shows up to give him a ride home. Junior is then forced to walk or hitchhike all the way back to the Reservation. His father also constantly spends all of their money on alcohol, even during the holidays, “...Dad did what he always does when we don’t have enough money. He took what little money we did have and ran away to get drunk” (Alexie 150). Junior’s unfortunate understanding of alcoholism makes him see the world as an unfair place. He knows that he never wants to be like his father when he grows up. Alcohol also causes a lot of deaths in Junior’s life. His sister died in a terrible fire because she was too drunk to escape her burning RV. Junior is let out of school early because of his sister’s death. He has to wait for his father to come get him, and he laughs and he cannot stop laughing at the thought of his dad also dying on his way to pick Junior up, “...it’s not too comforting to learn that your sister was TOO FREAKING DRUNK to feel any pain when she BURNED TO DEATH! And for some reason, that thought made me laugh even harder, (Alexie 205). When he finally finds out about how his sister dies, he cannot help but laugh even more. Every Indian dies because of alcohol, and Junior finds it funny
Ghosh, R. P. (2012, February 11). Native Americans: The Tragedy of Alcoholism. Retrieved May 21, 2014, from International Business Times: http://www.ibtimes.com/native-americans-tragedy-alcoholism-214046
Alcohol is a substance that has greatly affected many Native families as you have stated before. This is shown in the film when Arnold’s alcoholism leads to him being abusive to both his wife and son Victor. This leads to Victor destroying his father’s alcohol due to all of the damage it has caused his family. This is one of the reasons why Arnold ended up leaving his family on the reservation. The film also incorporates a few humorous jokes in the film based on what happened to the Natives due to white settlers. A few of the jokes included in the film involved signing papers. It is a well-known fact that white settlers used the signing of contracts by Natives as ways to take their land. This is brought up satirically in the film when they are trying to get a ride from someone who’s supposed to be their
After a fellow Native American man is describing his father’s ritual, he exclaims “I mean, come on, I’m a loser…my whole family is filled with losers”(36). The parallel structure of the two sentences creates what the man believes to be a truthful statement masked by a jesting tone. In order to cope with the man’s true thoughts on his Native American family, he comically pawns off an insult. When the narrator is wondering the hospital, another individual asked why his dad had to get his feet cut off. The man asks if it was caused by “Vodka straight up or with a nostalgia chaser?” He replies, “Both.” “Natural causes for an Indian”(37). The short dialect the characters have illustrates the commonness of alcoholism in Native American society. The casualness in which they talk about such a detrimental issue indicates that they are coping with their cultural problem by acting like its normal, which disassociates themselves from other Native Americans. When they continue to talk to one another, the narrator thinks, “This guy was talking out of his ass. I liked him immediately”(36). Both men don’t fully understand their Native American integrity, so they are embarrassed by it. In order to ease their embarrassment they say things on a whim, never knowing if they are real aspects of Native American culture or not. By “talking out of his ass” they are able to mask the fact that they feel a loss of identity with their own