Native American Analysis

Native Americans have historically had extreme difficulty with alcohol. Nearly 12% of Native American deaths are alcohol-related, with traffic accidents, liver disease, homicide and suicide being the most frequent causes of death. In his work, Native American author Sherman Alexie writes about both alcoholism and Native American life, within and outside of the reservation. In “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”, part of the larger collection of short stories entitled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the narrator maps his troubled relationship with his father and his father’s alcoholism, while Alexie explores the modern Native American search for

cultural identity. Alexie uses the complicated relationship between the narrator and his father to comment on the Native American identity.
As Thomas Builds‑the‑Fire retells, Victor’s (the narrator) father was “charged ... with attempted murder. Then they plea-bargained that down to assault with a deadly weapon. Then they plea-bargained that down to being an Indian in the Twentieth Century. And he got two years in Walla Walla” (Smoke Signals). He got out and hitchhiked to see Jimi Hendrix play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, claiming that “[a]fter all the shit I’d been through, … Jimi must have known I was there in the crowd to play something like that. It was exactly how I felt” (Alexie 326). The narrator writes that he “[didn’t] have any clue about what it meant for [his] father to be the only Indian who saw Jimi Hendrix play at Woodstock" (Alexie 329), but can see it meant a great deal in the way his father obsessed over the song. As a result, however, the narrator references his father’s drinking, his parents’ troubled marriage, and their eventual divorce.
Though not entirely to blame, Jimi Hendrix was partly at fault for the narrator’s father’s drinking. The narrator writes that “Jimi Hendrix and my father were drinking buddies. Jimi Hendrix waited for my father to come home after a long night of drinking” (Alexie 326). The narrator would put on the tape, just as his father walked inside. His father would cry and sing along with Jimi, before passing out on the table. After feeling guilty, his father would tell the narrator stories as an apology. Their relationship was built upon a ritual where the narrator felt the only way he could connect with his father was through drinking and music. The personification of Jimi Hendrix’s music as a “drinking buddy”, however, creates a disconnection between the two that only serves to alienate and drive the narrator’s father further away. Alexie, for his part, includes this theme in his writing to campaign against the stereotypes that arise with alcohol and Native Americans. He argues that “alcoholism is epidemic among Native Americans, and anybody who says otherwise is either drunk or they’re lying or romantic fools” (Conversations). The anger and resentment Alexie feels towards alcohol is understandable. Both his parents were alcoholics, his sister was drunk when she died in a fire in her home, and Alexie himself struggled with alcohol. In response to another of Alexie’s work that continues this theme, Meagan Lacy notes that “Alexie illustrates why children of alcoholics cannot be universally defined and how it is that some are able to avoid the same fate as their parents. The reason, quite simply, is that not all alcoholics are the same” (Alexie 355). Thus, Alexie explores alcoholism within his writing through the narrator.
In addition, the narrator’s father love of Jimi Hendrix also caused some arguments between the narrator’s parents. The narrator recounts a trip in which the three of them, the narrator, his father, and his mother, drove to Seattle to see Jimi Hendrix’s grave. His father notes that “[o]nly the good die young” (Alexie 329), to which his mother replies that “[o]nly the crazy people choke to death on their own vomit” (Ibid). The narrator is accustomed to the argument that follows, stating that he was “used to these battles” (Ibid). The reality of the situation depicts a family marred by constant fighting where the child can see just how bad the nature of his parent’s relationship is. The narrator does not try to intervene or stop the fighting, he just simply stands back and watches. This defeat and acceptance results in an air of despondency for the three of them.
In the end, this obsession results in the divorce between the narrator’s parent and the departure of his father.

The narrator’s had father bought a motorcycle to get away from the arguing, leaving for hours and days at a time. He gets in a terrible wreck where he ends up in the hospital. However, even though the narrator’s mother had decided that she no longer wanted to be married to him, she still visited him daily. Despite everything, she still loved him but recognized that their limits had been reached. When his father got better, he left. From his father, the narrator learned that “[i]nstead of remembering the bad things, remember what happened immediately before” (Alexie 330). For the narrator, this served in protecting him from the pain his father caused when he left. When the narrator asked if it was Jimi Hendrix’s fault, his mother notes that “[p]art of it, yeah. This might be the only marriage broken up by a dead guitar player" (Alexie 330). She recognizes, however, that it was not entirely Jimi’s fault, as she and the narrator’s father were also

responsible.
Incidentally, the narrator is stuck between two cultures, his mother’s Native American values and his father’s American influences. Both parents are responsible for the dissolution of the marriage. His mother was the much more traditional of the two, adhering to the customs of their people. After the divorce, the narrator states that “[s]he travelled to powwows, started to dance again” (Alexie 330). When describing the narrator’s mother, his father notes that “she was the kind of woman who could make buffalo walk on up to her and give up their lives" (Alexie 327) and remembers her as “best traditional dancer in the world” (Alexie 330). Most of the mentions of the narrator’s mother in the text reference the traditional Native American lifestyle. This association highlights the differences between the narrator’s parents, as his father was the complete opposite of his mother. They loved each other, however, “with a ferocity that eventually forced her to leave him” (Alexie 327).
On the other hand, the narrator’s father represents the American influences placed upon Native Americans.

Just like the narrator, his father was caught between his culture and mainstream society. Right away, the narrator clarifies that “[d]uring the sixties, my father was the perfect hippie, since all the hippies were trying to be Indians” (Alexie 325). The irony here is that the hippies opposed the Vietnam war and advocated peace, while Native Americans were warriors. The narrator continues, begging the question, “[b]ecause of that, how could anyone recognize that my father was making a social statement?” (Ibid) To the rest of the world, the narrator’s father was just another hippie and were blind to the social statement he was trying to make on behalf of Native Americans. When the image of his father beating a National Guard private makes it to the headlines, he is remembered for “a peaceful gathering turn[ing] into a Native uprising” (Alexie 326). As a result, his father clings onto Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a time of injustice and unrest. Instead of being inspired and changing for the better, the narrator’s father falls deeper into alcohol, stating that he “ain’t interested in what’s real. [He’s] interested in how things should be” (Alexie 330). When the narrator expresses his disappointment over not having a war to fight, his father scolds him, remarking “"why the hell would you want to fight a war for this country? It's been trying

to kill Indians since the very beginning” (Alexie 328). Despite his feelings towards the country, the narrator adopts its lifestyle. The narrator explains how assimilation works through abandonment, stating that “Indian men who abandon their children are treated worse than white fathers who do the same thing. It's because white men have been doing that forever and Indian men have just learned how” (Alexie 330). Through the narrator and his father, Alexie shows how with each generation, the traditions of the Native Americans fade in favor of the growing American influences.
In “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”, Sherman Alexie explores the identity crisis that arises in the growing influence of American culture in the Native American community. He shows how the narrator handles the differences between his parents, his father’s alcoholism, and his father’s eventual abandonment.