The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

In the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie writes the story of Arnold Spirit, a Native American teenager. He is in a family who is not gifted with the things many Americans take for granted, such as a sustainable access to food, or a family that always cares for him. He has many negative experiences along his journey, changing to a different school and learning how to grieve with many deaths, but through all of it, stereotypes and assumptions about who he is make his life miserable. Throughout the story, Alexie uses Arnold’s experiences to showcase how stereotypes and preconceived notions of people and social groups can be a negative impact on lives.
Alexie first shows us, through Arnold’s experiences, how professionals

and key society members are changed in their actions based on the preconceived notions of certain groups, in this case, they are based off Native American heritage. In fact, these experiences are so important, that the first one is on the second page of the book. “Our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain”. This shows how what many see as a harmless, often joking stereotype of people of a different race, can have real consequences, in this case, a professional quite literally did half the job he was supposed to in trying to subdue Arnold’s pain. On page 46, Arnold experiences the negative effects of stereotyping through his dad’s experience. “Filled with farmers and rednecks and racist cops who stop every Indian that drives through. During one week when I was little, Dad got stopped three times for DWI: Driving While Indian”. This stereotype, often found in sports mascots and somehow embedded in our culture, of Native Americans being uncivilized and dangerous people, has a greater effect than if your favorite sports team wins or loses. It affects how our entire society sees people we associate with that stereotype, and being that those who work for law enforcement are members of our society as well, these stereotypes can have disastrous consequences, likely greater than a parking ticket.
Another way Alexie shows us how stereotypes are significantly damaging to many is with Arnold’s interactions in relation to his peers at Reardan.

Near the beginning of Arnold’s experience at Reardan, on page 64, Roger makes an extremely racist and offensive ‘joke’. Arnold reacts with, “I felt like Roger had kicked me in the face. That was the most racist thing I'd ever heard in my life. Roger and his friends were laughing like crazy”. Because Roger intended to hurt Arnold when he said it, it wasn’t entirely stereotyping that caused Roger to say something so insensitive, however, a significant part of it is. What Roger did was use a stereotype to intentionally insult Arnold, and that is the inherent problem. If we didn’t have all these offensive assumptions about people and what the associate with then maybe insults like this would be less common. Another peer relation that Arnold has at Rearden happens slightly later in the story, on page 119, where Arnold is explaining what his classmates think of him. “Everybody in Reardan assumed we Spokanes made lots of money because we had a casino. But that casino, mismanaged and too far away from major highways, was a money-losing business”, and “White people everywhere have always believed that the government just gives money to Indians”. These two stereotypes are not inherently harmful in this situation; however, this misinformation could be dangerous in a different scenario. The stereotype being that all Indians are rich because of

the government and casinos. Being that this is simply false information, it is yet another way we assume what people’s lives are like without having all of the context.
The final major way Alexie shows how judging based on stereotypes is harmful is by showing how Arnold’s self-esteem is compromised due to all of these assumptions that are made about him.

With an interaction with his parents on page 45, it is obvious that Arnold and his parents don’t exactly have much self-confidence, “Who has the most hope? ‘White people,’ my parents said at the same time. That's exactly what I thought they were going to say”. What this shows is all these stereotypes about Native Americans that I’ve mentioned, as well as many more, are causing this family to lose hope in themselves. When you lose confidence in your ability to succeed, you are guaranteed to fail. Yet another example of this is on page 83, where Arnold narrates “I woke up on the reservation as an Indian, and somewhere on the road to Reardan, I became something less than Indian. And once I arrived at Reardan, I became something less than less than less than Indian”. What we see is a total loss for his own self-worth. When a person feels like they are not important or they have no value, then they truly have lost hope. In this case Arnold seems to recover, thanks to his girlfriend and basketball skills, however, it does nothing to negate the fact that all of this depression that the character is facing is no doubt due to the stereotypes of him and assumptions that were made about

him.
Throughout Arnold’s story, it is clear that he is stereotyped, to an almost unimaginable extent. Judgments are made about him before he gets a chance to show people who he is. Society acts in ways that puts him at a disadvantage. Above all, these stereotypes and preconceived notions change how Arnold thinks of himself, and you have to believe in yourself before you can believe in someone else or before you can accomplish anything. Through the story, Alexie uses Arnold’s terrible experiences with society to illustrate how these assumptions that people make, often subconsciously, are detrimental to the emotional and physical safety of all human beings, not just Arnold.