What You Pawn I Will Redeem By Sherman Alexie

In the short story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”, Sherman Alexie gave insight about Indians living in a white dominated culture. The main character, Jackson Jackson, experienced a cultural hardship because he was an Indian who was struggling to connect with his culture. However, he finds a piece of his ancestry to help him to connect with a part of his past. One theme throughout the story is the desire for one to relate and belong to his or her culture, as exemplified by a homeless Indian who struggled to reconnect with his culture because he belonged to a minority group.
The story was set in Seattle and showed the life of an Indian that was trying to find a connection with his culture. Jackson Jackson did not see much meaning to his life

until he came across his grandmother’s regalia in a pawn shop. The pawnshop owner gave him twenty-four hours to get the amount of money needed to buy the regalia. From then on, he used several different methods to get or win money. However, every time he got money, he either spent it on food or alcohol for him and his friends. At the end of the twenty-four hours, Jackson had the same amount of money that he started with, but the pawnshop owner gave him the regalia. Jackson left the store feeling connected to his grandmother.
At the beginning of the story, Jackson said, “I am living proof of the horrible damage that colonialism has done to us Skins. But I’m not going to let you know how scared I sometimes get of history and its ways. I’m a strong man, and I know that silence is the best method of dealing with white folks” (1). He admitted to being colonized by the Americans, and he knew that he had to be silent in order to keep his secrets from the whites. Even though the Indians had developed this strategy, this did not allow them to remember and share their past because they, in a way, were forced to remain silent.
In addition, Jackson explained how both he and other Indians missed their traditions and what they once had. “The Aleuts sang their strange and beautiful songs. I listened. They sang about my grandmother and about their grandmothers. They were lonesome for the cold and the snow. I was lonesome for everything” (11). While they lived among the whites, there lives were no longer the same as what they once had been. They longed to live among their tribe again with the same traditions and practices. Jackson felt that pull to belong to his culture and his past.
Jackson happened to come across his grandmother’s regalia in a pawnshop and intended to buy it. “I hadn’t seen that regalia in person ever. I’d only seen photographs of my grandmother dancing in it. And those were taken before somebody stole it from her, fifty years ago. But it sure looked like my memory of it, and it had all the same color feathers and beads that my family sewed into our powwow regalia” (2). Once Jackson found the regalia, this opened up a new opportunity for him to remember a piece of his past.
As Jackson started to find ways to earn the money, he began to think about certain things of his grandmother.

“I smoked it all the way down and thought about my grandmother. Her name was Agnes, and she died of breast cancer when I was fourteen” (4). As he thought about his grandmother and her cancer, he remembered his dad saying that Agnes may have gotten cancer from the uranium mine that had been located on the reservation. After Jackson thought about how her cancer may have spread, he said, “I wondered whether I could bring my grandmother back to life if I bought back her regalia” (4). One way that his statement could be interpreted is that if he got her regalia back, he hoped to be able to learn more about his grandmother and her life. While he was not actually bringing her “back to life”, he would be bringing a part of her history and culture back into the family, which would be a way for him to reconnect with and to celebrate her life.
Not only did Jackson start to think about his past, he also began to participate in one of his family’s customs by giving away part of the money he had won. Jackson had gotten the money was from a winning lottery ticket; however, he gave a portion of that money to the woman at the register that sold him the ticket. The woman did not want to take the money, but Jackson said, “No, it’s tribal. It’s an Indian thing. When you win, you’re supposed to share with your family” (6). This circumstance exemplifies that Jackson connected a little more with his Indian

culture.
By the end of the story, Jackson had the same amount of money that he started, but the pawnshop owner gave him the regalia anyway. After getting the regalia, Jackson said, “I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me. I knew I was that yellow bead in part. Outside, I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the intersection. Pedestrians stopped. Cars stopped. The city stopped. They all watched me dance with my grandmother. I was my grandmother, dancing” (13). Once Jackson finally got his grandmother’s regalia, he finally felt connected with her. He felt like he was a part of his original culture again.
Overall, this story showed the theme of the cultural hardship, the innate desire that an Indian faced to reconnect with his family and culture, in the midst of American culture. At first, Jackson did not seem like he had an interest in his Indian culture. It appeared as though he just kept silent about it, but after finding the regalia, this gave him a way to remember and connect with his past. In the end, Jackson was able to connect with his grandmother and felt like he was a part of his family’s culture.