The Struggle for Self-Identity in "Indian Education".
Sherman Alexie, in "Indian Education", writes about his youth while attending school on an Indian Reservation, and later, in the white public school system. He speaks of the troubled times in his early education that seem to echo throughout both primary and secondary school. Not only did Alexie have trouble adjusting to Native American behavior and ideology in the reservation school, but he also faced the problem upon entrance to the white school system of how Native Americans were viewed by white society. "Indian Education" presents a man struggling with his identity coupled with a show of contempt not only for the Native Americans, but also for the way in which Native American stereotypes pervade white cultural beliefs.
In first grade, Alexie experiences a broad range of torment at the hands of his classmates. One can derive that from this early treatment at such an impressionable age, Alexie began to develop his contempt for Native Americans and their actions. It is also apparent that at this time he begins his struggle for self-identity. Alexie states that his " hair was too short and my U.S. Government glasses were horn-rimmed, ugly, and all that first winter in school, the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the playground to the other. They pushed me down, buried me in the snow until I couldn't breathe, thought I"d never breathe again." (483). It can be assumed that the other boys had longer hair and did not wear glasses, which would make Alexie feel out of place from the very beginning and not part of the gang. Further, he was constantly being chased away and buried by the other boys, which enforces the fact even more that he was not welcome at the school and, by default, on the reservation as a whole. In addition, while in seventh grade, Alexie distances himself even more from the tribe by kissing a white girl as he " leaned through the basement window of the HUD house- (485) which he occupied along with his parents.