The majority of Spokane Native Americans portrayed in Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, are described throughout the book as uneducated individuals who feel the daily effects of their financial shortcomings; many of the Spokane Indians that live on the Wellpinit Reservation turn to alcohol and drugs to forget about their dark depressing lives, while other Spokane Natives would rather end their lives for they believe that the future holds nothing but inevitable failure. The Spokane Natives inherited their struggles from their parents and their parent’s parents, going all the way to the beginning of when the European invasion started. Many children of natives just accept their dreadful future, without any desire of changing their future,…show more content… Mr.P then goes on to say that Arnold “…needs to leave this reservation”(Alexie 42) and then goes on to say,“All of your friends have given up”(Alexie 42). Without Mr.P’s words of wisdom, Arnold would not have gone to Reardan High School, and the story would have fallen apart, but luckily Mr.P talks to Arnold and convinces him to go to Reardan High School. Secondly, Arnold chooses to go to Reardan High School; Arnold shows a tremendous amount of courage by going to Reardan, for he will be experiencing an entirely new environment full of white racist children that will treat Arnold as an oddity. On Arnold’s first day at Reardan High School, his dad drops him off at school, where he waits for the doors to open, and Arnold says,“Then the white kids begin arriving for school. They surround me”(Alexie 56). Arnold is a Native American in a predominantly white school where the only Native American that they have seen is the racist, stereotypical Indian mascot; the children stared at Arnold as if he were “…Bigfoot or a UFO”(Alexie 56). Being treated as a mythical creature is not the worst part about going to Reardan for Arnold; being treated as a deserter back in
