“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie was the first book I read in high school, during my freshman year English class.
My eighth grade English teacher told our class the texts we would read in high school would be much more challenging to interact with. I was anxious for the beginning of the next semester because of this, among other reasons, but I was pleased “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was a graphic novel.
I loved reading comic books in middle school for the fun illustrations and text bubbles, so it was the perfect book to transition to a high school curriculum.
The 2007 graphic novel is written from a first-person perspective about Junior, who grows up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and chooses to go to a public high school outside of it. The novel is based on Alexie’s real experiences surrounding poverty and alcoholism. He left the same reservation as a teenager, according to a Dec. 13, 2016 Dallas Morning News article.
Aside from it being a funny and easy read, the graphic novel was my first exposure to the reality of many Native Americans’ lives.
To put things in perspective, I attended a poorly ranked middle school in my district. A student I was shadowing on a high school tour actually pointed at a desk and asked if my classrooms had “one of these.”
My history classes touched on the past, such as Genghis Khan sharing DNA with millions of people, but I had virtually no knowledge about how the past affected Native Americans.
Reservations were first created to relocate Native Americans so European Americans could settle on their lands, but 13% of the American Indian and Alaska Native population still reside on reservations, according to the 2020 Census from The Office of Minority Health.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” taught me that people I’d never encountered or learned much about were still being affected by the United States’ history. The world wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, as I had previously thought.
This graphic novel is first on a list of the top 100 most banned and challenged books from 2010 to 2019, according to the American Library Association.
In the story, the protagonist, Junior, attends a predominantly white high school that has a Native American mascot.
This allowed me to widen my viewpoint on prejudice against Native Americans that is overlooked in my own community.
It wasn’t until I read the graphic novel that I realized my high school’s mascot, a Cherokee until it was changed in 2020, was in fact racist.
Knowing “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is deprived from other students’ education nationwide genuinely upsets me. It should be taught in every high school’s English classes because while reading the novel, students transport themselves into a world where they don’t resemble the main character. In general, I think it’s crucial for students to dissect their own racial biases and judgements toward a group of people they may know very little about.
Parents condemned it for being a required reading for freshmen at the Midland Public Schools because of the content Alexie wrote, according to Marshall Libraries.
Book bans are justified as a means to protect children from mature topics, but I find it amusing that many parents believe high schoolers won’t come across the content anyway - puberty, alcohol, slurs, violence and more.
It’s straight up censorship to restrict students from reading material they can feel seen by or learn about experiences they’ve never gone through.
I found myself relating to Junior in many ways, even though I’m not Native American.
He was the only Native American at his high school and, similarly, in middle school I was the only Asian student in my grade, other than my cousin. My white peers in high school English classes received a more advanced education prior, so I had imposter syndrome every time I stepped foot in those classrooms. The graphic novel resonated with me when Junior chooses to leave the reservation school for a better education.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was unfortunately the only book in four years of my English classes that was written by a Native American author. Banning this graphic novel is discriminatory, since it is one of the most popular young adult novels about the Native American experience. While Alexie helped readers like me acknowledge his unique experience, it’s also a form of representation for other Native American teenagers navigating through life.
Some parents believe they have the authority to decide what their children are exposed to in education. However, they should accept the fact that young adults need books to turn them into well-rounded members of society. Reading literature about a person of color or written by a person of color can teach young adults about empathy regarding all racial backgrounds.
In an environment that fosters learning, representation matters in everything high school students consume and restricting them will only do more harm than good.
