Sherman Alexie Skeleton

Cale Houghton

Introduction:

In my experience, how Native Americans live is not widely known by people who have not been in reservations. Sure, some people have probably read a newspaper or magazine article about reservations. But all most people know about Native American’s is that they are poor, and the reservations have drug and alcohol problems. That is if they know anything at all. Some people don’t know anything about Native Americans besides that they used to wear headdresses and live in longhouses. Because people already have these misconceptions and negative stereotypes about Native Americans, you would think that a Native American author would want to give an accurate representation of Native Americans, while dissuading stereotypes.

In contrast to this though, Sherman Alexie’s story “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore”, is a Native American author giving the story of basketball players on a reservation. His story describes Native Americans as lazy, drunk, and poor. The reason this is troubling is I would expect an author to have pride in their culture, and try to represent their people well. But Alexie actually makes Native Americans seem worse than people already view them, instead of better. So, if people are impressionable on their opinion on Native Americans, but Sherman Alexie, a Native American, reinforces negative stereotypes of Native Americans, then why does he not represent his own race in a positive way?

I think that the reason Alexie doesn’t try to dissuade stereotypes is because his story is not meant for people on the reservation, it’s meant for the kids on the reservation. I think that his reason for wanting this book to be read by kids is that he thinks the kids feel invincible because they expect others to fix issues in  their life, but there is no one to solve their problems. And this dependency on no one causes the Native American children to continue the sequence of not making it out of the reservation.

Body Paragraphs:

This story is not meant for people outside of the rez.

• He makes serious things non-serious.
• This is why he doesn’t care about creating stereotypes. He knows that Native Americans won’t create stereotypes of their own people as they have been living around them their whole lives.

This story is aimed at the kids on the reservation.

• It’s all about Basketball. This is obviously going to resonate with kids more than adults.
• It’s the kids who seem to be the only one with importance in their society. They are the rez heroes, they are the ones that can fail / succeed.

He is trying to teach the kids that if they feel invincible, and expect other people to carry them to success, that no one is going to solve their problems. And this is how the cycle of every reservation hero failing happens.

• Obviously, he gives them these very personal looks at how Victor and Julius failed.
• I think more importantly is the symbolic meaning of how the story starts the same way it ends.

• This is why he portrays Adrian and Victor as so lazy. He isn’t trying to make stereotypes, he is trying to show that people like this are who they rely on.
• This is why he adds the traffic signal to the story. It is an example of what happens to the problems. There is no “they” to fix your problems, and the others on the rez won’t do it either.

Conclusion:

So, the reason Alexie is not worried about stereotypes is because this was not meant to be for people who would form stereotypes, it is for kids in the reservation. What Alexie is trying to teach kids is that the feel untouchable because they think that they are just kids, and that other people will solve their problems. There is nobody to solve their problems though, and this is why generation after generation of kids fail at getting out of the reservation.