The first Indian.

The only Indian.

Education off the reservation.
A tumor in Arizona, not a dreamer in Spokane.
Him and Tonto: portraits of two Indians, portraits of every Indian
Their dances? Amusing, funny, wild
Their heaven? Stories, traditions, crazy
White words like a hurricane
All designed to create silence
Creation: once meaningful
Now?
Powwows, indians, everything alive today: images of what they once were
More Star Spangled Banner than Wild West Show
More Wild West Show than real Indian
The flight home, the fight home
The annual barbeque: sharing stories, food, and land
We share too much
A drug, a drink, a secret
Then nothing
Here today, Indians today, proud today
Here today, different today, Forever today

In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, author Sherman Alexie uses allusions,
motifs, and epigraphs to explain the plight of the Native Americans in his novel, and as a result
the plight of Native Americans in the world.
In this novel, Alexie uses the theme that humanity is resilient.

This poem is composed of words that, for the most part, have been taken from, or at least
inspired by, the chapter titles. I wanted to compose a story with similar ideas to Alexies, and
specifically reference words that he already considers important to the text in order to fully
capture the themes and ideas of the text. This poem is about a Native American who goes to
school in Arizona, away from the Washington reservation. It is a small school, where few
students have interacted with Native Americans before. A lot of this poem is inspired by the
non-Native characters in the chapter Indian Education, such as the Latino teacher who says I
know all about those Indian kids. They start drinking real young (Alexie 178) and the white
girls forced vomiting (Alexie 177), resulting from bulimia, trying to be skinny, and the Native
main character asking for their lunch instead because he was so poor and hungry. Both cases
show the lack of experience that these people had with Native Americans, and was how I
wanted to present the school that my character goes to. In my poem, the students taunt the
Native student, and really only have this two views of what a Native American is like (this
character and Tonto). These white words silence the Native student, who feels sad when
returning home to Washington for the summer. However, all the Native Americans persist. They
persist just like their ancestors did, and are here today, despite adaptations that they had to
make, because of their resilience. I drew a lot of my inspiration from the allusions and epigraphs
of the text as well. Epigraphs like I lower a frayed rope into the depths and hoist/the same old
Indian tears to my eyes. The liquid is pure and irresistible (Alexie 54) were powerful not only in
setting the scene for the chapter to come, but to truly solidify the Native experience. For many
uneducated readers, the laments of the Native Americans in this text may be seen as one mans
view, and these readers may have the mindset that Native life really is not that bad. Epigraphs
such as this one are powerful in the fact that they emphasize and add to Alexies comments
about the life of a Native American. Having a similar purpose as the epigraphs, allusions
contribute to the idea of Native struggles. Alexie writes Or maybe it was because the Ghost
Dance finally worked (Alexie 104), referencing the struggles of Native in the past in addition to
the present. Instead of just commenting on modern Native struggles, Alexie writes of Ghost
Dancing and figures like Crazy Horse to show how Native Americans were treated badly from
the beginning, and that this treatment continues today. In my poem I wanted to make this
struggle clear, but even more important I wanted to discuss the continued survival and
continued pride that Native Americans have. However, with that pride comes some distance,
almost as a method of survival. In his writing, Alexie uses the motif of magic. It is present in the
lives of the boys because magic was important to the Native Americans of the past. However,
when discussing a modern form of magic, drugs, Victor says Itll be very f*cking Indian. Spiritual
sh*t, you know? (Alexie 14). It is both distance from, and connection with the past. Distance in
the fact that he is mocking magic; connection in the fact that he mentions it at all. This distance
likely comes from internalized hatred, a result of Native oppression. Despite their relationship
with magic, positive or negative, they still have one, as do they have a relationship with their
ancestors. They exist, here, today, as Native Americans, because of the persistence of their
ancestors and of themselves. Humanity is incredibly resilient, and that is why Native Americans
still exist today.