The Rez

In "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian", Junior lives on a reservation, where everyone knows each other and where alcoholism is wide-spread. On Junior's rez poverty is a big problem as well as bullying while abuse runs-wild. He states, "But my grandmother had never drunk alcohol in her life. Not one drop. That's the rarest kind of Indian in the world." In this book Junior's grandmother is killed by a drunk driver, however she herself had never drank a drop in her lifetime. Another theme that is prevalent throughout this story is loss. That is what life on the rez is mostly about. Junior himself sees many people, very close to him, die because of reasons such as alcoholism, poverty and recklessness. At the beginning of the book, Junior losses his dog. Oscar [the dog] is very sick and instead of getting him to the doctor, Junior's dad shoots the animal to put it out of its misery. The lack of money in Junior's family to take the dog to the veterinarian forces his father to simply shoot the poor thing. "A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that, " Junior's disappointment about the situation is expressed in this sentence. Later Junior losses his grandmother, and then his dad's best friend [and his friend as well], Eugene, and lastly his sister, Mary. Unfortunately these three deaths were due to the nature of alcoholism.

Rez life is unlike my life. I live in Dunning, a neighborhood on the Northwest side of Chicago. As stated before everyone on the rez knows each other; the community is very close-knit. In Dunning however, that is not the case. I only know a few families within the neighborhood. There aren't any organized events in my community that would enable others to meet up and become friends. I don't even know everyone on my block.

On the other hand I can relate to Junior when he starts going to Reardan [a school outside of the reservation where he is the outside]. Although I wasn't an outsider when I first started going to Beaubien [my elementary school], it sure was different. This school is in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, a couple of miles from my home. There everyone knew each other since they lived in the same community, they went to the same pre-school and kindergarden and played on the same sports teams. However as time went on, and as I started to meet new people, things got a lot better. They became family.