The Native American dream in Sherman Alexie's short story “One Good Man”

The purpose of this article is to discuss the idea of an Indian identity and the Native American Dream in Sherman Alexie’s short story “One Good Man.” In this story, Alexie introduces the idea of the Indian constructed by the White Americans and attempts through his characters to redefine that concept by deconstructing all the different stereotypes created by the White American society. In order to do this, he also introduces the idea of the American Dream that he calls the “Native American Dream” to express the social inequality and hopeless existence of the Indian community always immersed in an ironic and comic discourse. In this sense, Alexie proposes a new definition of the Indian identity looking back to culture, tradition and the space of the reservation. He creates in his fiction a space of contestation and resistance opening a new voice for the Native American identity.

Bicultural Subjectivity and Modern Native American Identity in Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

The colonial enterprise of Euro-Americans, since its first contact, flourished on the false notions of Indianness, fixating the image of Native Americans as primitive and savages without any claim to civilization or history. This fixity and lack of presence involuntarily led to an absence marked by a lack of identity and subjectivity for the Indians. The current article explores Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian through the theoretical lens of Jana Sequoya, affirming bicultural subjectivity propagated by mixed-blood writers on the nexus of inside-outside as a suitable solution to the paradoxes that constitute Indian identity. Denying the rigid approach of the insularity of cultures, this bicultural work offers the possibility of Indianization of American forms and adaptation and acculturation of those dominant forms that are integral for the advancement of Indians in the modern world. The current research also deduces that such a presence can powerfully combat and confound the discursive dichotomy and representation of Indians as the binarized version of modern and civilized Whites.

Data & Native American Identity

The history of the U.S. Census is needed to understand the count and participation of American Indian and Alaska Native peoples. The challenges and lessons learned from the census reveal an opportunity for social research to collect meaningful data in Indian Country.

Re-Mystifying the West: Hybridity and Spirituality in Jim Jarmusch’s 'Dead Man'

The paper intends to examine the ways in which the American West has undergone a cinematic transformation with the advent of counter-cultural western movies that criticize and often dismantle American imperialism and expansionism. The paper makes the argument that the American West has arrived at a new stage in its mythology, namely that it has been re-mythologized as a locus of Eastern spiritual awakening. The western of the 1990s’ decade embraces a rebirth of spiritualism through the genre of the “acid western,” typified in this paper by Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), a film that showcases the return of the West as a cultural frontier that must be re-assimilated instead of rejected. Given its symbolic title, Dead Man is not so much a Western as it is an Eastern romance, a rite of passage framed as a journey towards death. The paper will attempt to make its case by tackling the history of anti-establishment cinema, while also basing its argument on the assertions of director Jim Jarmusch, and various film critics who discuss the issue of the “acid western.” At the same time, the paper will offer a post-colonial perspective informed by Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity, with particular emphasis on Native American identity.

First Americans

This book depicts a forgotten history that explores how army veterans returning to reservation life after World War I transformed Native American identity. Drawing from archival sources and oral histories, the book demonstrates how the relationship between Native American tribes and the United States was reinvented in the years following World War I. During that conflict, 12,000 Native American soldiers served in the U.S. Army. They returned home to their reservations with newfound patriotism, leveraging their veteran cachet for political power and claiming all the benefits of citizenship—even supporting the termination policy that ended the U.S. government's recognition of tribal sovereignty.

Reclaiming Representations & Interrupting the Cycle of Bias Against Native Americans

The most widely accessible ideas and representations of Native Americans are largely negative, antiquated, and limiting. In this essay, we examine how the prevalence of such representations and a comparative lack of positive contemporary representations foster a cycle of bias that perpetuates disparities among Native Americans and other populations. By focusing on three institutions – the legal system, the media, and education – we illustrate how the same process that creates disparate outcomes can be leveraged to promote positive contemporary ideas and representations of Native Americans, thereby creating more equitable outcomes. We also highlight the actions some contemporary Native Americans have taken to reclaim their Native American identity and create accurate ideas and representations of who Native Americans are and what they can become. These actions provide a blueprint for leveraging cultural change to interrupt the cycle of bias and to reduce the disparities Native Americans face in society.