Part Time Indian Poverty Essay

Lyric Sinan Sinanian
Mr. Rodriguez
Academic Literacy
21 April 2023
The Issue of Poverty The damaging consequences of poverty are a big issue in America, and have raised in severity over the years. In the realistic fiction novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the life of a poor Native American exhibits the terrors of poverty and how it can affect families within the poor communities in the country. The economically unfortunate have seen the worse come over them and their family. Junior’s father’s drinking problems and the lack of funds to afford decent living conditions on the reservation are prevalent issues throughout the book that provide an insight into this theme. This proves that the author has written this novel to exhibit the hardships of those in poverty are detrimental to a child’s future. First, the novel shows the hardships of poverty by showing the discrimination made against Junior. On page 86, Junior states he “remembered when I [he] used to be a human being,” (Alexie 86). Alongside this, Junior’s poverty only seems to get worse in his mind when his dad dropped him off at

When Junior attempted to raise money to help Native Americans out of poverty, he recalls that “there were a lot more people who just called me names and slammed the door in my face,” (Alexie 79). Alongside this, when Junior was supposed to get picked up by his father after school, Junior’s dad “wasn’t sure if he’d have enough gas money. Especially if he was going to stop at the rez casino and play slot machines first,” (Alexie 87). Junior, and his family, weren’t able to gain enough income to purchase what seem to be the smaller things in life. This shows that alongside Junior, people in poverty have the even more overwhelming issue of being unable to gain enough funds to purchase smaller