Preview

Cultural Stereotypes

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
570 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Cultural Stereotypes
Meet junior! A scrawny aboriginal kid from the spokane tribe with a big head,glasses and a lisp.
Your initial thoughts of junior are most likely that he's poor, most likely grow up to be an alcoholic and weird. Presumably you wouldn't have ever imagined that he is a passionate cartoonist, intelligent and a talented basketball player. You have unconsciously completely dismissed any other defining Qualities this person may acquire.

If you rely on stereotypes alone You have probably only ever perceived people like junior as poor drunks that love to gamble what little money they have and dance around fires. That's it.That's what an indian is like and always be in your perspective.

Cultural stereotypes spring from truths but do not paint
…show more content…
communication and diversity become limited between people and we are divided and alienated from one another. It can be difficult to present your true nature to someone when they have a previously built perception of what your like, whether it be negative or positive. We already think we know what other people are like without even communicating with them. The europeans never really gave the indians a chance to get to know and understand their culture a bit more but immediately decided that indians were rather savage and began developing methods to try and assimilate them into their society and when failed to do so provided them lands in the middle of nowhere far away from the european settlements, ultimately dividing the country and its people. We are only really just starting to become familiar with Aboriginal culture and aboriginals themselves and the struggles that we've caused them. Both cultures couldve greatly benefited from each other but weren't] able to due to their prejudice precieved images of each other

In the end we can conclude that stereotypes are simply ideas, assumptions about a group of people,not facts. They also usually cover

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Contrary to what one may expect, Junior does not experience the hero's journey. Junior is never emerged in the special world, which is a large part of the hero’s journey cycle. He gets a break when he comes home because Junior knows the adventure will “be waiting for [him] in the morning at school," (Alexie, 70). Junior never concluded that pivotal part in the hero's journey by completely leaving the ordinary…

    • 72 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Junior might believe this because he sees white families walking around looking perfect. But what he doesn’t know is that every family has problems in their house. As Leo Tolstoy said, “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Even though Junior talks about how every Indian family is unhappy because of one reason, alcohol. Readers might think that even though many Indian family's problems are sparked from alcohol, they all are quite different. For example, in Junior’s family, his dad drinking is only one of many problems. Some of the other problems are that his sister Mary ran off to marry a Flathead Indian, that his parents never achieved any of their dreams, and that their is no hope on the…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    His success would never have happened without these things and would’ve taken a whole other course. Jumior proves everyone wrong about him in only two hundred thirty pages, he showed everyone what he’s really worth. When he won the basketball game with Reardan against Wellpinit, Coach thought they weren’t going to in but he believed in Junior and Junior started to believe in himself and that helped Reardan win the game. In this novel, the readers can experience the feeling Junior feels and can understand what he’s going through. It can make you laugh and cry. Being an Indian is very hard, your family may be alcoholics or abusive or both. Sometimes it can cause bullying and racism. Junior tells his readers everything in perspective with a sense of humor and through his drawing. Junior’s life wasn’t always a bunch of rainbows, unicorns, and puppies. His life, according to him, was a fight. He had to fight back when he got physically abused, when he first transferred to Reardan, and when he joined the basketball team. Junior also tells us he’s been to forty two funerals in the fourteen years that he has been alive. Junior has had a very tough life and as a reader, you can be surprised how much he can overcome with his way of…

    • 1041 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He finally decides to leave the reservation and recreate life at his new school. Since Junior is different than the white kids in his school, he feels as if he doesn't belong there. In the story it says, “ So what was I doing in racist Readan, where more than half of every graduating class went to college? Nobody in my family had ever gone near a college.” Junior compares himself to the kids at school in a negative…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Junior The Only One Essay

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Junior was born on the spokane reservation. Junior was born with a disease where he had too much cerebral spinal fluid in his skull. This is the first example of what it means to be the “only one” because this disease made him “funny looking.” “ first of all i ended up having 42 teeth the typical human only has 32 teeth, ten more than usual.” “my brain damage left me nearsighted in one eye and my hands and feet were giant.” This is the first thing that makes junior the “Only One”. In this situation being the “only one” is hard and embarrassing because it makes Junior stick out and makes him different from everyone else.…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Part-Time Indian Themes

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Though there are many lessons and themes within The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the most significant is Junior’s refusal to abide by society’s standards and live within the narrow passage society provided him with. He was born into poverty. Not only that, but he was Indian. These two aspects handed to him at birth set him up to poor, drunk, and unsuccessful. By the time he was a teenager, Junior was aware of these boundaries in which everyone else on his reservation seemed to live inside of, and he fought them. He was not going to let poverty determine his future and his success. Poverty would not trample his dreams and extinguish his hopes. That is something the others on the rez could not seem to do. “I…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sherman Alexi

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Though adolescence and all cultures face many trials and tribulations as they grow from a child to an adult those faced by the Native Americans that live on the reservation are even more challenging. The young people on the reservation must deal with alcoholism, drug use, as well as inadequate supplies in their schools. Sherman Alexie does an excellent job in bringing these trials the reservation youth to…

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Junior expresses his awareness of his new classmate’s perception of him, it becomes clear that those perceptions overshadows Junior’s reality. These boys’ relationship with Junior is simultaneously aggressive and hesitant. They are comfortable verbally abusing him, though they draw a line at physical violence out of their fear of him, or rather what they think he is and what they think he could be. Their perception fuels their apprehension and overrides how they can see with their own eyes that Junior is not threatening or harmful by convincing them that due to the fact that he is Indian he is unpredictable and could become violent. In reality however, both Junior and all who know him are aware of how defenseless and weak he actually is…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the past, American Indians were treated poorly by the white people they came in contact with. Not only did the whites discriminate against the Indians, they took their land, children, and made false interpretations about the way they lived. The whites had no idea about the indians ways of life and should not have been mocking them. All of these instances and many more made the Indians feel belittled and irrelevant in the eyes of other people.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    However, instead of giving up he looked at the positive and saw math and geometry in it and kept on trying. This can also be seen as a metaphor; As Indians, and the culture of Indians, hardly anything goes right for them. They’re poor, they have poor education, and a lot of them become alcoholics, but for Junior he doesn’t give up, he keeps his head up and despite all of these negative events happening around him he is still able to know that he can choose how his life turns out and not become like everyone else in his tribe. At this same time he shot a basketball his cousin was sniffing cement and his cousin saw beauty and chemistry in this. Junior, learning to be Indian, sees his own family making the wrong decisions on his own because no one is there to tell him what’s right or wrong. Learning to be an Indian can be tough with no supervision and guidance from a more responsible person. He also learns lessons of being an Indian during the seventh grade when he separated from his tribe. “But on the day I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe.” Junior left his tribe to get a better education at a white school. Leaving your own people to go live with the enemy is a hard thing to cope with for Junior and his tribe. This teaches him lessons of being Indian because he realizes that living on…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Junior starts to believe what everyone is saying is true. He goes as far as saying “I didn’t deserve to be there. I knew it; all of those kids new it. Indians didn’t deserve shit” (56). Junior faces a lot of struggles being Indian and also getting bullied. He compares…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of Junior's striking traits is his determination. Junior faces many challenges living the life of a poor ‘part-time Indian,’ however he does not let this bring him down. His determination is portrayed when refusing to give up during the basketball tryouts, even though it may seem impossible. During tryouts his thoughts are shown through this quote, “Ninety percent of me wanted to take the break. But I knew if I took that break I would never make the team. ‘I'll take him on again’ ”(140). Despite his fear and acknowledgment of the odds, Junior does not give up. Junior’s determination also shows when he refuses to quit at his first basketball game, against his former team from the reservation. Junior is cut by a flying…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stereotypes types in America is out of controlled. Once someone say something about a certain group everyone believes that this group of people actually do what that person said. When it’s actually that one person that only does that. Stereotypes are only here to separate and organize people into a group. Stereotypes are not here to fix the problem there here to make it worse and if we don’t take a stand, it can get to the point where we can’t control it. One popular stereotype that people say a lot is if you’re Asian then that means you love math or if you get an A+ on your test than it means that you failed. Stereotypes like that are stereotypes that give people false image of a culture real look.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Seng Chang and Kaying Lor had the couple’s Children taken on April 30 when some employee’s At Sherman Elementary School noticed marks on the children’s bodies. After the family had been in court on Monday, the couple been notified that there would be no charges and they would receive their children back in their home. In this scenario, the parents thought to be abusing the children taken because of an employee of the school. The parents labeled as abusive and harmful to their children because of the marks seen on the children’s bodies that came from a cultural practice. Many people do not understand other cultures beliefs and think it is wrong because it is different from their belief. Coining begins with a massage using warm oil, which mixed with warming essential oils. A coin repeatedly rubbed against an area of the skin in long flowing movements that always move away from the heart. The blood begins coming to the surface of the skin and will cause a bruise on the skin. Coining believed to be design to bring balance to the body (Wise Geek, 2003-2011).…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    My desk mate

    • 1903 Words
    • 8 Pages

    I met him the first day he was transferred to our class at the beginning of a new semester. I remember he looked ridiculous in that outlandish sweater which had a big bunny rabbit with a silly grin on it. What a peculiar thing for a grown-up high school student to wear! “You like it? My grandma knit this for me.” A husky voice obviously from the owner of the sweater broke in and made me realize that I had been staring unconsciously at the rabbit for quite some time. Looking up, embarrassed, I saw a tall, bronzed and muscled boy in front of me. He had regular features – a large, square forehead dotted with several zits, an impressive nose, big and sharp, which somehow reminded me of the French actor Gérard Depardieu, and a…

    • 1903 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays