Melting Pot Concept in the Joy of Reading and Writing Superman and Me

"Superman and Me" By Sherman Alexie

The following essay appeared as part of a series, "The Joy of Reading and Writing" published by the LA Times. This essay is also printed in The Most Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading and various anthologies including 50 Essays edited by Samuel Cohen.

I learned to read with a Superman comic volume. Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor tin can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot recall the plot, nor the ways by which I obtained the comic book. What I tin can retrieve is this: I was 3 years one-time, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington land. We were poor by virtually standards, just i of my parents ordinarily managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us center-form past reservation standards. I had a blood brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food. (one)

My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic schoolhouse on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball actor biographies and anything else he could discover. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch'southward Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Regular army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our firm was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy bump-off, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the unabridged 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my male parent with an agonized devotion, I decided to dear books besides. (2)

I tin can retrieve picking up my father's books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, just I nevertheless recall the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn't take the vocabulary to say "paragraph," just I realized that a paragraph was a debate that held words. The words within a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a pocket-sized paragraph inside the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal Schoolhouse to the west. Within our house, each family unit fellow member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link united states of america. Now, using this logic, I tin can encounter my inverse family equally an essay of seven paragraphs: female parent, begetter, older brother, the deceased sis, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little blood brother. (3)

The League of Supermen (Office 7) (Photo credit: fengschwing)

At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I as well picked upwardly that Superman comic book. Each console, complete with moving picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one console, Superman breaks through a door. His adapt is red, bluish and yellow. The brownish door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the film. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that "Superman is br

eaking downwards the door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Words, dialogue, also bladder out of Superman'southward rima oris. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking downwardly the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this fashion, I learned to read. (4)

This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian male child teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian male child living on the reservation, he might have been chosen a prodigy. But he is an Indian male child living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who frequently speaks of his babyhood in the third-person, as if information technology will somehow tedious the hurting and make him sound more modest about his talents. (5)

A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay serenity when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Nigh lived upwards to those expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside. They struggled with bones reading in school simply could call back how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front of their not-Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner tabular array. They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a non-Indian adult but would slug information technology out

with the Indian dandy who was 10 years older. Every bit Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian globe. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians. (half dozen)

I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left subsequently I had finished my classroom assignments. I read books in the car when my family traveled to powwows or basketball games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read bits and pieces of equally many books as I could. I read the books my male parent brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the dispensary, the tribal offices, the mail office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and agony. I loved those books, but I also knew that honey had just one purpose. I was trying to salvage my life. (7)

Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach artistic writing to Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, brusque stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote verse, curt stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot remember a single fourth dimension that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Do they exist? I visit the schools every bit often as possible. The Indian kids oversupply the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, curt stories and novels. They have read my books. They have read many other books. They await at me with vivid optics and arrogant wonder. They are trying to salvage their lives. Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They comport neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am big-headed. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives. (8)

(1300 words)

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