Week 5: Share your thoughts on the title story in our class' book, The Toughest Indian in the World - or just about the importance of engaging with texts written by community members when learning about a group/your thoughts of him as a writer.
I do not support Sherman Alexie or his writings.
That being said, at a time in my life when kids were reading Harry Potter and Twilight, I read Sherman. I constantly found myself in his poetry lost but somehow found. My family was so proud that I was reading a Native author. We religiously put on Smoke Signals every other week just in the background because it made us happy. With everything that has happened recently, remembering all those fond memories has been difficult. I felt like I knew him. When he came to Stanford, pointed out me, talked to me, smiled at me, spoke to ME… I felt star struck. By far my favorite writer who related to ME. In light of the recent news, I am devastated. But the toughest indian in the world is a resilient indian. That Indian is me. I can divorce myself from his writings, but I cannot divorce myself from some of my best moments of my life. And so I walk away in peace, but still. I am sad.
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