voice:vision:identity

Transcription

1 IDTM voice:vision:identity ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 1 4/15/10 10:23:19 AM

2 Photographs 2010: Adrian Kinloch: 174; Alamy Images: 162, 163 (Jaubert Bernard), 18 (Blend Images), 12, 13 (David Grossman), 40 (Visions of America, LLC); Courtesy of Alfred W. Tatum: 15; AP Images: 76 (Tammie Arroyo), 140 (Marcus Bleasdale/VII), 157 (Christophe Ena), 158 (Frank Franklin II), 171 (Villard/Niviere/Sipa); Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY/The Jesús Colón Papers: 87; Blue Flower Arts, LLC/Peter Dressel: 121; Cartoonist Group/Chip Bok/ Creators Syndicate: 138, 139; CGTextures.com: cover; Courtesy of the Chicago Defender: 122; Corbis Images: 187 (Mark Costantini/San Francisco Chronicle), 137 (Christopher Felver); Courtesy of David Baraza: 37; Getty Images: 55 (Ulf Andersen), 28, 29 (Bloomberg), 117 (Mel Curtis), 115 (Steven Errico), 176 (Tom Grill), 32, 33 (Dorothy Low/Contour), 132 (Peter Read Miller/Sports Illustrated), 34 (Robert Nickelsberg), 193 (Johnny Nunez); Courtesy of Indiana University: 60, 61, 66, 67; istockphoto: 102, 103 (Jacom Stephens), 154, 155 (Jarek Szymanski); Courtesy of Katherine Gilbert-Espada: 128; Monty Stilson: 190 foreground; NEWSCOM: 183 (Douglas R. Clifford/St. Petersburg Times), 96 (Brian Kersey/UPI), 31 (Mary Schroeder/Detroit Free Press), 90, 180; Panos Pictures/Giacomo Pirozzi: 152, 153; PhotoDisc, Inc.: 190 background; Redux Pictures: 104 (Daniel Bishop/laif), 54 (Kevin Moloney/The New York Times); Scholastic Inc.: 110; Shutterstock, Inc.: 46, 47 (Adam Borkowski), 78 (Danilo Ducak), 98 (Craig Hill), 92, 93 (photooiasson), 127 (Ben Smith), 75 (James Steidl), 166, 167 (withgod); Courtesy of Steve Goldman: 177; SuperStock, Inc.: 172, 173 (De Agostini), 124, 125. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For more information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY Acknowledgments appear on pages , which constitute an extension of this copyright page. Copyright 2010 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN-13: ISBN-10: SCHOLASTIC, ID: voice: vision: identity, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. Other company names, brand names, and product names are the property and/or trademarks of their respective owners. n: who you are. voice / voiss / n: how you say it. vision / vizh-uhn / n: how you see it. identity ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 2 5/4/10 3:43:54 PM

3 voice / voiss / n: how you say it. vision / vizh-uhn / n: how you see it. identity / eye-den-ti-tee / n: who you are. voice / voiss / n: how you say it. vision / vizh-uhn / n: how you see it. identity IDTM voice:vision:identity SCHOLASTIC INC. New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney New Delhi Hong Kong ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 3 5/26/10 5:30:50 PM

4 To Alfred Tatum, whose vision challenges all of us to get our voices on record. ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 4 5/4/10 3:44:10 PM

5 IDgives voice to people whose voices aren t often heard. The writers whose works are featured here were compelled to get their own voices on record. In some cases they were literally writing for their lives. Through their writing these authors define themselves, become resilient, engage others, and build capacity. In this way, they may inspire and empower you, the reader, to do the same: Pick up a pen and WRITE. ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 5 5/26/10 9:40:23 AM

6 define self 12 CHOP I came into this world whole / and look what happened to me. a poem by Alfred W. Tatum 16 Why I Write Poetry from an essay by Kevin Powell 18 SO I AIN T NO GOOD GIRL I try not to sweat Raheem when he gets a little rough with me. He s the cutest boy in school. I can t keep him on no short leash. a short story by Sharon Flake 32 Love Is Just Complicated a poem by Tupac Shakur 34 A PLACE WITHOUT SHAME Fear runs screaming out of the house. Self-doubt crawls out the window. Confidence dances with all who ll have her. a poem by David Baraza 38 Shoes from a memoir by Gary Soto 40 INDIAN EDUCATION The high school I play for is nicknamed the Indians, and I m probably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team with such a mascot. a short story by Sherman Alexie 56 The Power of a Joke from an autobiography by Dick Gregory 6 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 6 4/15/10 10:23:21 AM

7 INDIAN 40 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 40 8/12/10 11:04:53 AM

8 N EDUCATION The high school I play for is nicknamed the Indians, and I m probably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team with such a mascot. FIRST GRADE My hair was too short and my U.S. Government glasses were horn-rimmed, ugly, and all that first winter in school, the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the playground to the other. They pushed me down, buried me in the snow until I couldn t breathe, thought I d never breathe again. They stole my glasses and threw them over my head, around my outstretched hands, just beyond my reach, until someone tripped me and sent me falling again, facedown in the snow. DEFINE SELF 41 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 41 8/16/10 11:50:56 AM

9 I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once, it was Cries- Like-a-White-Boy, even though none of us had seen a white boy cry. Then it was a Friday morning recess and Frenchy SiJohn threw snowballs at me while the rest of the Indian boys tortured some other topyogh-yaught kid, another weakling. But Frenchy was confident enough to torment me all by himself, and most days I would have let him. But the little warrior in me roared to life that day and knocked Frenchy to the ground, held his head against the snow, and punched him so hard that my knuckles and the snow made symmetrical bruises on his face. He almost looked like he was wearing war paint. But he wasn t the warrior. I was. And I chanted It s a good day to die, it s a good day to die, all the way down to the principal s office. 42 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 42 4/15/10 10:23:31 AM

10 SECOND GRADE Betty Towle, missionary teacher, redheaded and so ugly that no one ever had a puppy crush on her, made me stay in for recess fourteen days straight. Tell me you re sorry, she said. Sorry for what? I asked. Everything, she said and made me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand. One was a math book; the other was English. But all I learned was that gravity can be painful. For Halloween I drew a picture of her riding a broom with a scrawny cat on the back. She said that her God would never forgive me for that. Once, she gave the class a spelling test but set me aside and gave me a test designed for junior high students. When I spelled all the words right, she crumpled up the paper and made me eat it. DEFINE SELF 43 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 43 4/15/10 10:23:31 AM

11 You ll learn respect, she said. She sent a letter home with me that told my parents to either cut my braids or keep me home from class. My parents came in the next day and dragged their braids across Betty Towle s desk. Indians, indians, indians. She said it without capitalization. She called me indian, indian, indian. And I said, Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am. THIRD GRADE My traditional Native American art career began and ended with my very first portrait: Stick Indian Taking a Piss in My Backyard. As I circulated the original print around the classroom, Mrs. Schluter intercepted and confiscated my art. Censorship, I might cry now. Freedom of expression, I would write in editorials to the tribal newspaper. 44 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 44 4/15/10 10:23:31 AM

12 In third grade, though, I stood alone in the corner, faced the wall, and waited for the punishment to end. I m still waiting. FOURTH GRADE You should be a doctor when you grow up, Mr. Schluter told me, even though his wife, the third grade teacher, thought I was crazy beyond my years. My eyes always looked like I had just hit-and-run someone. Guilty, she said. You always look guilty. Why should I be a doctor? I asked Mr. Schluter. So you can come back and help the tribe. So you can heal people. That was the year my father drank a gallon of vodka a day and the same year that my mother started two hundred different quilts but never finished any. They sat in separate, dark DEFINE SELF 45 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 45 4/15/10 10:23:31 AM

13 places in our HUD house and wept savagely. I ran home after school, heard their Indian tears, and looked in the mirror. Doctor Victor, I called myself, invented an education, talked to my reflection. Doctor Victor to the emergency room. FIFTH GRADE I picked up a basketball for the first time and made my first shot. No. I missed my first shot, missed the basket completely, and the ball landed in the dirt and sawdust, sat there just like I had sat there only minutes before. But it felt good, that ball in my hands, all those possibilities and angles. It was mathematics, geometry. It was beautiful. At that same moment, my cousin Steven Ford sniffed rubber cement from a paper bag and leaned back on the merry-go-round. His ears rang, his mouth was dry, and everyone seemed so far away. 46 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 46 4/15/10 10:23:32 AM

14 But it felt good, that buzz in his head, all those colors and noises. It was chemistry, biology. It was beautiful. Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost innocent choices that the Indian boys were forced to make? SIXTH GRADE Randy, the new Indian kid from the white town of Springdale, got into a fight an hour after he first walked into the reservation school. Stevie Flett called him out, called him a squawman, called him a pussy, and called him a punk. Randy and Stevie, and the rest of the Indian boys, walked out into the playground. Throw the first punch, Stevie said as they squared off. No, Randy said. Throw the first punch, Stevie said again. No, Randy said again. DEFINE SELF 47 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 47 4/15/10 10:23:32 AM

15 Throw the first punch! Stevie said for the third time, and Randy reared back and pitched a knuckle fastball that broke Stevie s nose. We all stood there in silence, in awe. That was Randy, my soon-to-be first and best friend, who taught me the most valuable lesson about living in the white world: Always throw the first punch. SEVENTH GRADE I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl who would later be raped by her foster-parent father, who was also white. They both lived on the reservation, though, and when the headlines and stories filled the papers later, not one word was made of their color. Just Indians being Indians, someone must have said somewhere and they were wrong. But on the day I leaned through the basement 48 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 48 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

16 window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe. I held my lips tight against her lips, a dry, clumsy, and ultimately stupid kiss. But I was saying good-bye to my tribe, to all the Indian girls and women I might have loved, to all the Indian men who might have called me cousin, even brother. I kissed that white girl and when I opened my eyes, she was gone from the reservation, and when I opened my eyes, I was gone from the reservation, living in a farm town where a beautiful white girl asked my name. Junior Polatkin, I said, and she laughed. After that, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years. EIGHTH GRADE At the farm town junior high, in the boys bathroom, I could hear voices from the girls DEFINE SELF 49 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 49 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

17 bathroom, nervous whispers of anorexia and bulimia. I could hear the white girls forced vomiting, a sound so familiar and natural to me after years of listening to my father s hangovers. Give me your lunch if you re just going to throw it up, I said to one of those girls once. I sat back and watched them grow skinny from self-pity. Back on the reservation, my mother stood in line to get us commodities. We carried them home, happy to have food, and opened the canned beef that even the dogs wouldn t eat. But we ate it day after day and grew skinny from self-pity. There is more than one way to starve. Sharing dark skin doesn t necessarily make two men brothers. 50 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 50 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

18 NINTH GRADE At the farm town high school dance, after a basketball game in an overheated gym where I had scored twenty-seven points and pulled down thirteen rebounds, I passed out during a slow song. As my white friends revived me and prepared to take me to the emergency room where doctors would later diagnose my diabetes, the Chicano teacher ran up to us. Hey, he said. What s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young. Sharing dark skin doesn t necessarily make two men brothers. TENTH GRADE I passed the written test easily and nearly flunked the driving, but still received my Washington State driver s license on the same DEFINE SELF 51 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 51 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

19 day that Wally Jim killed himself by driving his car into a pine tree. No traces of alcohol in his blood, good job, wife and two kids. Why d he do it? asked a white Washington State trooper. All the Indians shrugged their shoulders, looked down at the ground. Don t know, we all said, but when we look in the mirror, see the history of our tribe in our eyes, taste failure in the tap water, and shake with old tears, we understand completely. Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough. ELEVENTH GRADE Last night I missed two free throws which would have won the game against the best team in the state. The farm town high school I play for is nicknamed the Indians, and I m prob- 52 INDIAN EDUCATION ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 52 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

20 ably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team with such a mascot. This morning I pick up the sports page and read the headline: Indians Lose Again. Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed to hurt me very much. TWELFTH GRADE I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm town high school, and my cap doesn t fit because I ve grown my hair longer than it s ever been. Later, I stand as the school board chairman recites my awards, accomplishments, and scholarships. I try to remain stoic for the photographers as I look toward the future. Back home on the reservation, my former classmates graduate: a few can t read, one or two are just given attendance diplomas, most look forward to the parties. The bright students are DEFINE SELF 53 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 53 4/15/10 10:23:37 AM

21 shaken, frightened, because they don t know what comes next. They smile for the photographer as they look back toward tradition. The tribal newspaper runs my photograph and the photograph of my former classmates side by side. POSTSCRIPT: CLASS REUNION Victor said, Why should we organize a reservation high school reunion? My graduating class has a reunion every weekend at the Powwow Tavern. ID Sherman Alexie 54 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 54 5/26/10 9:40:31 AM

22 SHERMAN ALEXIE BORN: October 7, 1966 GREW UP: UPROOTED: Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. Left the reservation for high school, where he was the only Indian besides the school mascot. about the author REBIRTH: Got sober after his fi rst poetry collection, The Business of Fancydancing, was accepted for publication. HIGH PRAISE: Won the National Book Award for his young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. ROAD NOT TAKEN: Alexie planned to become a doctor until he fainted several times in human anatomy class. WEBSITE: fallsapart.com HE SAYS: If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one s chances of survival increase with each book one reads. DEFINE SELF 55 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 55 4/15/10 10:23:46 AM

23 THE POWER OF A JOKE I got picked on a lot around the neighborhood; skinniest kid on the block, the poorest, the one without a Daddy. I guess that s when I first began to learn about humor, the power of a joke... I don t know just when, I started to figure it out. [The other kids] were going to laugh anyway, but if I made the jokes, they d laugh with me, instead of at me. I d get the kids off my back, on my side. So I d come off that porch talking about myself. 56 THE POWER OF A JOKE ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 56 4/15/10 10:23:48 AM

24 Hey, Gregory, get your ass over here. Want you to tell me and Herman how many kids sleep in your bed. Googobs of kids in my bed, man, when I get up to pee in the middle of the night gotta leave a bookmark so I don t lose my place. Dick Gregory (1932 ) Comedian and civil rights activist DEFINE SELF 57 ID_Anthol_1_208.indd 57 4/15/10 10:23:48 AM