A Book Like No Other !

Don't judge a book by its cover has never been repeated in my head so many times. The book "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", was one book i wasn't a book i would have gone out of my way to read if all i heard was the books name, but since it was an assignment in a class i had to pick it up to read. At first i felt like this book was going to be a book to read like every other book I've been assigned to read in an english class, but when i started reading it. i literally couldn't stop until i felt very sleepy and had to sleep at like 3 in the morning. This book was a very enjoyable book and a easy read for many people in any academic level. I would recommend this book 100% to people who seek knowledge about the indigenous Native Americans or to have a fun read about a 14 year old kid going through his life. This book is both funny and sad at the same time and it should be shared to our community because the contents of this book would educate our society of what it means to be an Native American living in America. Although there might be some mature or "NSFW" contents in this book, it doesn't mean that this book won't be interesting. 

In the book "The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", there was many instances of things you wouldn't go through as a 14 year old living in America. Arnold, the main character of this book talks about how he goes through life in a rez that is very strict on a certain culture. That culture is what swayed him away from dreams, but later on he would realize something about his dreams. Because of that i learned that everything in the world is like this book because it might seem like everything is good and jolly, but the backstory of how everything came to be might not be very pleasant. The first couple of chapters you would laugh at how this 14 year old boy goes through his life, but towards the end you feel a lot of sympathy like you are growing with the main character yourself. This book not only teaches you, but it helps you experience the things these people feel. The pictures in this book also really help illustrate what Arnold is thinking or seeing at the time as well, which is a big deal to me because i can see what other people see in their perspective.

Response to sampler papers

In Sample paper one, i felt like throughout the whole paper had some sort of summary in every paragraph by quoting a particular part of the book then summarizes that quote in what happened in the book. It kind of got repetitive and i lost interest in reading the whole thing.

In sample paper #2 i felt was a lot better because he did a good way of making their point and using their paragraphs to support what he/she was trying to get through to the reader. In this paragraph the person analyzed what went through arnold as he was living through these times and connected it to us as readers. For example he would say that Arnold would never ignore his problems and compared it to many people in the world in saying that it is hard for people to not ignore their problems. I felt like this sampling paper worked very well because of the fluidness in his paragraphs, not only that he compared and contrast many things in the book which made me think more as i read.

In sample paper number 3 i felt it was very similar to number one in terms of quoting the book before summarizing what had happened, but in paper 3 the person who wrote it analyzed the paper more and tried to make sense of it all rather then just summarizing. Another problem is that i felt like this paper had no clear thesis as paper 1, he or she may have hinted it, but i still question the clear cut thesis he/she is trying to put out in this paper.

American Indians Today

Today there are more than half a million Indians in the United States and millions more elsewhere in the Americas. Still trying to cope with adjustment to white civilization, they are in all stages of development, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated. In the United States, they still speak more than 100 different languages. Economically they range from pauperism to affluence. A few have made money from oil and other natural sources found on their lands, but many thousands live at near-starvation levels. Some are educated and completely assimilated in white society; many live in nearly complete isolation from non-Indian Americans. Relocation programs have taken hundreds of Indians to work in cities; thousands of others cling to the security of their reservations, hoping to gain education and assistance necessary to develop the resources of their lands and become self-sustaining. Generally, the Indians are still proud of their traditions and heritage, and many of them resist giving them up or allowing them to be submerged or corrupted by white civilization. But Indians generally also recognize that their standards of living must be raised. Without giving up their unique cultural heritage, they have organized into tribal councils to try to help the federal government settle on long-range programs of education, health services, vocational training, resource planning, and financial credit that will assist them to solutions of the problems that have beset them for so many sad decades. Nowadays, there exist about 300 federal reservations in the United States, with a total of 52,017,551 acres held in trust by the federal government, the large majority west of the Mississippi. There are also 21 state reservations, most of these in the East. Some reservations are restricted to one tribe, others are jointly held. Some reservation land is owned, rented and occupied by non-Indians. The largest reservation is held by the Navajo tribe. Although the reservations are sovereign nations, the People are also considered U.S. citizens. In the contemporary relationship between the federal government and federally chartered tribes, as it has reached the present through a number of historical stages, the United States Congress with its powers to ratify treaties and regulate commerce is the trustee of the special Indian status. The trusteeship involves protection of Indian property; protection of Indian right to self-government; and the provision of services necessary for survival and advancement. In the commission of its trusteeship, Congress has placed the major responsibility for Indian matters in the Department of Interior and its subdivision the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In addition to the central office in Washington D.C., the BIA maintains regional offices in 12 states, mostly in the West, with agencies on particular reservations as well. Many Native Americans have positions in the BIA, but relatively few are at the highest positions. Indians are free to live anywhere. It is estimated that one-third to one-half of the Indian population in the United States now lives in cities. The greatest concentration of urban Indians, about 60,000, are found in the Los Angeles - Long Beach area of California. Other cities with large Indian populations are San Francisco - Oakland in California, Tulsa and Oklahoma city in Oklahoma, New York City and Buffalo in New York, Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, Minneapolis - St. Paul and Duluth in Minnesota, Seattle - Everett in Washington, Rapid City in South Dakota, Denver in Colorado, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Portland in Oregon, Albuquerque in New Mexico, and Nome, Bethel and Barrow in Alaska. On the positive side of the Native North American situation, Indian art is enjoying a renaissance. First in the realm of Indian arts and crafts, where many Indians, using traditional techniques and forms, have found reliable markets among both tourists and serious collectors; and second, in the realm of fine arts, where Indian painters and sculptors, in a burst of new esthetics that blend the traditional with the modern, have developed international reputations. Native North American culture in both the United States and Canada is a national treasure. Its renewal is everyone’s renewal. In Mexico the Indians called indígenas - estimated 15 percent of the total population - are direct descendants of the Aztec, Maya and other ancient civilizations. Some are small groups living in self-sufficient isolation, others occupy large territories. While it is convenient for the sake of categorization to lump all Indians together, Mexico’s native peoples are characterized by linguistic and cultural differences that can be very distinct. The status of indígenas in today’s Mexico, unfortunately, is not much better than it was during the colonial era. Poverty is a chronic, debilitating fact of life for more than three-quarters of the country’s Indian communities. Life is very hard for "Mexico’s most forgotten people", as many indígenas refer to themselves, but their concerns have garnered international attention and forced ongoing government negotiations. In Peru about half of the population is Indian, descendants of the Incas. These people still practice their own language, culture and religion. Their situation in the Peruvian society is similar to "Mexico’s most forgotten people". Indians everywhere represent heroic and romantic historical figures who held out, through skill and courage, against overwhelming forces. They also represent beings who were in tune with themselves, one another, and nature. Balance and harmony are concepts often applied to Indian ways of life, as well as to Indian inner life. For societies alarmed by ecological damage from modern technologies, Indian coexistence with the natural environment serves as a model for survival. http://www.american-indians.net/today.htm

School days version 1.0

I can't believe that school has started because i haven't even really had time to really think. I am a college student and I, like many other college students have a very busy life. Not only that i am in the Tennis team, but i have classes from the morning and night classes on Monday and Weds. That isn't all because i also have work on the weekends when i don't have tennis practice and school. To top it off i have homework that i barely have time to tend to and it will take a while for me to finish most of them because I'm so tired from the day. It may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm actually glad that I'm this busy because of a complicated relationship I've had before going back to school. Ive been to busy to think about it most of the time and I'm actually happy because i get to make something of myself and i know that hard work doesn't fail. It might sound silly, but i listen to motivation speeches all the time to pump myself up for the day. One saying from the speech is that "There are rough times that come through your life, but they have not come to stay, they have come to pass." It makes me work 2x, 10x or even 20x harder at everything i do because my new years resolution is if you want something work hard for it and don't let others tell you that you can't. I know my resolve is strong, but i hope it doesn't falter.

Response To Obama's Morale Argument

Obama cares for this country and wants to make a difference. He doesn't care if the republicans or "congress" won't help him with how he views America should be. The thing is most Americans view the our country the same way Obama does, thats why we voted for him. Although not all of us voted for him, that doesn't change the fact that he is helping our country with the support of the democrats and the citizens of America. He is trying to slowly change America by implementing the bi-partisan bill, keep the affordable care act from being voted off, reform immigration, and fix the education budget. Im sure when he asks the businesses for help to raise the minimum wage he is talking to every business owner and not the upper class citizens because every person counts. There are many things that Obama have promised us in this speech, but the one that sticks out to me the most is education and not because i am a student, but because he wants children to be able to go to pre-school and that makes me want to help him. The reason is because i have nephews, nieces and little cousins that are on the verge of being able to go to pre school and i want them to have the opportunity that i didn't to go and educate themselves at an earlier age. Instead of struggling through high school and college they will most likely have an easier time because of fixing the budget for education. Im sure with the bi partisan bill that helps support the US job growth, and help export the products made in America it will create revenue for us to pay taxes which can be used for education. Although i am very biased when it comes to Obama's speech because i am more liberal than realist, that doesn't change the fact that i feel like our system is being ruined by rich power houses and not having enough equality for all Americans to have a say in what they want.