From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. During Native Americans the time of the early settlers, where treated very badly. This is similar to what Arnold Spirit goes through in the novel the absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian by the Sherman Alexie. In other words, the author is informing the hardships that Arnold had to go through just like the Native Americans did. For example Arnold went through poverty; racism, death, and intimidation which had a huge effect on Arnold’s identity. Alexie interprets that this concepts caused Arnolds like Native Americans to be depressed, have a low self-esteem, and think that they will always be poor, and just have no faith and lose hope.
Poverty effects many people every day and have different thoughts of the world. “Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor” (Alexie 2). Arnold viewed poverty as something incredibly difficult to overcome, a condition that simply reinforces itself. He didn’t believe that poverty will be possible to defeat and believe he was just meant to be poor. This really affected his identity because it made him looked like a weak Indian and someone who would not fight back for himself and many bullies took advantage of that. He feels that is something that he inherited from all the Indians.
In addition a huge part that also affected his identity was racism. “During one week when I was little, Dad got stopped three times for DWI: Driving While Indian “(p. 46). Racism like back then is also going on today but it can be stopped with the help of all the community. When Arnold mentions this quote, he’s inferring that when police officers pull over his dad, it was due to the fact that he was