The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Junior begins “Red Versus White” by reasserting his love for his Indian family, reminding himself of the “beautiful” things in the Indian community, and including his observations about how Reardan families go through their own struggles. Though the chapter is titled “Red Versus White,” Junior’s assessments of the “red world” and the “White world” demonstrate them both to be complicated communities, and while different from each other in many ways, neither community is wholly “good” nor “bad.” Indeed, Junior feels he has a closer, more meaningful relationship with his alcoholic father than a White father who might be physically present in their homes, but emotionally absent.

The death of Junior’s grandmother comes as a shock to the reader, buried in the middle of the chapter. The experience of reading about her death mimics Junior’s experience of her death in the real world, as it comes seemingly out of the blue. His grandmother’s death forces Junior to reflect on the difference between an “old time Indian spirit” versus an Indian living today, and he cites the ways the old time Indians, including his grandmother, were far more accepting of “eccentricity,” a range of ability, gender, and sexuality. He attributes the fading away of this tolerance not merely to time passing, but to the arrival of White Christians—another way White, racist power structures have hurt Indian culture.

Nearly two thousand Indians attend Grandmother Spirit’s wake, suggesting both the strength of the community and that Grandmother Spirit occupied an esteemed place in the collective imagination, perhaps for her tolerance. The moment with Ted serves as comedic relief for the reader as well as the funeral attendees. Junior includes a cartoon lambasting Ted’s hypocrisy and cultural appropriation, citing the expensive price tags on all his Indian-made or inspired clothing. Much as Grandmother Spirit represented the “old time Indians,” Ted seems to represent Old World Colonialists. His great wealth allows him to take and appropriate what he likes from Indian culture, with little regard for those Indians whom he is actually stealing from. Furthermore, while Ted claims to be knowledgeable and have great respect for Indians, he’s wrong about the origin of the powwow costume, further displaying his ignorance. Junior’s assertion that “when it comes to death, we knew that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing” illuminates the use of the humor in the book (166). For Junior, laughter and humor is culturally important, a shared value across the community.

The death of Eugene in “Valentine Heart,” is, like the death of Grandmother Spirit, shocking both for Junior and the reader, and it is also alcohol-related. Again, art provides solace here; Junior grieves by drawing cartoons and reading books. Not only has Junior lost two members of the Indian community, he has lost two members who have meant a great deal to him, who embodied what it meant to be Indian. Literature helps him understand his grief more fully: through reading Medea he gains greater understanding of Indians’ cultural losses and understands the grief as a condition of joylessness.

These chapters reaffirm the community Junior feels both at Wellpinit and at Reardan community: when Junior finally returns to school, a teacher mocks him. Junior’s classmates, however, rush to his defense, and Junior notes that Gordy looks like a “warrior,” a word significant for its connotations in Indian culture. Junior also notes that Gordy protects him like Rowdy used to protect him, further putting the characters in conversation. The students’ protest is a double defense: they are defending Junior, and by extension, his Indian culture. The protest moves Junior so much that his “Red versus white” binary breaks down, replaced by his new one: people who are “assholes,” and people who are not.