Interpretation:

INTERPRETATION : ASSIMILATION

BY SHERMAN ALEXIE

2007

Despite 400 years of what amounted to genocide at the hands of Europeans , indigenous peoples of North America - known variously as Native Americans , First Peoples , Amerinds , or their own appellation , Indians (a name bestowed by Columbus who believed he had actually reached India in 1492 ) stubbornly remain . Beyond the bs of the reservations - some awash in casino dollars , others as impoverished as any country in sub-Saharan Africa - Indians have assimilated to a degree , as was the wish of their Euro-American conquerors , working as

teachers , psychologists , lawyers , politicians professional soldiers , restaurateurs , engineers , physicists and other white collar professionals . These upper-middle and middle-class assimilated ' Indians are not generally represented in the media or popular literature

Perhaps this is because the assimilation ' has not fully taken no matter how much a part of mainstream modern American society they become , they can never completely leave behind their Indian-ness This is a theme that runs throughout the stories of Couer d 'Alene Indian writer and poet Sherman Alexie

This is shown in a very poignant manner in the short story Assimilation in which a middle-class Indian woman , married to a blue-eyed Euro-American (perhaps in response to old stereotypes , Alexie has made all his Euro characters blue-eyed , feels a compulsion to have an extra-marital affair with an Indian man for a single reason : she herself is an Indian . Still attracted to her husband , she finds herself becoming bored with the whole thing and has an intense desire to have sex with a complete stranger for no other reason than her husband is white

On the surface , this is a typical story about a woman bored with her marriage , seeking a bit of a thrill , aware of her husband 's shortcoming but in the end , realizing her love for him in the context of tragedy The twist is the fact that hers is a mixed ' marriage , and that she is an Indian . Such unions between Indian women and white men (and occasionally , Indian men and white women ) were fairly common along the western frontier during the 19th century , but usually involved the white partner becoming assimilated into the Indian culture - or at least living in close proximity to it . Men who took Indian wives were typically mountain men , hunters and trappers whose lifestyles were similar to the Indians among whom they lived . White women who would up with Indian husbands were invariably ones who had been captured as young girls and raised as Indians

In Assimilation , Sherman Alexie turns this situation completely on its head . In a new century and an alien culture and society , it is the Indian who has assimilated into white culture . The problem is a sticky little issue called race ' Among Indians prior to the encounter with whites , race ' was unknown . Even with the first contacts starting with Lewis and Clark (the Spanish had been quite merciless in their dealings with Indians further south ) and early French-Canadian trappers (who frequently intermarried with Indians , to which numerous...