Junior's True Identity

Junior finds himself perplex about his true identity. Throughout the novel he travels back at forth from his reservation with only Native Americans to going to a school out of the reservation Reardan that had mainly white students. On the reservation, Junior is the outcast that doesn’t seem to quite belong. In Reardan, he is Arnold, the traitor of his tribe. He doesn’t know which side to identify with. Even though he feels more welcome in Reardan, that’s not where his home is so how can he justify fully being white? In the end, Junior realized he’s a multi-tribal kind of guy, he can identify with both since both sides complete who he truly is. This creates peace in his mind and gives more meaning to his life. When I think of myself and how I identify myself. I can agree completely with Junior, all my life I’ve always had to identify myself as multi-tribal. When I lived in Jamaica, just like Junior’s tribe shunned him for going to a different school with mainly white students. I was shunned by friends/family in my grandparent’s neighborhood for going to a private school with mainly rich kids. Many times, they thought I felt I was better than them since I spoke proper English and went to a better school than them. I sometimes found myself feeling bad for the way I talk. Then when I came to America, I had to battle …show more content…
Junior didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Two of his childhood friends closest friends either bullied him at one point of betrayed him. He knew he wasn’t an attractive. He described himself as being the goofiest kid who had many seizures. He was the outcast. I feel that we all feel like outcasts at some point in our life and that’s why this book is so relatable. Readers can see that they weren’t the only ones out casted by their peers of the tribe they identified with. It happens every day, and that’s what ironically makes us all a part a tribe of lonely