Superman and Me

Superman and Me

Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” is a revealing look into Native American culture. He expresses how Native Americans feel they are perceived by the world. The story also delves into the subject of intellectual bigotry within the Native American culture. Growing up on a reservation himself, Alexie knows what it is like to be persecuted by the outside world as well as his own people. It’s hard enough for a Native American to succeed without their own people weighing them down. He also sets out to teach the importance of reading and how it can enrich ones life. In the world we live in, Native Americans must struggle just to get on even footing with mainstream America.

“Superman and Me” is a short biographical story about the authors love of reading and how this love made him somewhat of an outcast in his school. Alexie grew up on a Spokane Indian reservation in Washington State. He inherited his love of reading from his father, an avid reader of many different types of books. Alexie fondly remembers, “My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well” (148). Superman comics were his first encounter with reading. Alexie writes, “Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, “I am breaking down the door.” One again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, “I am breaking down the door.” In this way, I learned to read” (148). Though he was only three when he first picked up a comic, he was able to imagine what Superman and other characters were saying by looking at the illustrations. Reading is a tool one can use to succeed in life. Like it or not, the importance of a good education cannot be stressed enough. To Alexie, “reading” is more than just the reading of words. Reading is a way to open up the way one sees the world.

At this point in the story, Alexie chooses to change the stories focus. He explains the trouble a person like him has on a reservation, “If he’d been anything but an Indian boy living on a reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on a reservation and is simply an oddity” (148). To actively participate or seem interested in school is frowned upon by his peers and even some of his elders. By enjoying reading and trying to be a good student, he is seen to be a sell-out to his people. Alexie recalls, “They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid” (148). This self-repressive attitude is very hurtful to Alexie. To him, it is bad enough that the outside world sees him and his people as ignorant, but to have his own people do the same is even worse. Alexie sees the love of reading as a way for Native American children to break free of their so called cultural limitations. The mindset of most people he knows is, as he sees it, destroying his culture. Alexie states, “In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, short stories, or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories, and novels” (148-149). He is now trying to change this mindset. He visits different reservation schools where he attempts to pass on his love of reading to a new generation of Native American children. Alexie believes that if he can turn things around for this generation of children, he can turn things around for future generations. While what he sees in today’s Native American youth encourages him, he still sees some with the same mindset as his peers from childhood. He writes, “There are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist”