"The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me" Dialogue

As a kid, and even now, I remember hearing this two phrases very often: first, “study hard, since education is the only ‘true’ inheritance your parents would leave you that can last throughout your life”; and second “marry someone rich, so you don’t ever have to worry about a thing”. I have to say, they are both really tempting but I much rather stick to the knowledge since I’ve never seen money as the key to solve my problems. I can very easily related to Alexie’s experience growing up, my family just like his, was very poor, my parents didn’t have much education, although my dad has a very privileged mind, and being Mexican doesn’t help much, since I’m stereotyped as someone how would never do much with her life, just like Alexie. My mom was forced to leave me with her mom when I was still a newborn, I would always see her and my dad, but most of the time I was alone since my grandparents were always busy just like my uncle who still lived at home at the time. I was pretty much raised by the T.V. and yet I didn’t turn out so bad. I also learned how to read on my own, I cannot recall the exact moment nor how I did it, but I do remember every one being surprise when I was caught reading a book on kindergarten. The teacher called my parents and suggested that it would be good for me to be transfer to a different school where I could explore my talent on a more advance level; of course, she was talking about a private school, something that my parents couldn’t afford and that I do not regret. From that moment and on, I was always first place in class. I took two of my schools onto the estate competitions and both times ended up on 4th place, which wasn’t exactly what I wanted but it was still 10 times more of what the teachers expected since I put both schools among the best ones on the country, a place they had never had before, or ever since. Many Mexican girls before me have brake the odds, simply graduating from high school and by making many wonderful things out of their lives, but for me, being the first one to graduate from high school out of my family and with high honors has change my life. I want to do more; I want to show my brothers that we don’t have to be like the rest. I want them to know that we can do anything we want and the only limit is the sky, and even then, we know have spaceships.


Alexie tries to save the lives of the students he visits by showing them that they can do more than just what they’re expected to do. “We were Indian Children who were expected to be stupid.”(par. 6) but it doesn’t have to be like that at all. An old saying says that “monkey does, what monkey sees”, and by letting them know that he was just like them, just a little Indian boy coming from a relatively poor family, like most, and yet was able to become a famous writer he lets them know that they can do great things; if he was able to do it, why not them? On paragraph 6 from Alexie’s essay, he implies that the Indian kids my feel inhibited by the presence of non-Indian teachers, therefore by visiting schools and working with the Indian kids, being and Indian himself, Alexie tries to provide them more confidence and the power of his knowledge.

The more one reads the more one learns about the world, which is probably what happened to Alexie. Before you start going to school, there isn’t much out there, your world is normally as big as your house, your family, and the people that you know. We want to grow up to be like mom or dad, uncle Lou or even Santa, why not. Once we start learning about normal people doing great things is when, for most of us, the decider to do be great, to do more, awakes. In Alexie case, the world was the size of the reservation he lived in but he discovered the great power of knowledge, through his dad’s passion, reading. He didn’t want to be an average Indian kid who would probably grow up to get married and support his family with a minimum-wage job that would help him and his family have an “ok” life, with many limitations but, after all, that’s what was expected from him or any other kid at the Spokane Indian reservation. He saved his live by not being average, by not giving up before even trying, by being “an oddity” (par. 5). None the less, even though he's already become a successful writer, he's job is not done yet. As his explains on the last few sentences of his essay, “I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives.” (par. 8).