셔만 알렉시의 『어느 파트타임 인디언의 진짜 일기』: 현대 미국사회에서 인디언으로 살아남기 위한 전략으로서의 트랜스내셔널리즘

Abstract

Sherman Alexie insists that transnationalism will be the best strategy for Native Americans to survive in contemporary America in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The transnationalism in this article refers to Shari M. Huhndorf’s idea, “alliances among the tribes and the social structures and practices that transcend their boundaries, as well as processes on a global scale such as colonialism and capitalism,” and the conception of “the new man” in J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer. This article specifies how and why Arnold Spirit Jr., the protagonist of the novel, makes various efforts to overcome the nationalism agenda on Spokane Indian Reservation. By crossing over the cultural boundaries between Wellpinit High School on reservation and Reardan High School in a white town, he shows not so much the disadvantages of transnationalism as the benefits of making an apple of himself, “red on the outside and white on the inside.” Based mainly on the two theoreticians’s ideas in analyzing Junior’s transformative practices, this article investigates if Alexie’s transnationalism can replace the dominant ideologies on reservation.