The Reservation

In a way, I cannot fairly compare my expierences to Junior's. I have not felt the same things he has, and I cannot pretend to have felt those things. However, I think that there is some way in which everyone can relate to some part of Junior's life. Junior, and the other Indians on the reservation are unique in that the things that are holding them back are very physical. The lack of opporutnities and hope that are very evident on the reservation are things that could be left behind if everyone were to seek those things elsewhere, as Junior did when he started going to school at Reardan. But, as with many of the books that we have read this year, there is also an underlying fear. People on the reservation do not want to leave the reservation because that would mean leaving what they know, which is very scary. Junior, even for 5 days a week, has to leave his friends, his family, the rules and the lifestyle that he knows and will most likely eventually leave it all for good. Because so much of who the Indians are lies on the reservations in their communities and traditions and ways of life, leaving the reservation is also leaving all of those things, which means that the decision to leave would not be an easy one. 

In many ways, living almost anywhere in the world in some way is like living on a reservation. Where you are born greatly affects what you are able to do in life. We have all, in some ways, won the lottery of life in that we live in a developed country with lots of opportunities where we are able to receive a quality education and have hopes for the future. There are so many places in the world where people live in great poverty, and are not able to receive education and are therefore not able to break the cycles of poverty. Even the city of Chicago is split into reservations- deeply segregated neighborhoods varying dramatically in opportunity and socioeconomic status. Even though legally people can come and go as they please, they city has changed very little in the past century. The difference is that many of these "reservations" are not challenged in the same ways that the Indian reservations are, which makes them seem less like reservations.