Who is the first game against? How is he treated by the crowd at the first game? How does the team (and coach) react/support him? How does this impact him?
In the first basketball game of the season, Junior experiences the rez’s contempt of him switching to Reardan. They feel that he betrayed the Spokane tribe, and do organized acts all out of spite. First, “The rez basketball fans were chanting, ‘Ar-nold sucks! Ar-nold sucks!’” (Alexie 143). Junior goes on to realize that they were calling him Arnold, his Reardan name, instead of Junior, his rez name. The rez calls him Arnold because they feel like he isn’t one of them anymore. When Junior walks into the court, “they all turned their backs on [him]. It was a fricking awesome display of contempt” (Alexie 144). Junior starts laughing, because “If these dang Indians had been this organized when [he] went to school here, maybe [he] would have had more reasons to stay.” (Alexie 144). The rest of his team joins in. In the locker room, Junior starts crying, and Coach offers some support for him, “If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear.” (Alexie 144). This helps Junior because it helps him not feel ashamed of his tears, but powerful because of them. Feeling like he can keep going is the only way that there will be hope for Junior.
I totally agree with this. The people on the rez are extremely angry with Arnold, because they think that he has turned against them. The tribe thinks that Arnold believes that white people are better than them, because he goes to Reardan. On page 132, Gordy says "...life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community" (Alexie 132). This fits Junior's sitchuasion perfectly, because he is struggling to go to Reardan without offending his tribe, and clearly he's not doing so well.
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