Reflections on Flight

Prior to starting our latest novel in class, Sherman Alexie's Flight, we did a group project to learn about the history of Native Americans and the United States. My group was responsible for Pine Ridge, the American Indian Movement, and the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Although I was gone for the first day of research, and thus not assigned one of the major parts, I was able to learn a lot about all three through proof reading my classmate's work.

After a week of preparation, we presented to our class. I was horrified at how Natives were treated. I knew that they had been treated poorly, but some of the things the US has done to them are horrible. Our presentations were almost all about how awful the Natives were treated. The novel focused on how both sides did horrible things. This surprised me because I expected Alexie, a Native, to focus more on the horrible things the US did rather than on the horrible things the Natives did, but instead he focused on how both sides were wrong.

Learning about the back story of things such as the Ghost Dance and the Battle of Little Bighorn helped in my understanding of the story and some key aspects of it.