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Summary: Sherman Alexie recalls growing up with stereotype movie Indians — and loving them, wanting to be them. (Well, most of them.)

I was a little Spokane Indian boy who read every book and saw every movie about Indians, no matter how terrible. I'd read those historical romance novels about the stereotypical Indian warrior ravaging the virginal white schoolteacher.

I can still see the cover art.

The handsome, blue-eyed warrior (the Indians in romance novels are always blue-eyed because half-breeds are somehow sexier than full-blooded Indians) would be nuzzling (the Indians in romance novels are always performing acts that are described in animalistic terms) the impossibly pale neck of a white woman as she reared her head back in primitive ecstasy (the Indians in romance novels always inspire white women to commit acts of primitive ecstasy).

Of course, after reading such novels, I imagined myself to be a blue-eyed warrior nuzzling the necks of various random, primitive and ecstatic white women.

And I just as often imagined myself to be a cinematic Indian, splattered with Day-Glo Hollywood war paint as I rode off into yet another battle against the latest actor to portray Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

But I never, not once, imagined myself to be Tonto.

I hated Tonto then and I hate him now.

This is an excerpt from the essay. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without prior permission in writing from the author or his duly appointed representative.

The complete text of this essay is published in various anthologies and archived with the Los Angeles Times. Original publication: Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1998

Copyright © Sherman Alexie | FallsApart Productions - All Rights Reserved
Text may not be reproduced without written permission.

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