Parallelism

Alexie in "Indian Education" makes use of obvious parallelism throughout his piece, acting to emphasize the racism that American Indians are forced to endure. In first grade, Alexie lists the numerous names that him and another Indian boy who were "tortured" were given, including "Junior-Falls-Down... Bloody Nose... Steal-His-Lunch... Cries-Like-A-White-Boy... top-yogh-yaught". These all consist of grammatically similar names, commonly associated with traditionally Indian names. Thus, the Indian bullies, by fabricating traditionally Indian names, mock the culture that both they and Victor share. Such a seemingly stupid action reflects the underlying racism that these bullies, even at such a young age, are subject to - the racism that they feel is so extreme that they begin to deflect it onto their own peers.

A similar situation occurs again in Sixth Grade, when Stevie Flett "called [Randy] out, called him a squawman, called him a pussy, and called him a punk. By describing this event with parallelism, Alexie reveals the extent of the racism - that experiences like these are not uncommon within American Indian circles. Instead, such experiences can be rattled off rather nonchalantly - a normal everyday event.

The most pervasive usage of parallelism is when Alexie describes the "bulimic" girls at his new school, writing that "I sat back and watched them grow skinny from self-pity", and then continues to write that his own family "ate [canned beef] day after day and grew skinny from self-pity". Consequently, Alexie emphasizes how the final outcome of the actions of both the privileged white girls and his own family is the same - they both end up growing "skinny from self-pity". However, while the white girls grow skinny from an abundance of food, Alexie and his family grow skinny from the lack of it. Thus, Alexie exposes how the Native Americans are starved in ways other than the simple lack of food: love, opportunity, and equality.