By: Paula L. Kostman
My Name is Not Easy, a book of MG fiction by Debbie Dahl Edwardson, is riveting for what it is and yet plagues the soul for what it isn’t. The author keeps us guessing with the title, and about the true name of main character Luke, as he leaves his Iñupiaq name and family behind when flown away from his village to Sacred Heart, a Catholic boarding school. The school is isolated by hundreds of miles of tundra, and Luke and his brother Bunna feel helpless as a priest takes their six-year-old brother Isaac away to an unknown place instead of back home, saying he is too young to be at the school.
Luke and Bunna’s attempt to go after Isaac leads them to the reality of their fate: they are trapped in this toxic place. The boys return to the school to try to navigate the social stratus of the small community of Iñupiaq, Native, and white students, and to simply survive the abusive agenda of the school’s priests and the U.S. army, whose soldiers and doctors come to do radioactive testing on the students. While Luke’s is the main story line, the other students’ stories are also told as the POV switches from chapter to chapter.
The downfall of this enthralling story, sadly, is that the person telling the story, while having insider information as she married the Iñupiaq man whose experiences this story is based on, is not Iñupiaq herself. Indeed, she is European American, a member of the very people that caused the indigenous peoples’ cultural devastation. While, the story is well-written and believable, it highlights the arrogance that we white people would have any right to tell the stories of those we have oppressed to the brink of cultural extinction. But, for what it is, My Name is Not Easy is a story that needs to be told, and I still recommend it as a must read book for all of American youth. |
Artwork borrowed under creative commons from Nasuġraq.