My Name Is Not Easy

“Some things are good to know, like knowing what lies on the other side of that smooth line the tundra makes at the edge of the sky. When you don’t know, you feel uneasy about what you might find out there, which is how I’m feeling about Catholic school right now. Uneasy.”

Fear of the unknown characterizes Luke’s departure from home, which is traumatic. He parallels the unknown of Catholic school with the impossibility of knowing what is at the edge of the sky. This parallel emphasizes the vastness of his fear of Catholic school and the uncertainty that characterizes his journey. Because Luke is a child who has never left home before, all he knows is the setting he grew up in, which is the only frame of reference he has.

“I can still see Isaac’s tear-streaked face pressed against the window of that car. Like it’s happening over and over, like time’s folded in on itself, and part of me is always going to be trapped on this side of things, watching that car disappear into the dark woods with my little brother trapped inside.”

The image of Isaac’s removal haunts Luke. This quote is a poignant picture of the trauma of dehumanization and destruction of family. This moment is so profound and traumatic for Luke that he will never be able to forget it, which speaks to the long-term damage done by forcibly removing children from their homes.

“It’s true that a person can tell things about another person without anybody saying it. For instance, you can almost always tell by their hair which girls have mothers and which don’t.”

Chickie discerns important things about others. This quote characterizes her as an acute observer of the world around her and, especially, of people. This quote also captures her sadness at the loss of a mother figure and the impact such loss has on a girl’s identity and sense of self.

“Evelyn is trying to make me feel better, but this only makes me feel worse. This world doesn’t have too many Eskimos. It has too many sides and too many closed doors and too many people who don’t understand.”

Chickie is an outsider at Sacred Heart because she does not belong to any Indigenous tribe even though she grew up in a Native American community. This quote emphasizes Chickie’s empathy and lack of prejudice. This quote also serves as the author’s commentary on the necessity of holding space for people of diverse backgrounds.

“White people don’t know how to be comfortable with silence the way Indians do. Sonny knew this. Without even thinking about it, he understood the difference. When Indians don’t talk, it’s because they don’t need to, because things are already understood, and everybody knows it. When a white guy like Father Mullen doesn’t talk, it means something else altogether. Father Mullen’s silence stalked them from the edge of the room like a shadowy animal.”

In this quote, Dahl Edwardson characterizes white silence as anger and fear-inducing control. This quote also implies cultural differences that the Native American students like Sonny must adopt, while the white people of Sacred Heart do not even follow their own professed creed. This quote foreshadows violence, external conflict, and abuse. It emphasizes the cruel nature of the environment that Sonny and the other children are in.

“And I still remember the words of the prayer she taught me: ‘Guard well Thy inner door where we reveal our need of Thee.’ I am always guarding my inner door, keeping people away.”

Her loneliness and sense of abandonment traumatize Donna. This quote highlights the loneliness of being without family in the world. It also emphasizes how people guard their vulnerability against forming close relationships with others, which only further deteriorates their sense of self and increases their loneliness. Donna’s experience with loneliness is therefore a double-edged sword in which her survival tactic is also her perpetuation of loneliness.

“Stories can make you laugh so hard it hurts sometimes and make you remember the good things so much it makes your throat get tight.”

This quote celebrates the importance of storytelling. Dahl Edwardson uses story form to speak truth to power and provides an example of how important stories are. This quote also emphasizes that stories can be like medicine for the soul, releasing inner darkness and turmoil and restoring balance.

“The trick is to always keep them guessing about what you know and what you don’t know.”

In this quote, Dahl Edwardson exposes the ignorance of the white teachers at Sacred Heart, which represents the ignorance of the wider white society. Teachers at Sacred Heart educate and provide basic care for children of diverse backgrounds, but they do not know anything about those backgrounds because they believe Indigenous ways are inferior to white ways. This emphasizes a willful ignorance based on racism. For the students, however, this is a way for them to secretly build their autonomy and take advantage of ignorance for their survival.

“I don’t believe in being daring. Daring people are just dumb people who never live long. Not in the Arctic.”

Luke’s background of living in a place where survival can be difficult and that requires caution informs his personality. Luke prefers to play it safe because he sees first-hand what can happen when people take risks. This is a double-edged sword as it protects Luke but also keeps him entrapped by people who lead through intimidation and seek to rob him of his autonomy.

“Uncle Joe says killer whales understand Iñupiaq, and if you’re a good person and you ask, they’ll help. Even though we’re about a thousand miles away from the sea, I can feel them out there, just under the surface of things. Waiting.”

The killer whales in this quote are symbols of the language and culture that is waiting for Luke’s return. Although Luke is far away from home and the killer whales, they are always with him because that is the setting and environment to which he must return. Luke’s setting and environment of home in the Arctic are representative of his history, family legacy, and relationships with his language and culture. This proves that Luke is resilient and does not allow his adversaries to brainwash or abuse him into giving up his cultural heritage and identity.

“What the heck does personable mean? Sonny wondered. That the general thinks I could maybe be a person?”

Sonny’s question here is a poignant one that embodies the heart of Dahl Edwardson’s message about the abuse and dehumanization of Indigenous communities. The larger white supremacist society does not consider Sonny to be a person and feel no remorse for their views and actions concerning these Native American students. Therefore, white people like the general are surprised to find that Sonny is personable, multi-layered, and interesting.

“All of a sudden, I feel this fluttering feeling in my stomach—I swear, just like in the songs—and just as suddenly I notice Bunna’s eyes. Bunna has these really, really soft brown eyes, the kind that make you feel warm and happy when you look into them. Chocolatey brown. His eyes are a sweet, chocolatey brown. I notice them for the first time right then and there—and can’t for the life of me imagine how I failed to notice them before.”

This quote captures the moment in which the dynamics of Chickie and Bunna’s relationship shifts. Here, Chickie looks past Bunna’s teasing and sees the soul inside of him through his eyes. Bunna’s eyes in this quote are a symbol of his generosity, kindness, and love. It is a pivotal moment because it highlights the importance of the students of Sacred Heart finding one another’s humanity in an inhumane setting.

“Maybe the words he needed were Iñupiaq words, and maybe he had spoken English so long he no longer knew them. Or maybe there were just some things words couldn’t say. Things nobody could say.”

Rules at Sacred Heart separate Luke from his native language, the language of his interiority. Forced to speak English, Luke loses touch with his self-expression and therefore his authentic self. This quote speaks to the danger of eliminating Indigenous language and identity.

“All I cared about was Bunna’s hand holding mine, our fingers lacing together, back and forth, learning a new language all the way to Fairbanks. It was a language about love—holding on and letting go, holding on and letting go.”

Chickie and Bunna are of divergent backgrounds, cultures, and languages. This quote introduces the importance of another language: the language of love. Chickie and Bunna learn that they can surpass obstacles of difference and otherness where there is real love. This quote also suggests that shared language is a form of love, which emphasizes the importance of maintaining Native language use.

“Inside there’s only one thing I know: I have to get away from everyone and everything because I’m like a dog with pain and I don’t want nobody talking at me about it. I don’t want nobody being sorry at me or following after me with some crap about the compassion of Christ. I just want to run and keep on running.”

This quote captures a key plot development: Bunna’s death and the tragic impact it has on Luke. In this quote, Dahl Edwardson uses the simile comparing Luke with a dog in pain to emphasize the inherent, natural, visceral nature of Luke’s trauma and grief. Luke has no one to turn to in his grief because Sacred Heart will feed him religious narratives that do not align with his values or comfort him.

“How can anybody even breathe in a place where there is no wind, no open sky, no ocean, no family? Nothing worth counting? Ever.”

This quote characterizes the setting of Sacred Heart as oppressive. Attending school separates Luke from his family and from the ocean he grew up appreciating. The trees obscure his view of the sky. Luke feels oppressed by society, by grief over losing his brothers, and by the very physicality of Sacred Heart and the way it represents a loss of home.

“I looked at Luke, and a strange thought came into my head: he’s my brother now. And it didn’t have anything to do with Bunna, either. That was the strange part. Maybe nobody else would have understood it—him with pitch-black hair and me as light as snow—but to me it was as sure as the morning sunshine, brand new and old, both at the same time.”

This quote advances the idea that there can be love and connection beyond racism. Chickie understands the society-driven separation between her, a white girl, and Luke, a Native American. But Chickie rejects racism and loves her Native American community like family. The simile, comparing her certainty to the morning sunshine, highlights that this universal love is beautiful.

“I don’t know how Isaac’s gonna find his way home, all right, but he will. All of a Sudden, I’m as sure about this as I am about anything. Isaac will find his way home. One way or another, we will all find our way home. Even Bunna.”

Luke’s chief characteristic is resilience. This quote captures his hope for the future and his certainty that in life or death, his family will always be with him. This quote also captures Luke’s increasingly prescient premonitions, characterizing Luke as a leader.

“Like he could just step right out of the newspaper and march into the room with all those hunters behind him. Fearless. Luke looked up and blinked with a sudden realization. When they were all together like that, what was there to be afraid of?”

Uncle Joe inspires Luke to see himself as part of a larger tribe. He learns that there is strength in numbers, and fear dissipates within tribes because the individual does not stand alone. Luke therefore recognizes that he is part of many tribes, one of which is the tribe of the other students at Sacred Heart School. On his own, Luke is necessarily cautious, but with his tribe, he can be fearless and advocate for justice.

“He started to correct himself—he’d meant to say families—but then he started thinking about the word family. Family started out in one village and spread to another and then another. Spread throughout the whole state of Alaska and even down into the Lower 48, some families. And they were all related, too.”

Junior, a careful observer of the world around him, sees how interconnected disparate Native American communities truly are. Junior’s realization within this quote highlights the larger Native American community as a family, which emphasizes their responsibility towards one another, their shared history, and the importance of working together. The metaphor of the family helps to emphasize the idea that Native Americans must act together and love one another to become a united front.

“He could feel them leaning forward, as if they were trying to understand. And it was up to him to tell this story in a way they could understand, because he was the storyteller. He was the writer.”

Junior steps into the role of storyteller and writer, emphasizing the importance of stories in creating identity and advocating for change. Junior learns what Dahl Edwardson practices in the use of the narrative form: Stories spur other people to function as advocates. They humanize the dehumanized and lift marginalized voices.

“Everything jerked back and forth like somebody big is playing ball with the planet, somebody as big and mean as Father Mullen’s God.”

The earthquake that hit Alaska in chapter 7 is symbolic of a reckoning. The earthquake is a prescient reminder that life is unpredictable and that the Earth itself is more powerful in its natural and mysterious processes than humankind. While Father Mullen preaches that God is a force that must be listened to, the earthquake symbolizes an even more urgent and dangerous force, which minimizes the impact of Father Mullen’s presence and anything man-made, including religion.

“In Mullen’s place there’s a God that gets his energy from punishing people in a heaven so full of the righteous, a person could hardly breathe without pissing someone off. Luke almost laughs out loud: Bunna wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that.”

In this quote, Luke reclaims his identity and his culture by rejecting Father Mullen’s Catholicism. By staying true to his own beliefs and culture, Luke mourns his brother’s death in a way that is more authentic and heartfelt. No matter how much abuse or fear Luke endured under Father Mullen, his heart and mind remained his own. The use of black humor in this quote employs Bunny’s death to highlight the injustice of forced conversion and the purposeful erasure of Indigenous cultures.