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My Name Is Not Easy
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DEBBY DAHL EDWARDSON
has lived at the northern most tip of North
My name is not easy. My name is hard like
America in Barrow, Alaska, for over thirty years.
ocean ice grinding at the shore or wind
She married into the Ińupiaq community and
“Haunting and deftly composed.…With fi erce love and fi rst-hand pounding the tundra…
most of what she writes about is set within this
culture. It’s not the culture she was born into, but knowledge, Edwardson brings beautiful, harrowing, courageous lives Luke knows his Ińupiaq name is full of sounds
it’s the one she feels she belongs to in every sense along the Arctic Ocean to readers.”
white people can’t say. He knows he’ll have to
of the word. While My Name is Not Easy is fi ction,
—Howard Norman, author of What Is Left the Daughter
leave it behind when he and his brothers are sent
it was inspired by real stories from a number of
to boarding school hundreds of miles from their
boarding schools that once operated throughout
“Here is a book from the far North that shows a diff erent, and equally Arctic village.
Alaska.
important side of the Civil Rights Movement.…Th
e words soar off the
page and then, beautifully bring us home.”
At Sacred Heart School things are diff erent.
Blessing’s Bead, her debut novel, was chosen by
—Helen Frost, author of Crossing Stones
Instead of family, there are students—Eskimo,
Booklist as one of the Top Ten First Novels for Indian, White—who line up on diff erent sides of
Youth and a Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth
“An extraordinary tale of love, betrayal, and above all, survival.…Th is
the cafeteria like there’s some kind of war going
title in 2010. It was also selected an International is a novel that, like landscape, marks a reader’s soul forever.”
on. And instead of comforting words like tutu and Reading Association Notable Book for a Global
—Ellen Levine, author of Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights
maktak, there’s English. Speaking Ińupiaq—or Society and an American Library Association Best
Activists Tell Th
eir Own Story
any native language—is forbidden. And Father
Book for Young Adults. Visit her online at:
Mullen, whose fury is like a force of nature, is
www.debbydahledwardson.com
“My Name Is Not Easy brought me to tears as I remembered the ready to slap down those who disobey.
loneliness and confusion I felt when I left my own home in Arctic Alaska for boarding school.…Th
is young adult novel evokes a time
Luke struggles to survive at Sacred Heart. But
and place in the Alaska Native world that is important to remember.”
he’s not the only one. Th
ere’s smart-aleck Amiq, a
Jacket design by Alex Ferrari
—William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, author of Fifty Miles from Tomorrow:
daring leader—if he doesn’t self destruct; Chickie, Jacket photograph credit © 2011 istockphoto/Phil Date
A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People
blond and freckled, a diff erent kind of outsider;
and small quiet Junior, noticing everything and
writing it all down. Each has their own story to
tell. But once their separate stories come together, things at Sacred Heart School—and in the wider
world—will never be the same.
www.marshallcavendish.us/kids
Ages 12 up
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M A R S H A L L C A V E N D I S H
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Text copyright © 2011 by Debby Dahl Edwardson
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Request for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591. Tel: (914) 332-8888, fax: (914) 332-1888. Web site: www.marshallcavendish.us/kids
Th
is book is a work of fi ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fi ctitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offi
ces: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196 • Marshall Cavendish International (Th ailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke,
12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Th ailand • Marshall Cavendish
(Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edwardson, Debby Dahl.
My name is not easy / by Debby Dahl Edwardson. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Alaskans Luke, Chickie, Sonny, Donna, and Amiq relate their experiences in the early 1960s when they are forced to attend a Catholic boarding school where, despite diff erent tribal affi liations, they come to
fi nd a sort of family and home.
ISBN 978-0-7614-5980-4 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-7614-6091-6 (ebook) 1. Indians of North America—Alaska--Juvenile fi ction. 2.
Alaska—History—1959—Juvenile fi ction. [1. Indians of North America—Alaska—Fiction. 2. Alaska—History—1959—Fiction. 3.
Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Catholic schools—Fiction. 5. Boarding schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.E2657My 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2011002108
“Unchained Melody” lyrics by Hy Zaret, music by Alex North,
© 1955 (Renewed) FRANK MUSIC CORP. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Book design by Alex Ferrari
Editor: Melanie Kroupa
Printed in China (E)
First edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Saganna—George L. Edwardson,
who taught me to see the world through his eyes.
It’s a good world.
“Oh, only for so short a while you have loaned us to each other.
Because we take form in your act of drawing us, And we take life in your painting us,
And we breathe in your singing us.
But only for so short a while have you loaned us to each other.”
—Father’s Aztec Prayer
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Contents
PART I: THE DAY THE EARTH TURNED OVER (1960–1961) My Name Is Not Easy / Luke 3
Looking for a Tree / Chickie 10
Never Cry / Luke 17
Indian Country / Sonny and Chickie 28
How Hunters Survive / Luke 37
Snow
bird / Chickie 49
Kickball / Sonny 56
Th
e Size of Th
ings Back Home / Luke, Sonny & Chickie 65
PART II: THE DAY THE SOLDIERS CAME (1961–1962) 75
Rose Hips and Chamomile / Donna 77
Burnt Off erings / Luke 85
Military Trash / Chickie 100
Th
e Day the Soldiers Came / Luke 108
Th
e Meanest Heathens / Sonny and Amiq 119
PART III: WHEN THE TIME COMES (1962–1963) 137
Coupons and Bomb Shelters / Chickie 139
Our Uncle’s Gun / Luke 149
Eskimo Kiss / Chickie 155
Forever / Luke 161
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PART IV: THE EARTH CAN’T SHAKE US (1963–1964) 167
He’s My Brother / Chickie 169
Eskimo Rodeo / Luke 177
Unchained Melody / Donna 186
A Weak Spot or a Secret Strength / Luke 193
Our Story 197
Civil Disobedience 216
Good Friday 228
EPILOGUE: A NEW GUN / Luke 240
AUTHOR’S NOTE 245
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PART I
The Day the Earth Turned Over
19601961
Th
e elders say the earth has turned over seven times, pole to pole, north to south.
Freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing,
fl ipping over and tearing apart.
Changing everything.
We were there.
We were always there.
Th
ey say no one survived the ice age but they’re wrong.
Th
ere were seven ice ages and we survived.
We survived them all. . . .
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My Name Is Not Easy
SEPTEMBER 5, 1960
LUKE
—
When I go off to Sacred Heart School, they’re gonna call me Luke because my Iñupiaq name is too hard. Nobody has to tell me this. I already know. I already know because when teachers try say our real names, the sounds always get caught in their throats, sometimes, like crackers. Th
at’s how it was
in kindergarten and in fi rst, second, and third grade, and that’s how it’s going to be at boarding school, too. Teachers only know how to say easy names, like my brother Bunna’s.
My name is not easy.
My name is hard like ocean ice grinding at the shore or wind pounding the tundra or sun so bright on the snow, it burns your eyes. My name is all of us huddled up here together, waiting to hear the sound of that plane that’s going to take us away, me and my brothers. Nobody saying nothing about it. Everybody doing the same things they always do. Uncle Joe is cleaning his gun and Aaka—that’s my grandma—is eating maktak. Jack is sprawled out on the 3
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
bed reading Life magazine, and Mom’s dipping water from the fi fty-fi ve-gallon water drum to make tea for Aapa, my grandpa.
Bunna’s chasing Isaac across the fl oor on the opposite side of the room, showing him how to play cowboy with his authentic Roy Rogers gun and holster set. Pretending there’s a whole pack of Indians under the bed. Th
e only thing under
the bed is one little Eskimo: our youngest brother, Isaac, mad about the fact he’s always got to be the Indian.
I know that pretty soon Aapa’s gonna fi nish his tea, and when he does, he’s gonna belch and say taiku. But he isn’t thanking Mom or Aaka or anyone, he’s just saying it. Taiku.
Th
ank you.
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 fi nd out there, which is how I’m feeling about Catholic school right now. Uneasy. Wondering if it’s gonna be good or bad or both messed up together.
I never met them Catholics, yet, but I heard about them.
If you give them a kid ’til the age of seven, they got ’em for life.
Th
at’s what Catholics say. I watch Isaac scuttle across the fl oor, an uneasy feeling stirring in my stomach. Isaac is only six.
Aapa stands up from the table and belches good.
“Taiku.”
I wonder if Aapa knows what Catholics say. Probably not. Jack’s the one who told us about them Catholics and he wouldn’t say it to my aapa because Aapa is not a Catholic.
4
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y / L u k e Jack is Mom’s boyfriend.
Uncle Joe wipes his rag along the barrel of his gun and hands it to me, like he always does. “So. You going off to that place where they make you eat Trigger?” He leans down next to me when he says it, too, like he’s sharing a secret.
I think about Roy Rogers’ fancy horse, Trigger, in the movies they show at the community center sometimes, and I get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Joe smiles the kind of smile that says he knows stuff that other people don’t know.
“You mean your momma never told you? Th
em Catholics,
they eat horse meat.”
Mom doesn’t hear this because she’s too busy pouring tea for Aaka. But Jack hears it, all right, and he’s not happy about what he’s hearing. I can see it in the way he looks up from his magazine real sharp, fi xing his eye on Joe. Jack keeps his mouth shut, though, because Uncle Joe don’t think much of white men, and Jack knows it.
“What they want to eat horse meat for?” I ask.
“Cheaper,” Joe says.
Aaka is still eating maktak, and even though no one ever said it, I know them horse-eating, kid-stealing Catholics aren’t ever going to feed me what I like—whale meat and maktak.
And I’m all of a sudden so hungry, it seems like I could never get enough to fi ll me up.
Bunna fl ops down onto the bed next to Jack and Isaac.
Jack’s got a picture in Life magazine of a school somewhere down south in the Lower 48. It has one of those big orange 5
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
school buses out front of it, and I don’t like the way Bunna looks at that bus, his eyes all full of possibilities, because I know there’s no way I am ever going to fi nd any possibilities at all at Sacred Heart School, big orange bus or not.
Mom sets the teakettle on the stove, gazing at the three of them, her eyes soft.
“Isaac, your face,” she says.
Isaac slips off the bed quick as a lemming, but Mom catches him quicker.
“You want them white people to think you’re a puppy?
Here, lemme wash your face.”
I hear the plane overhead, fl ying low enough to shake the windows. I hold Joe’s gun on my shoulder, sliding my cheek sideways along its smooth stock, trying to pretend it’s not heavy, watching the plane buzz down out of the sky at the far end of town, like a big fat fl y. It’s one of them military planes, a C-46. I squint down the gun’s barrel with my good eye as the plane lands, following it through the gun’s sight as it drags its swelled-up belly across the tundra, sunlight fl ashing off its silver skin. Th
e dogs are complaining about it, their
voices yapping mad at fi rst, then yowling up together into one voice, that lo
ng-tailed howl they always make when the plane lands.
As far as you can see out, there is tundra, tundra turned red and gold with fall, tundra full of cold air and sunshine. I take a deep breath. It feels like that plane has poked a hole in the sky, and all the air is leaking out.
I hand the gun back to Joe, the gun that’s gonna be mine 6
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y / L u k e when I’m old enough to take the kick. Next spring maybe.
“Boys?” Mom says. “You hear? Get your stuff . Plane’s come.”
I’m twelve years old, all right, and Bunna, he’s ten. But Isaac, he’s only six, and all I can think of is those Catholics and what they say about kids. Why can’t we wait until Isaac turns seven?
When I climb up into that plane, the wind’s blowing hard, same as always.
“Take care of your brothers,” Mom calls, and I turn around quick. One last time.
Th
e wind sweeps my hair across my eyes and carries Mom’s words backward. It pulls me backward, too.
Stay here, the wind says. Stay.
Mom stands on the edge of the runway right next to Jack, my aapa and aaka and all our aunties and uncles with their babies. Some of our aunties are crying, but not Mom. Mom says we’re Eskimo and Eskimos know how to survive. She says we have to learn things, things we can’t learn here in the village. Mom does not cry, and neither do we.
Take care of your brothers. I hang on tight to those words as I sit down inside the plane. It’s full of kids, this plane, kids going off to boarding school, mostly teens, because there’s no high schools in none of our villages. Every single teen from every single village in the whole world, maybe—all of us being swept off to some place where there won’t be no parents, no grandparents, no babies. Only big orange buses and trees and teachers choking on our names.
7
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
Bunna and Isaac are looking around with wide eyes.
“Th
ey all going to Sacred Heart?” Bunna whispers.
“Naw,” I say. “Most of them going off to BIA schools.”
Bureau of Indian Aff airs schools don’t take kids as young as us—that’s what the man who convinced mom to send us said. He said we’d get a better education at a Catholic school. I don’t say any of this to Bunna. I don’t think Bunna cares much about his education right now. Me neither. And Isaac, sitting in between the two of us, doesn’t even know what it means, yet, to get educated.