Native students may feel institutionalized and displaced when attending school, but other natives see school as an opportunity to gain knowledge. Aboriginal people may come from homes with harmful environments, such as alcohol or drug abuse, sexual, physical or mental abuse, relationship problems between parents and other common adolescent problems. To deal with these problems, you have to understand the situation. These problems are a direct result of colonization and residential schools. Native Americans cannot change the past, so we must collectively heal ourselves for the future of our race. Indigenous people find healing by regaining their lost culture and maintaining close relationships with family. Practicing cultivation can be as simple as a simple cleansing or an intense sweating ceremony. Guillory and Wolverton assert that “establishing and maintaining a sense of ‘family,’ both at home and in college, strengthens academic persistence among Native Americans” (61). Strengthening family relationships is important, not only for natives, but for all humans. Unfortunately, Native Americans have weak relationships with their families due to the intergenerational effect of boarding schools, and they may not want to strengthen those relationships. So we must ask: How can Native Americans regain their lost culture and identity? How can indigenous people improve the average quality of life of their population? What can Native Americans do to promote success in Western academia? Indigenous peoples in North America can use Western education and traditional culture as bridges to improve the quality of life for Indigenous people collectively to deal with the trauma left behind by residential schools. As long as the legacy remains, poverty and... middle of paper... everything concerns us. Some people thought we lived in a tepee on a reserve. Others were not informed of the existence of residential schools and do not even know what they were. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian briefly touches on the issue of racism, but the main character, Junior, still feels out of place. Alexie writes about a boy named Roger who tells a racist joke that natives are the offspring of buffalo and black people (63). There is also the idea that people are racist without them saying a word. I know I've experienced cold looks from older people that I thought were due to the color of my skin. Junior also felt those stares on his first day of school. “These white children couldn’t believe their eyes. They looked at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO” (Alexie 56 years old). Unfortunately, some non-Native Americans have not taken the time to understand the root of our problems..