My Name Is Not Easy

My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson is a novel within the young adult and historical fiction genres. This work explores the history of forced Native American assimilation by the larger government and society of the United States of America. It is split into four parts and divided into the first-person narratives of several different students. The novel setting is a fictional boarding school called Sacred Heart. My Name is Not Easy exposes the rampant racism, white supremacy, and abuse that Indigenous children experienced at residential schools in the 1960s.

Debby Dahl Edwardson is an American author of young adult fiction. She lives in Alaska and writes about the history and experiences of the people there. My Name is Not Easy received a National Book Award nomination. It is Dahl Edwardson’s third novel.

This guide is based on the following edition: My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson, published by Times Publishing (2010).

Content Warning: The following guide includes summaries and analyses of physical abuse, racism, grief, trauma, alcoholism, and child abuse. It uses the term “Eskimo” because the source material employs this term throughout the narrative.

Plot Summary

In 1960, a 12-year-old boy from the Iñupiaq tribe changes his name to Luke because he knows the white teachers at his new school will not know or care to learn how to pronounce his real name. Luke and his younger brothers Bunna and Isaac leave home for boarding school at Sacred Heart School. They have never met Catholics before and are worried about leaving home. When they arrive at the school, Isaac, who is only six years old, is immediately and forcibly taken away to a white foster home. The loss of Isaac devastates Luke and Bunna and the cold hallways of the school frighten them. They are uncertain about the food in the cafeteria and intimidated by the thick forest that encircles Sacred Heart. Another Eskimo boy, Amiq, takes Luke and Bunna under his wing.

Sacred Heart students divide themselves into two groups: The Eskimos and Indian Country. These two groups have a bitter rivalry led by Amiq on the Eskimo side and Sonny on the Indian Countryside. The students align with one or the other, but this situation is complicated for Chickie, a white girl who grew up with Eskimos. The students believe this tribal division is important for their survival. Father Mullen punishes Luke for speaking in his native language by hitting him on the hands with a ruler. This incident teaches Luke that he is not safe at the school without a tribe of support.

Luke and Bunna run away from the school in a desperate attempt to find Isaac and return home. But another priest, Father Flanagan, tracks them down and brings them back to school. Father Flanagan decides that Luke and Bunna should use their talent at hunting to help provide food for the school.

During summer break, Sonny stays at Sacred Heart while most of the other kids return home. Luke and Bunna go home to their family, but Isaac is not free to leave his foster family. Luke’s mother is heartbroken.

In his second year at Sacred Heart, the nuns ask Luke to skin a dead moose. The white teachers at Sacred Heart assume that because he is indigenous, he knows how to hunt and prepare animals for food. Even though he does not know how to, Luke figures it out. This event highlights his resilience. The military conducts scientific testing on Luke and the other students who are from Eskimo tribes. The researchers administer doses of Iodine-131, a radioactive substance, to the students. Their goal is to see the students’ internal organs with the aid of a machine. The military is trying to train their soldiers to survive in Arctic conditions, and they believe that studying the bodies of the Eskimo students will help them. The researchers do not ask the students’ parents for permission. Sonny sees Amiq waiting in a line and rescues him from the testing. They find common ground while learning about one another’s pasts, and bond through the shared trauma of physical and verbal abuse by the racist Father Mullen.

Chickie discovers a Betty Crocker coupon campaign where a participant may win a vehicle. Bunna promotes this idea and the whole school writes thousands of letters to people asking for their coupons so Sacred Heart can get a new school bus. The students win the competition. Chickie and Bunna discover that they have feelings for one another.

On the day they are supposed to leave Sacred Heart for summer break, Luke refuses to go home because he has a sense of foreboding. A vivid dream warns him against leaving the school. Luke is unable to convince Bunna to stay at school with him, and Bunna dies in a plane crash on his way back home to his family.

When the school year starts again, Luke deeply mourns Bunna. Bunna’s death brings the students closer together. They start a school newspaper, and Junior is eager to write about Project Chariot, a government program that tests nuclear weapons on reservations. Junior finds inspiration in his Uncle Joe, who writes for a Native American newspaper. When Father Mullen rejects Junior’s story for the school paper, Junior figures out that the real story he wants to tell is about how the disparate Native American tribes are essentially one community under siege. Amiq is inspired by Junior’s story and composes a long list of missing Native Americans, including Isaac, whose family still does not know he was placed with a foster family. Luke sends Junior’s story and Isaac’s list of missing persons to a newspaper in Dallas. The paper in Dallas publishes it, and Father Mullen expels Amiq because Amiq takes full responsibility for both his and Junior’s writing.

Amiq’s expulsion brings the students even closer together because they admire his courage but worry about him out in the world on his own. Each student signs a legal affidavit confirming that they were all part of the publication of the story. Because Father Mullen cannot expel everyone, Amiq returns to school and the student body becomes more united than ever.

On Easter, Father Mullen travels to a remote beach to think deeply about his life and his work. An earthquake hits, killing one of the nuns at Sacred Heart. The earthquake causes a tsunami that kills Father Mullen.

In the aftermath of the Dallas publication and the earthquake, Luke returns home to his family. Isaac is also finally able to return to his family. Luke is happy to be with his people again. He is particularly happy to use his native language. Uncle Joe teaches Luke how to hunt.