My Name Is Not Easy is the story of Eskimo, Indian and White children who are sent to attend a Catholic boarding school in the early 1960s because there are no schools in their villages. The main character, an 11-year-old boy knows that his name will be changed to Luke because the priests and nuns at the school won't be able to pronounce his Inupiaq Eskimo name. Luke and his younger brothers, Bunna and Isaac, are punished for speaking their native language and soon Isaac is sent away with no warning or parental permission to live with a good Catholic family. The school is attended by white and Indian children too and there is much animosity between the groups of students. Eventually, as the students learn more about each other and bond in their distaste for they way they are treated by the priests and nuns, they begin to form a family of sorts. The death of one of the brothers along with other rites of passage for the kids forces them to grow up early and they learn quickly what is really important in life.