In a New York Times article, written by Jess Row, he talks about Sherman Alexie and, " To understand Sherman Alexie as he often presents himself- as a clown, a cynic, a glib comedian, a blasphemer- is to miss the undercurrent of deep longing for the gravitas,, the wisdom, of the storyteller." (The full article is at the bottom). And this statement is very true, because underneath the sarcastic jokes about alchol and death, there is a sad truth to it. Not just the death of Native  Americans because of Alchol, but the death of their tradition. The article goes on to further say that Alexie was raised without certain Indian traditions and never taught his tribal language. This statement also is true, however it is Alexies stories that keep his heritage alive. Not speaking the langauge may not be keeping his culture, but he compensates by writing sotires about people who are dead set in keeping their tradition and Sherman Alexie spreads his culture, not by passing it down from generation to generation but instead sharing it with the literary world and it is in this way that he keeps his culture alive and keeps it alive past the land of the reservation but shares his story and the story of those around him and his ancestors with the world through his novels and stories. He makes light of the current situations through jokes such as, "“When a reservation-raised Native American dies of alcoholism it should be considered death by natural causes.”" (From the Article) But, it is clear that his works, although stories from his memory, are his way of sharing his perspective of native americans, those who are poor at adapting, and stuck in a medium, not quite in the modern world but not as their ancestors were. Due to the unatural change that was forced upon the native americans, they were pushed out of their traditions but never quite developed like the rest of America and so Alexie sees Native Americans as a people who are stuck in a sea of Alchol and drugs, drowning everytime they try to make a change. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/blasphemy-by-sherman-alexie.html?ref=shermanalexie