Blog #15: Free as the Open Road?

I very much agreed with Leslie Marmon Silko’s view of the freedom of traveling in the US. I think that, as she said, the “wide open highway told us we were U.S. citizens; we were free....” As I don’t have my car with me here at school, I have really come to appreciate the freedom that the open road gives you. The ability to travel where you want, when you want is something that many of us take for granted, and remains one of our indelible rights as citizens of the US.

The thing that I did not agree with in this essay was Silko’s statement saying “It is the U.S. government that has continually attempted to sever contact between the tribal people north of the border and those to the south.” In my opinion, the US is not trying to maliciously separate people, they are simply enforcing laws that keep our country a lawful, organized and prosperous nation. Though one can definitely sympathize with illegals, who want to come to this country for a better life, the fact remains that they are in fact, breaking the law. There are completely viable and correct ways to enter the US as a legal citizen, and though it can be a difficult process, I don’t think condoning illegal immigration is an ok way around this. Though it may have been fine for people to migrate throughout the north and south of the western Americas in days long past, we are living in a contemporary society that must have regulations and laws in order to function smoothly. I also disagreed with Silko’s view that the term “immigration” has become synonymous with people of color. Though this is a common stereotype, I think that the majority of people realize that immigrants come from all over the world, and include people of almost every race. The term “immigrant” simply means someone who has come to America from a different country. I think that the only stigma associated with immigrants is the issue of illegal immigration. I do think that the tactics used by the officers in your article is out of line, and their blatant racial profiling is awful. If immigration laws are to be enforced, they must be done so with the utmost respect and honor for people’s inherent rights and dignity in mind. 

Blog #14: The Things I Would Carry

Questions like the prompt for this blog post always kind of stump me. This is mostly because I can never decide what I would choose if I were in a position like this. I always end up with a huge list and several more things in my mind that I want to have with me, but considering the limited amount of space the soldiers had for their personal belongings, I narrowed it down to a few things.

Besides all the necessary items for combat such as food, clothing, water, and weapons, I think the most important thing for me to have would be pictures of my friends and family. For me, it would be very important to have some kind of tangible memory to look at when times were rough, and pictures would help me escape to happier times. I would also bring a journal in which to chronicle my experiences and record my thoughts and feelings, which would serve as an outlet for emotions throughout the war. I also love to read, so I would definitely try to have some kind of book on me, preferably a nice long one to help me pass the time. A book or story always transports me to another place, and with that I could inhabit the universe of the story and escape the real world of the war, if only for a few minutes each day.

On a more intangible note, I think that I would be weighed down with thoughts about my loved ones back home, sort of like Jimmy Cross is consumed with thoughts about Martha. War is unpredictable, violent, and terrifying, and for me the fear of death would only be enhanced by the thought of not seeing my friends or family again. This would probably be the biggest weight I would carry, and as O’Brien says, “intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” I think that a lot of times it is the intangible things we carry with us, the emotional baggage that we live with every day that weighs us down more than anything, and as a soldier in Vietnam, I feel that I would certainly be stuggling under all those things I’d be carrying, both literal and emotional. 

Blog Post #13: Zitkala-Sa: Fighting for the American Dream

In the narrative The School Days of an Indian Girl, American Indian Zitkala-Sa chronicles her quest to achieve the American Dream as she obtains her education. To me, this narrative is a great example of someone determined to succeed in their own personal American dream, and also has the added and familiar element of oppression and discrimination on the road to success, which Zitkala-Sa fights her entire life. Throughout her schooling, Zitkala-Sa faces the obstacle of assimilating into a culture foreign to hers while trying to maintain her identity as a Native American. She seems to have everything against her: she barely understands English, she is separated from her family, and key parts of her identity are stolen, such as her long hair and traditional dress. This illustrated a familiar element of stories of the American Dream in that those in search of it often had to work their way up from the bottom of society, and were often also forced to assimilate into western culture. Zitkala-sa eventually finds her voice when she participates in an oratorical contest. Though she faces discrimination, the worst of which comes in the form of a flag emblazoned with “squaw,” she wins both of the contests she participates in. Against odds, Zitkala-Sa is on her way to achieving the American Dream, but is held back by the discrimination she faces. She acknowledges this, saying that “the little taste of victory did not satisfy the hunger in my heart.” No matter how hard she tries, at least in her time, Zitkala-Sa could not fully achieve the American Dream due to the prejudices that ran very deep in most people of her time. If achieving the American dream means having liberty and justice for all,

Zitkala-Sa is kept from fully achieving it because of the unjust prejudices held against her despite the fact that she obviously had the skill and talent to succeed.

Blog #11: Response to Mimi Heald

I also noticed many of the same parallels that you pointed out in “As the Lord Lives, He is one of Our Mother’s Children” and “If We Must Die.” As you said, both of these readings involve the concept of a “noble death.” The idea that African Americans had so little right and respect in society that they sometimes couldn’t even hope for a peaceful and dignified death is a very disturbing thought. I too made the connection between the “mad hungry dogs” in “If We Must Die” and the raucous and vicious crowd present at Jones’s lynching. I think that the imagery and descriptions in both readings show the dehumanization of African Americans on a new level. One thing I noticed was that the behavior of the whites served to dehumanize them as well. Through their vicious actions and lack of ethics and morals concerning human dignity and life, they lose their humanity and are therefore reduced to animalistic, mindless and savage dogs, which is made clear through the vivid imagery used in “If We Must Die.”

Blog Post #10: Knowledge is Power

After reading Harper’s “Learning to Read” and Chestnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth,” my “aha!” moment came when I realized that the key source of power for characters in both of the readings was the knowledge. In class, we have talked about how slaves were further suppressed often by being forbidden to learn to read or write. After reading the poem and the short story, I immediately thought back to Frederick Douglas’s Narrative, in which he described learning to read as a very liberating experience. The knowledge he acquired opened the door for him to learn more about abolition, and led to his quest and eventual attainment of freedom.

            In “The Wife of His Youth,” Sam Taylor used knowledge to climb his way from the bottom of society as a lowly mulatto slave to being the head of a prestigious society, the Blue Veins. This transformation by knowledge was so significant that it effectively made him a new person, and he even takes a new name, becoming the elite, refined gentleman Mr. Ryder. When the wife of his youth, Liza Jane comes back into his life, he is so changed that she doesn’t even recognize him. In a way, Liza stands as a foil to Mr. Ryder; he shows the picture of a man transformed by knowledge, while she remains a picture of what he would have been without it. Mr. Ryder uses knowledge to become better than himself, transforming his image and entire character drastically.

            “Learning to Read” also reflects this idea that knowledge transforms a person. One specific point made about gaining literacy is the feeling of independence that comes with the skill. The slaves view literacy as a gift, and though the Southerners scoff at their thirst for knowledge, the slaves see what their masters do not: with knowledge comes power to learn and change oneself, to become independent and self sufficient, just as we see in Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and in “The Wife of His Youth.”

Journal #8: Response to Catherine Roe

I really enjoyed reading Catherine’s post comparing and contrasting Jefferson Davis and Henry Garnet. It is so interesting to see the two juxtaposed side by side, considering they both have such entirely different backgrounds, arguments and views. What really struck me about Catherine’s blog was the idea that the two vastly different men used the same idea of their rights being violated as justification for their individual causes. As Catherine said, Davis’s reasons for the South’s secession from the Union cite a violation of what he believes to be American’s right to own slaves, while Garnet argues that slavery violates the rights of those enslaved as humans. It is very interesting to see how they each interpret the idea of American rights to fit their own agendas in accordance with what each man thinks are the correct views.

Imagery in Frances E. W. Harper's "The Slave Mother"

After reading Frances E. W. Harpers poem, “The Slave Mother,” I noticed that one of the main techniques she used in her work was very vivid imagery.  In telling the story of a child of a slave being taken from his mother, Harper employs words and phrases that evoke the intense pain and suffering of the slave mother. The continuing images of pain, suffering and terrible sadness come across very clearly in the poem. In the first stanza, we hear the screams of the mother, which “rose wildly in the air,” conveying the uncontrollable grief shown in the poem. Harper describes the mother in detail as having “hands so sadly clasped/The bowed and feeble head/The shuddering of that fragile form/That grief and dread?” By using these many descriptive adjectives, Harper paints a terribly sad portrait of a woman almost destroyed and crippled by the grief of losing her child. This image is used to generate sympathy for the mother from the readers who are shown how deep and tragic the woman’s sadness is. Harper is appealing to the readers’ emotions of pity, and possibly hoping to have readers who might be mothers themselves identify with the plight of a mother being separated from her child. 

Blog Post #6: Caught In Between

Lydia Marie Child’s The Quadroons is a case study of what it means to be caught between races in the 1800’s.  In the story, both Rosalie and her child Xarifa eventually fall into misfortune because of their race. The progression of both their lives goes from good to bad, or, if you will, light to dark, which could be seen as a symbol of how they are viewed throughout the story in terms of race. Rosalie begins in the “white” stages; she is happily married to a white man and has a beautiful daughter. However, her life soon begins to darken when her husband takes a fancy to a white woman. It is then that her race becomes an issue, and also is what causes her and her husband to separate. The same character arc can be seen in Xarifa’s story: she is beautiful, admired and adored by all until race brings about her enslavement, and eventually her demise. Both of these women illustrate precisely the idea of the Tragic Mulatta. Though they are virtuous, kind, and even beautiful socially respectable women, their race holds them back from happiness, and through no fault of their own, is eventually what causes their destruction.

            One thing that I took away from this reading was how Rosalie and Xarifa’s status as a Mulatta kept them from engaging fully on either side. Being part African American, Xarfia could never truly be a part of the white society due to the deep, inherent racism of the time. Also, because of her upbringing in a predominantly white society, she was not treated as a slave until she was repossessed, and therefore obviously unfamiliar with the harshness of such a life. In a way, I saw that Xarifa was doomed to insanity from the start, as she was unable to escape or either part of her identity. In addition to the shock of becoming a slave horrible treatment she endured, a crisis of identity could have been another of the many contributing factors to her insanity at the end of the story. The tragedy of this story is that the people of this time saw only the side of a Mulatta that they wanted to see. In the end, choosing to recognize her as a slave's offspring rather than a white man's daughter benefitted them more, regardless of her beauty, character and poise.

Blog Post #4: Sure as Death

While reading Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s story “The Tenth of January,” I was struck by the sudden, unexpected and very violent ending. However, upon re-examination of the story, I noticed that Phelps had employed the plot technique of foreshadowing Sene’s death several times. The one instance that really jumped out for me occurred relatively early on in the story, when Sene sees Dick and Del together by the stream. Close to heartbreak, Sene resolves to investigate and check to see if the man was really her Dick, saying “I won’t be a fool, I’ll make sure, I’ll make sure as death.” This again brings up the idea of death in relation to Sene’s character in the story. This statement stuck out to me as a parallel to the end of the story in a way that the other mentions of death did not because it is sadly ironic. In the end of the story, it is in fact in death that Sene “makes sure” of her fear that Dick would choose Del over her, and that his love for her is lost, as Phelps says “for a scratch upon [Del’s] smooth cheek, he had quite forgotten her.” To me, by paralleling Sene’s earlier statement, the tragedy of Sene’s horrific death is both enhanced and also paralleled by the tragedy of her lost love. 

Blog Post #3: Quiet Strength

While reading Washington Irving’s The Wife, I expected to see a somewhat stereotypical view of women as associated with Irving’s time period. What I was surprised to find was that, though the common view of women as weak is present, Irving challenges that classification with a very different take on women. The Wife highlights the true strength of a woman, even if it is hidden beneath a soft and tender exterior. I thought that it was very interesting to see these two very different views of women juxtaposed so closely, especially given the time period in which this was written. In Irving’s world, women were ideally supposed to be tender, frail, slight, weak and dependent on their husbands, and were rarely involved in anything more than trivial matters. However, directly after describing this feminine ideal, Irving goes on to say that beneath the delicate exterior of a lady, there hides a strong, brave, and steadfast spirit that makes a woman strong even when men cannot. Irving illustrates this point by describing a delicate vine wrapped around a sturdy oak tree, that, when the oak tree is broken by lightning, clings to the shrapnel and holds it together. I think that it is very refreshing to see recognition of a woman’s strength in writing, especially by a male author. It is nice to know that this quiet strength that women have is recognized by others, and written about in such a pleasing light from one of the most famous authors in history.

Blog Post #2: Read All About It: Newspapers Then and Now

           In this weeks reading, one thing that really jumped out at me was the prevalence of newspapers and magazines as one of the pioneering forms of literature in the New World, especially in the time period around the Revolution and the emergence of the United States.

            Prior to the Revolutionary war, newspapers in the colonies were mainly separated by region, catering to those in their immediate vicinity. However, with passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, printers of newspapers were brought together in opposition to the tax, despite distance and political ideas. To me, this showed yet another example of the colonists joining together during the time of the American Revolution, further uniting them against the British.

            Another thing that I found interesting about this time in American history was how much it laid the framework for our modern day newspapers. During the Revolution, newspapers united and became very focused on the political issues of the time. In much the same way, today’s papers follow political races, issues, scandals, and everything in between. Also in a similar structure to that of colonial times, our society has regional papers that have stories relevant to their local district, which also include national and global news. Our modern society boasts technological advances such as the internet and television, which eliminate the issues of distance, it is remarkable how much the Revolutionary era paved the way and helped to shape our news system.

Blog Post #1: To Be American

Blog Post #1

The title “American” is a label that many people hold claim to, but most rarely take time to define. For me, to be an American means to be a free, proud, and patriotic citizen of the United States. Ideal Americans are characterized as hardworking, united, patriotic and civilized leaders who strive for success and to achieve the American Dream.

Our discussions in Tuesday’s class reinforced my initial definition, and also reminded me of another key factor: Americans are diverse. By saying diverse, I am not only including the obvious distinction of race, but also factors like culture, social class, economic status, social background, ideals, beliefs, dreams, and many more things that make each American unique. When forming my definition, I quite honestly left out the diversity factor, not because I don’t believe that it is a vitally important factor, but because it simply wasn’t the first thing to come to my mind. Upon further reflection, I realized what a serious error it was to not include diversity in my assessment. Diversity is one of the major characteristics that makes America special. The title “American” is not just limited to the wealthy or upper classes of our society; it includes everyone, even, and especially, the marginalized of society. Langston Hughes’ two poems we discussed in class really drove this point home. No matter what our social, ethnic or cultural classification, we all bear the distinction of being American. It is each of our personal identities, cultures, ideas, hopes, dreams and ambitions that come together to create America itself.

            So therefore, my new and improved definition is: to be American is to be a part of the incredibly diverse, proud, patriotic, united and free country of the United States.