# 15 An Issue of Immigrants



Firstly, I really enjoyed reading this essay and gaining some insight from a native Indian perspective. Especially as Texans, it is very important to read articles like this since it addresses issues that are right in our own backyard literally. There were some points I found myself agreeing with Silko on and others that I did not necessarily disagree with but feel that they should definitely be changed. I completely agreed with here on the unnecessary roughness and racial prejudice that the Border Patrol Men enforce. I personally have never been farther south than San Antonio but I could still greatly identify with what Silko experienced at the hands of the officers. My family and I were on our way to my uncle’s house in a very affluent neighborhood in Dallas when we were pulled over by the police. We were driving our somewhat brand new SUV and the passengers consisted of me, my parents, and my older sister. We were goofily dressed for the holiday occasion in matching sweaters, so when the officer asked my father to get out of the car and began shining his bright flashlight into the faces of my preteen sister and mother, I felt so confused. We weren’t aware of having committed any kind of driving violation and we certainly didn’t seem suspicious in any way (except maybe for our tacky Christmas attire), nonetheless, the officer searched my father and kept us pulled over on the side of the road for nearly an hour. When the officer finally ventured back to the car for the final time, he said that he had pulled us over because one of the lights that shined on our rear license plate had gone out. When I read this article, I felt just as Silko did, like we were in violation of some law for being somewhere we didn’t belong, according to law. At the same time, being a born and bread Texan and a very patriotic American citizen, I have been practically programmed to fear and have hatred of the “illegal aliens” who are “intruding” on my freedoms. At times, I feel like it is so wrong for those sneaky people to be creeping over the border in the middle of the night carrying their disastrously addictive drugs and criminal ways into my beautiful country. But then I imagine the little Indian girl clinging to her mothers hand as she and her poor family runaway from disparity and governmental injustices to the safe haven of our borders. When Silko describes the image of the passengers allover the train heading north I slightly disagree with her describing it as an image of beauty. What I feel would be beautiful is if the foreigners with intentions for good( not the drug smugglers) would come to America and become a legal citizen so that they may pay taxes and not only function but also contribute to the betterment of the American society.



# 14 The Weight of War

If I were a soldier in Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s unit I would carry several items. The first and most important item would be my bible. I would carry the bible as a source of strength and encouragement in the face of my self-doubts and fears amid the depressing atmosphere of war. When I would lose a fellow soldier, I’d turn the page to a scripture and bid them farewell with the sweet words of God’s glory. Once the ever present feeling of despair would finally overtake my weak and feeble mind, I would look to my bible for ways in which to refill my thoughts with encouragement and uplifting phrases. The second item I’d carry would be a small scented candle. I’d pick one that smelled like fresh baked cookies or apple pie. I’d carry the candle to remind me of home and the many loved ones that I’d be fighting for back there. The pie or cookie scent would remind me of the Holiday seasons when, for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, all my family would get together to celebrate. I’d want to think back to a time like this, when everyone was together, so that I could remember the people I loved at their best moments, when everyone at least tried to set aside their differences and put on a happy face. The candle smells would excite memories of Grandma’s flour covered apron, long dining room tables, homes filled with bustling conversation and laughter, and hours spent hanging lavish holiday decorations. My final and most certainly heaviest item would the animosity I would carry for defending a country that up until recently counted me as less than a human being. Every time I would crawl out of my foxhole, I’d do so with oozing bitterness at the fact that I, an African American, would be seen as expendable to my fellow soldiers, superiors, and nation. My resentment would be especially heavy when I would be given the lesser quality rifles and weapons because I was black and when I’d be deemed the person to explore the extremely dangerous territories ahead of my unit  because the loss of my life was less valuable than that of a white soldier. This resentment would surely be the heaviest.

# 13 A Dream Remains A Dream . . .



Gertrude Bonnin’s The School Days of an Indian Girl, in my perception, is a story of the American Dream not coming true. Firstly, my definition of the American Dream is defined as being able to enjoy ultimate success and happiness achieved by taking full advantage of all the many opportunities that life in the United States has to offer an individual. In reading the text, I got a continual sense that Gertrude was never really and truly happy. This lacking in happiness stemmed from the racial prejudices she endured in her attempts at an “American” education and the disapproving attitude of her still very Indian mother. The sentence I chose conveys these origins of the author’s unhappiness, “Her few words hinted that I had better give up my slow attempt to learn the white man’s ways, and be content to roam over the prairies and find my living upon wild roots”. From this sentence I got that although Gertrude was very dissatisfied with her schooling experiences, she still understood that an education in the East would allow her more opportunities than being complacent on the reservation. At the same time, Gertrude must have felt torn between the extremely deep love she felt for her very Indian mother and her own desire to explore the opportunities awaiting her in the East, despite the white people. Sadly, once Gertrude has accomplished a small victory in the academic realm of the white man’s world, she could not even take part in fully enjoying the moment, for she dwelled on the ill feelings her own mother had against her and the discriminatory participants and members of the audience. Zitkala-Sa was never able to enjoy her successes, her American Dream.

# 12 Statehood: To Be or Not To Be?

My favorite sentence from Hawaii’s Story is “So it happens that, overawed by the power of the United States to the extent that they can neither themselves throw off the usurpers, nor obtain assistance from other friendly states, the people of the Islands have no voice in determining their future, but are virtually relegated to the condition of the aborigines of the American continent.” I chose this sentence because in reading the text of Hawaii’s history and learning how it became a part of the US, I greatly sympathized with the victimized and even kidnapped people of Hawaii. However, being a native-born American citizen I have long been exposed to and believed the hoopla surrounding the peaceful and mutual joining of the two nations resulting in a fantastic travel destination for Americans. However my attention was drawn to this particular sentence because it utilized the common sentiment of modern times that European settlers greatly mistreated and stole from the Native peoples who were inhabiting this land prior to their discovery of it. I thought it was genius on the part of the Queen to play on this sentiment because not everyone, due to the misinformation given out to the public as expressed by her in previous chapters, may have felt any sympathy for the people of Hawaii and they may have even gone as far as to think they were doing Hawaii a favor by taking it on as a fellow state. But to compare the experiences of the Hawaiian natives to that of the indisputably cruel treatment and land theft experienced by the Indians of America may have evoked a second thought in the minds of those in support of the US taking control over the island. Even the choice of calling the “Indians” aborigines, meaning the original or native flora of a region, evokes some type of emotion to reconsider one’s position on the subject matter of the US’s greedy, power hungry ways.



# 11 Mississippi Queen,Ya Know What I Mean?



In response to both Pauline Hopkins’ “As the Lord Lives, He Is One of Our Mother’s Children” and Claude McKay’s poem “Outcast”, I explore the very perplexing question that I have myself struggled with for what seems to be the entirety of my life post adolescence and discovering who I am/want to be. My question is by taking on the character and persona of a very 21^st century westernized, American girl, and ultimately suppressing my “out of Africa black” roots in this country and all the weight that goes along with it, am I wrong to do so? I was originally born in a very small town in Mississippi, but I moved to Texas when I was only a month old so really I consider Texas my home. Both my parents are from and grew up in that small Mississippi town and so did my grandparents and their parents. We go back and visit this town, frozen in time it appears, nearly once a year, every year. The setting in which Hopkins describes the gang of white men and the lynching of Jones, practically the entire story, reminded me very much of this small town and could have easily taken place there. There was one instance that popped into my mind upon reading when my family and I were driving down the town’s main street  and saw the KKK with a table set up literally on the side of the road advertising their meeting that week with men dressed in full garb and supportive drivers hooting and beeping along side us. I was only about 9 or 10 at the time but I remember that day so vividly. I am a descendent of slaves no doubt and have had more than my fair share of history lessons on the subject but until that day I’d never experienced the terrible feeling that was probably comparable to only a minute fraction of the emotions my ancestors felt. The riotous way Jones met his maker was definitely a reoccurring event in my hometown, and coming to terms with that fact nauseates me.  As a modern day kinda girl, sometimes I want so badly to be able to erase any ties I have to such a horrible place where even more unbearably horrific things happened. The more my family and I went back there, the more I would mentally and emotionally distance myself from it and all that it means: my slave blood, murderous people, the wilds of Africa, etc. Much like McKay’s “dim regions from whence my fathers came/ My spirit [was] bondaged” by the slavery stained history of not only my family, my place of birth, but of me. I yearn so badly to escape the chains of who I am historically and fully submerge myself into “the great western world” and “never hope for full release” of all that the seemingly more blended American world has for me.  

#10 Reacquainted With Love

Firstly, it must be said that I greatly enjoyed reading these two texts. My most significant Aha! Moment came from reading Charles W. Chestnutt’s “The Wife of his Youth”. In reading the first section of the short story, I became deeply invested in Mr. Ryder’s aspirations of proposing to Ms. Dixon. I rejoiced in the fact that he set out to organize a ball in honor of the lady he had fallen in love with. This earned Mr. Ryder several points in my book. I fell even more in love with his character as he looked to the poet Tennyson for written expression of his feelings for the lovely sounding Ms. Dixon. The way in which Tennyson describes Queen Guinevere is heartwarming. The lines which read, “A man had given all other bliss/And all his worldly worth for this,/To waste his whole heart in one kiss/Upon her perfect lips", resembled the way in which I feel for my very own boyfriend, to whom I aspire to marry one day very soon. I feel like he is a secret treasure shared with me from God and that I have been entrusted with his very tender and loving heart. At this notion, I so deeply wished to read on and make sure that Mr. Ryder’s proposition for marriage was accepted and to read the undoubtedly poetic way in which he would express his delightfulness in having his love reciprocated. With this in mind, one can see how I was taken a back at the introduction of his elderly female visitor and her distraction from the love story that I had expected to take place. As she began to tell Mr. Ryder her story, an idea ran past my mind, for an extremely brief moment, that he could in fact be the man she’d been tirelessly searching for. However, I quickly dismissed the thought by saying to myself that Mr. Ryder and his whole heart belonged to Ms. Dixon, and that surely they were to be together. This old woman seemed, in my mind, incapable of ever holding the attention and affection of the refined, scholarly, and debonair Mr. Ryder. Ms. Dixon was the only woman capable of doing such a thing, she was his perfect female counterpart.   Once Mr. Ryder began to explain the old woman’s testimony to the party guest, I thought he chose her story rather than the Tennyson poetry to Segway into his proposal to Ms. Dixon. I began to question this idea once he used the old “my friend has a problem “ example when he said that a friend of his came to him with asking for advice. Everyone knows that when they have a problem that they are embarrassed claim as their own, they use the example of knowing a friend who has said problem. As I read that the old woman was indeed “ the wife of his youth” I was admittedly a tiny bit sad for his future with Ms. Dixon, but at the same time rejoiceful for the elderly woman who could at last end her search for the man who’d captured her hearts affection so many years ago. 

# 9 History Repeating

       The contemporary connection I found from the years 1865 to 1914 had to do with the struggle for rights that African Americans faced and how that is very similar to the contemporary Chicano Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Slaves that were previously denied any type of privileges and rights were suddenly given a voice by President Lincoln and other legislative amendments, now deeming them as a real part of American society. The same happened with the indigenous people of Mexico who had lived  there all their life when suddenly, after the U. S. won parts of the Mexican territory (present day California ) from the Spanish-American War, they now found themselves in America. Literally overnight, they had become American citizens. Although these people were technically on American soil, they were no more American than the African slaves who had been captured and brought there centuries before. Like they newly emancipated African American slaves, the previously Mexican “Americans” in the US were thrust into the population, having to abide by the nations rules and regulations, but had no real representation or any way in which to participate in the government that was ruling over them. Both Mexican’s and freed blacks experienced the discrimination from white supremacist groups when they attempted to garner some support and privileges for their own rights. The KKK disenfranchised blacks when they tried to vote with literacy test and intimidation. At the same time, Mexicans were being exploited in the farm laborers market with unfair working conditions and very low wages. However, Mexicans continued to participate in the labor market because there was no other job opportunity for them.  The same way blacks were discriminated by whites over the issue of race, Mexican Americans too faced scrutiny for their tanned complexion, being referred to as dirty and Chicano, which originally functioned as a derogatory term that was later used to unite the movement behind an individual identity. Participants of the Chicano Movement used tactics like protesting, marches, and large gatherings to persuade the government to take heed to the lack of Chicano representation and the inequality they faced. African Americans also made efforts at moving the government to include this extremely large former slave population in its ideas for the country. I am also sad to say that like the freed slaves efforts to be painted into the picture of an American, the Chicano Movement also faced much opposition and to some still remains to see its efforts come into fruition.