# 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.  

# 8 Response to Sophie Milner

            As Sophie takes on a Northerners perspective to reread the poem The Death of Lincoln and the diary A Diary From Dixie, I wish to expand upon the ideas she brought up in her analysis. In the poem about Lincoln’s death, it is very apparent to see the great sorrow that it brought upon the people of the north, the loss of their great leader. In a northerner’s perspective, it appears that Lincoln was like a martyr to their cause for the abolition of slavery. Just the way that John Brown was depicted as a martyr when he was executed for his actions at the Harper Ferry Raid. Lincoln had just dealt the south a big blow with the Thirteenth Amendment and Gen. Lee’s surrender was giving the Union increasing hope that they had gained the upper hand, when suddenly possibly the most devastating type of blow came to the north with Lincoln’s death.  The poem later expresses that even in Lincoln’s death, he will still be regarded as being “ among  the noble host of those who perished in the cause of Right.” On a side note, I personally thought it interesting that although there were a staggering amount of deaths in the Civil War, 600,000, totaling greater than any other previous war's deaths combined, that fact didn’t seemed nearly as heart breaking to northerners when compared to Lincoln’s death. Thousands and thousands of their young men and boys even  were being slaughtered in the south, and no great emotional sentiments were expressed or mentioned along with Lincoln’s death. Now, in reference to the diary of Mary Boykin Chestnut, as Sophie’s northern perspectives portrays, great offense must have been taken by the remarks expressed in the diary. Not only were the Northerner’s seen as “red ants, like the locusts and frogs which were the plagues of Egypt”, getting at their claims to be such good Christians, but they were furthere demeaned when Mary Darby stated that “now [they] belonged to negroes and Yankees!”, at the news of Lee’s surrender. I feel like as a northerner, although they were pro-antislavery, to have the comparison to a slave would have been very perturbing in their minds. I suspect that people of the north already had a low minded impression of people of the south due to the fact that they engaged in the brute act of slavery; once Lincoln was assassinated and the conspiracy to revenge the Confederacy defeat was proposed as the purpose for his death, I imagine that the already low view of southerners decreased even more in the eyes of the Yankees. At Mary Chestnut’s claim that the Yankees “murdered him themselves”, a person of the north would have been very outraged to be charged with the death of their great, Christ-like leader and President. Likewise, at the remarks of President Lincoln “not [being] the last … put to death in the capital”, I think the north may have felt like they, the south, had already taken their greatest hope, what/ who is left for them to take that could leave as equally a painful scar as did Lincoln’s death.

#7 A Sisterhood in Motherhood

In Frances E.W. Harper’s poem The Slave Mother, the element of the listener stuck out to me the most in the author’s way of advocating for social reform in the abolishment of slavery. I imagine one type of listener would have been the wives of abolitionist men and quite possibly even the wives of men who believed in the enforcement of slavery. I imagine these women, wives, were also mothers since in that time it was almost unheard of for a woman to be married and not bare any children for her husband without receiving some kind of social ridicule, so it makes sense that Frances Harper would write in the tone she does in this poem, successfully drawing similarities to a slave mother and her child to a white or freed mother and her children. In line 13, she writes “She is a mother, pale with fear, her boy clings to her side”. I think Harper so plainly stated that the owner of those heart wrenching shrieks was a mother to really grab the reader’s attention and make them realize they have a shared kinship in motherhood with this slave women, with whom it is so easy to unidentify with in all other aspects of their lives.  She continues this notion further by expressing the widely known agony associated with childbirth that each and every mother at that time had to experience; pain does not discriminate. “ He is not hers, although she bore for him a mother’s pains; He is not hers, although her blood is coursing through his veins!” These lines may have deeply touched at the heart strings of listeners who were mothers because in this point in time, it was sadly very common for women to die during childbirth, yet millions of women chose to have more and more  children knowing the great risk that went along with it, however the reward of having your child to love and care for greatly outweighed that risk. However, for this slave woman, who endured the same type of earth shattering pain and discomfort, she would not get to enjoy the harvest of her hard labor because her child would be stolen away to be sold in chains since the law of the day was that the child followed the condition of the mother. This poem draws a very clear picture of how it must have felt for a mother to experience losing her own flesh and blood, something that the white mothers probably never could nor had  to imagine. Line 23 reads, “The only wreath of household love that binds her breaking heart”, thus describing the sentiments slave mothers must have felt towards their children, they were probably the only person on the plantation that truly loved them, especially if the father/ husband had been sold off to some other owner. I also think this touches on the role of women upheld by white people of the time with their placing an emphasis on the woman’s role in the household and how wives should seek their life’s fulfillment in raising and rearing the children. Slave mothers would miss out on this opportunity completely in the home. Overall, I think Harper’s ability to use her words to relate an idea and commonality to her female readers proved to be a large part of her poems success.

#6 - All Caught Up in Color

At this point in American history and society, the color of one’s skin was very important in signifying one’s place in the social hierarchy of the times. Even amongst slaves, there was a certain strata amongst them according to the type of slave they were based upon the degree of darkness their skin complexion was. In the case of Lydia Maria child’s The Quadroons, the main character, Rosalie, had quite an atypical slavery experience when compared to other slave biographies ad narratives, due in part to the fact that she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in New Orleans and that she also was of a mixed ancestry that resulted in her outward appearance being significantly lighter than most pure blooded African slaves. When Rosalie desired to marry the love of her life, societal norms and rules came into play, because she was of a mixed ancestry “a union with her proscribed race was unrecognized by law, and therefore the ceremony gave her no legal hold of Edward's constancy”(117). This is just one example of the conflict between society and slaves, even the mulattos.  Her race kept her from having any legal right to the freedom that her husband shared or to any will and testament he may have left upon his death, the societal rules went so far as to make them be married in a specific church, since the union wouldn’t be recognized by the state of Georgia. Rosalie and Edward were well aware of this limitation put on their relationship, but persevered through life by the power and passion of their love for one another, knowing there was nothing they could do to change it. Sadly, the same kind of contentions would fall to their daughter, Xarifa, who’s “complexion, of a still lighter brown than Rosalie's was rich and glowing as an autumnal leaf. The iris of her large, dark eye
had the melting, mezzotinto outline, which remains the last vestige of African ancestry”. She was utterly beautiful, with her exotic features. However this would pose a problem for the young girl socially. “Xarifa learned no lessons of humility or shame, within her own happy home; for she grew up in the warm atmosphere of father's and mother's love but in summer walks with her beautiful mother, her young cheek often mantled at the rude gaze of the young men and when some contemptuous epithet met her ear, as white ladies passed them by, in scornful pride and ill-concealed envy.” Xarifa was a problem to white elitist people for she did not fit wholly into the caste type system they had in place socially for blacks and slaves. When her parents had died, and she was captured by the sheriff and put for sale on the auction block, she became a victim to our American culture, and despite the fact that her father had been a freed man and her mother the child of a former slave, she too inherited the punishment of slavery at the hands of a white man who paid a very high amount for her. This harsh realization, so contrary to the way she had been raised in a peaceful paradise almost, was enough to drive the poor, beautiful girl mad, literally. The infamously beautiful Xarifa, became yet another victim to society, limited by white culture and her own ethnicity.

Depreciating the Indian in America

Between the narrative of William Apess and the poem by Lydia Sigourney is a shared them of the undervaluing of the Native American by limiting his possibilities and trying to write them out of our nation’s history. In Apess’ An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man, he conveys this theme by giving examples of the inequality that is experienced by “red skins” from white people and relates it to Biblical scripture about how to treat one’s brother in the correct way in the eyes of God. He says that because God commands that to truly love him you must love your brother, then white men, who call themselves devoutly religious, are liars because they do not show love to their Indian brothers. He cites Matthew 22:37, 40 which states, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” He reiterates this point with 1 John 4:21, “He who loveth God loveth his brother also.” However, instead of white men “loving” the red men they mistreat them by denying them rights and privileges and counting them as less than equal, going completely against what God has demanded of them as Christians. Apess continues on with this powerful notion of religion criticism as a way of evoking true and legitimate awareness from white people by asking, “Did you ever hear or read of Christ teaching his disciples that they ought to despise one because his skin was different from theirs?” The obvious answer is no, and this strikes at the heart of Apess’ point of concern, white men have no validity on the basis of religion in denying Native Americans liberties that they feel they are entitled to, so Indians, in the eyes of God, should be able to enjoy opportunities like preaching, education, holding office positions, and marriage with a person of any race, if this nation were to call itself a true Christian nation. Sigourney’s Indian Names, illustrates the undervaluing of Indians by showing how white men have tried to write natives out of our history here in America, despite their great contributions. She opens with, “Ye say, they have all passed away… but their name is on our waters, ye may not wash it out”. This sets the tone of how Americans have used the Indians for their resources and knowledge of the American landscape and then in totally failed to give credit to the natives for their help in allowing settlers to be successful. They want to exploit all they can from the Indians but not give them any credit. Sigourney writes, “ But their memory liveth on your hills”, signifying that natives have done and meant so much more to the success of America as a whole than their given recognition for, that their influence can never really be masked by white male greed.  The poem ends with, “your mountains build their monument, though ye destroy their dust”, meaning as we continue to advance as a country, we are continually trying to push further and further away the Indian influence and association, for example the Indian diaspora of the Trail of Tears and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. These two works combined reflect a underlying sense of undervaluing of Native Americans in an emerging American society.

The Tenth of January

The short story “The Tenth of January” takes place well into the frigid winter months in the city of Lawrence. A city that the author writes is well known for its “simooms that scorch you and tempests that freeze you”, and it is these opposing and severe types of weather features that play into creating a dramatic backdrop to the story of Asenath Martyn’s tragic end. With winter, one usually associates things like cold, chills, freezing, ice, snow, and so on, this is so for Sene when she is out amongst this harsh frozen landscape learning that the boy she has secretly loved for two long years has too had a secret love but for someone else. At this discovery, Sene’s character becomes increasingly more introverted with the bubbling over of emotions she must have endured coupled with the immense heartbreak she felt. The setting adds to this feeling by implying the vivacity of the underwater creatures, carrying on with splendidly varying daily tasks, beneath a solid, hard exterior of capped frozen ice, leading one to believe that everything underneath is too absent of life and frozen in time until spring’s warmth comes. Like the river remains frozen and hard on the outside, so does Sene as November days turn into January nights, keeping her true feelings toward Del and Dick’s relationship beneath the surface, to herself, culminating in the burning of Pemberton factory. As Sene watches the beautiful and lovely Del pulled to safety and embraced in the arms of Richard, she finds solace in the thought that what “she had done was right, quite right. God must have known.” At that moment, “the tangled skein of her perplexed and troubled winter unwound suddenly”, she finally understood it all, “God had provided himself a lamb for the burnt-offering” and that was herself. She knew she could never nor was ever supposed to be with Richard Cross, he belonged to Del, and this fact allowed her to give the opportunity of rescue to Del. Finally the chilled heap of emotions and deep thoughts that had engulfed Sene’s mind all these months were able to manifest themselves in the flames of understanding like a waking bear at the first of spring. Sene was then able to accept her unavoidable death, “they had left her, tombed alive here in this furnace. . . Yet it gave her a curious sense of relief and triumph.”She no longer had to tirelessly struggle with the uncertainty of Richard and herself, their relationship, and Del. Now nothing remained, “only the smoke writhing up a pillar of blood-red flame.”

Journal #3- "The Wife"

Irving’ short story, “The Wife”, emphasizes an importance on the value of marriage and women in American culture, relaying the power of the two to overcome any and everything else in life, like economic downturns for example. Irving spends much of the story describing the comforting and soothing nature of the woman counteracting the strong exterior and harshness of men and how that helps to give support to the patriarchal husband figure and head of the household back in the 19^th century, “… so it is beautifully ordered by Providence, that women, who is mere dependent and ornament of man in his calamity, winding herself in the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart”. He continues on to depict the high importance of subordinate women as being the main motivation of a man’s striving for success, “because they are more stimulated to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon them for subsistence.” Further into the story, Irving writes of a family being lowered in social status due to a loss of the husband’s wealth. The husband is practically mentally incapacitated by the fear of revealing the bad news to his wife in fear of her response to the drastic change in their lifestyle. This is a prime example of the heavy emphasis American’s of that time placed on economic stability and social standings. However, Irving chooses to resolve this problem by having the “loving and endearing” wife be acceptable with the lifestyle change and revel in the power of her love for her husband and the prospect that their lesser way of living will only draw them closer to each other and deeper in love, overcoming everything else.

Journal#2 Connecting to What I Read

When reading the introductions from the Bedford Anthology Vol. 1, I immediately was moved by the power of the written word. All at once the realization of its immense possibilities and power came into my mind. All throughout my life in school as early as elementary school, it’s been preached to me over and over again about how important it is to learn to read and to be able to write effectively and I’ve always underestimated its true importance to my success in my life. Foolish, I know. But know as an adult (it still seems like a lie when I say that), I can truly see the goodness that has been apart of my life and how it had its origins from my ability to write my ideas out proficiently and to be able to read. Never could I have imagined a time when an entire nation could stand together as one all from the inspiration that was drawn from a mere pamphlet or a letter.  Books influencing government, freeing countries from subjectivity, and creating new nations, it’s all mindboggling. I can remember back to when my mother used to routinely make me sit down with one of those large writing pads for toddlers with the light blue and red colored dashed lines to make me practice writing my letters. I used to detest having to sit there and practice making those strange shapes called letters. Little did I know, I was perfecting my own powerful art form, getting my weapon ready, the pen.

Journal #1- My Definition of an American

Prior to the readings assigned in class, my personal definition of an American would the same, stereotypical as the next person. When we were asked to throw out words we thought were American I wanted to say Apple pie, white picket fences, well kept green lawns, double cab pick- up trucks, kids playing on a merry-go-round, and busy people walking to and fro in a downtown metropolitan type setting. Overall my American definition was a very positive mesh pot of these images and related others. After reading de Crevecoeur’s What is an American? , slowly the details of the images I had previously associated with being American came to light, like the kids on the merry go round were all young Caucasian kids in a “good” suburban neighborhood, the green lawns were being well kept by Hispanic immigrants sweating buckets in the summer sun for low wages, and the anonymous faces of business people walking downtown slowly turned into white males in their late twenties with a single solitary woman getting all kinds of oogling stares from her male superiors. I slowly became irritated as we continued on to read the Langston Hughes poems, bringing to light once again that not too long ago, my mother,  sister, father, and grandmother all would have been denied the opportunity to take part of these positive images. I thought of my grandmother as the mammy type housekeeper in the kitchen spending all day cooking that apple pie now cooling in the window frame that evokes such strong patriotic feelings. At the end of everything, I left with the notion in my mind that nowhere in the definition of an “American” was a negro like me included.

Test 123 Tes Blog 123

Readers,
 This is my very first attempt at blogging. I'm am doing this for a english literature class I'm taking at Texas Christian University. I don't really know what i'm doing so please bare with me until I get the hang of this.