Living in Multicultural California

California is a dream land for immigrants. The Hollywood sign is a big welcome. The early Golden Rush, the fame of the Hollywood, the sunshine of the beach is all the attractions to those immigrants. For many people, California is full of opportunities, and stepping on this land is the start of their wealthy life. They thought that everything in California must be easier. However, the reality is not so beautiful and simple. Living under the multicultural society, people need to handle many things that they may not think about before, such as racial discrimination and stereotype. Although people think in California the racial discrimination must be better than other state, because there are already so many immigrants, racial discrimination are still everywhere. People are treated differently because of their skin color. The whole world is full of contradictions, many people are confused while they are being discriminated, but some people may not even realize the facts of the discrimination. Many artists try to use their different ways to express the complicated feelings of living under multicultural world and open people’s eyes to the real world, such as novel American Son by Brain Roly Ascalon, movie Crash by Paul Haggis, and theater play Border town by Culture Clash in Americca. They are all different genres of art, but illustrate the same complex meaning of living in multicultural California – the assimilation, the self identity, the stereotype, racial discrimination, the hybridism, and multiculturalism.

The powerful novel American Son is a story about two Filipino brothers who grew up in Los Angles under the discrimination and try to fit in the multicultural. There are three main characters in American Son who illustrate typical immigrants in California. The first one is Ika, the Pilipino mother. She came to California for finding good fortunes. For her, California is a dream land. Despite of the poverty and humidity she had in Philippine, she thought California could bring her better life and have endless sunshine. However the start of the dream actually was just the beginning of the nightmare. Her husband left her in early years without caring either their two sons or her. She has to work two jobs in order to support two sons. Being a single mom, especially immigrant, she is the disorders of self consciousness. Compare to the “Land Cruiser mom who is blond and tall and thin and wears black yoga-class tights, and holds a Starbucks iced drink, (American Son, 175)” in the school accident, Ika, the Philippine mom usually wears her “bug-eyed sunglasses” and has dark skin. She is ashamed of her own identity, and talks to Caucasians without any confidence. Not only Ika, her two sons, Tomas and Gabe are also ashamed of her look. Gabe doesn’t even want his mom to put him up from school. Her character is very weak and self-distrust. The criticism and the racial discrimination make her feel more ashamed of herself and scare to identify her own.

In contracts, her older son – Tomas acts actively about his identity. Tomas is a tough guy but with a good heart. When he was a kid, his uncle recalled, he was a very nice boy, even a little shy. But after he grew up, he dropped out school, and became a gangster. He dresses like Mexican gangster and likes to show his gangster tattoos which make him look tougher. He would like people misjudge him as a Mexican gangster rather than a Philippines - his original nationality, because Mexican are tougher. He breeds attack dogs then sale to celebrities. In fact, these dogs also suggest Tomas’ character which is sensitive, love attacking others, but to the owner or the people he loves he is loving, kind, obedience, and there is a sense of protection in the subconscious. Although Tomas tries to act like he doesn’t care about his mom, he usually protects her and prevents the damage. He stole furniture, jewelries for his mom, and when the “high class” Yoga mom attacked his mom – Ika, he stands out and protects her. Deeply in bottom of his heart, he loves and cares about his mom. He chooses the tough way to fight the racism, for he thinks that people won’t touch his family or himself because of his toughness.

On the other hand, Gabe is the only one in the family who wants to fit in this assimilation and acculturation. He is the third character of the novel, and also the main character. He is a “good kid” in the family who has good grade and carries his mom’s entire hope. His hybridism character is more confused than anyone else’s. Facing the stereotype and criticism, he doesn’t know how to identity himself. He feels shame of his own nation, afraid of letting people know that he is a Philippine. He first chose to escape from his family which he was deeply ashamed of. He tried to run away in order to get away from his brother’s violent life and his mother’s recreance. He didn’t want to become his brother and stuck with his poor mom. He was so ashamed, and couldn’t even tell the toll truck driver that he is a Philippine. He even lied to him that his mother was his maid when he first met her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t escape from the life he was ashamed of, because her mom caught him in Oregon. He came back to Los Angeles, and his life got worse. He ended up becoming toward to his brother’s character. He started to steal together with his brother. He finally gave up his last fight for the long-standing efforts to break away from the realities of society, and gradually sink deeply into the cruel reality, eventually succumbed to social discrimination.

The novel is so real and very much in line with the actual situation that many immigrants are facing. The first generations hope their lives could be better in California. If they could not achieve their target, they wish their kids could do it for them. Like aunt Jessica told Gabe that they are “everything” to their mom. Their mom came to California first, because she had “dreams that her kids could have a better life than that caste-driven slum [they] came from.” (American Son, 168) Like Gabe’s mom, other immigrant parents work hard, even two jobs or more at one time. Nevertheless, in reality, their children may not turn out to be the kids they want them to be.

The novel illustrates how typical immigrate families raise their kids, and how their kids try to fit in the multiculturalism. Tomas, the strong one, who acts tough, but deeply inside is loving person. He acts like gangster just to be tough so no one would hurt him, instead, they will be afraid of him, and keep distance from him. At first Gabe is confused about his situation, and then the stereotype and the cruel family situation kind of push him into the corner, which lead him toward his brother’s way to challenge the racial discrimination. It is people’s cruelness and criticism that really pushed these kids into the corners and forced them to become something they hate to be. The story is beautiful, but contains the hatred and hopelessness about the discrimination under multicultural.

Compared with Brian Ascalon Roley’s American Son, Paul Haggis’ Academy Award-winning drama film “Crash” illustrates more diverse of the racial discrimination of California and more on the stereotyping. The movie describes how the different races of people are treated differently as their skin color: White, Black, Mexican, and Chinese. These are the people the audience see everyday and everywhere. The story is so vivid that audiences feel deeply and easily connect with those characters in their daily lives. There are so many hatred and helplessness in the movie which is beautiful but sad at the same time.

In the movie everyone is struggling and dealing with the problems they have individually but also as a whole. Everyone has their own family problems. They have to face the family, the criticism, and the stereotype. Despite of the fact that they don’t trust each other, they want to be trusted by others. Their lives are conflictive and complicated.

All kinds of people have different fears of their lives. While two whites are walking on the street and look at two blacks coming toward to them, they immediately stereotype these two blacks as robbers based on their skin color before they even know them. At the same time, the two black boys see the fear in whites’ eyes, and are afraid that the whites will mistake them as gangsters who they maybe really are, or they are just stereotyped. One of the black boys criticizes that buses have the see through glass windows only because people want to see the “colored people” sit inside the bus. This satirizes that the color people are even discriminated by themselves. They hated to be stereotyped, but they intentionally limit themselves into those particular types already.

The Egypt father is another character who was stereotyped by the gun shop owner who thought he was a terrorist. In fact, he just wants to buy a gun with his daughter to protect his store and wife who was assaulted by gangsters. The owner treats Farhad differently without any communication and patient, only because he has darker skin, and looks like from Middle East. Farhad felt frustrating and embracing about how the gun shop owner treated him, so they end up yelling to each other. Both characters in this scene stereotype each other based on their assumption. If they could communicate more, the fight should not have happened. However, they chose let the stereotype and depression became hatred. (But, the pity is that they let stereotype and depression to become hatred)

When Farhad’s store was robbed, he lost everything. In despair, he instantly thought it was the Mexican locker man who did it for he looks like a gangster. His despair became hatred, and he tried to use the gun he bought to shot the locker man. Farhad was stereotyped by the gun shop owner, but facing his own problem, he stereotyped the locker man Daniel. Being stereotyped and misunderstood, Daniel is actually the most innocent one in the movie. Though he looks like gangster who has many tattoos, or he might be before, he has a good heart. All he just wants to do is to change his family’s situation which is moving out from the bad neighborhood and starting a new life. His daughter is deeply rooted with the violent life she had before. In order to escape from the old life, she has to hide under the bed. Daniel hopes his child could have better life than he has. However, it is so hard to escape from being stereotyped. One of the greatest scenes in the movie is when Farhad shot at Daniel in front of his house, his daughter running out to protect him. The gun was fired, and everything was frozen at that moment. Daniel and his wife thought their daughter was dead. Although the director removed the voice of their desperately crying and screaming, the performance of the helplessness and pain represents more intense. Farhad was shocked and stood there with regretting look on his face. When they found that the daughter was ok, the Mexican family ran inside without saying a word and left Farhad stood in front of their porch with confusion about what just happened. As he looked around, the American flag was flying in the neighborhood, which symbolizes the multicultural. In the dark night, Daniel looked out of the window trying to find out the answer about how to survive in this multicultural situation with all this hatred and misunderstanding all around them.

Other ironic character is the Chinaman who was run down by the black boys. He looks innocent compared with the two black boys who stole cars and robbed people. But behind the Chinaman’s harmless face, he was doing illegal slave trading. On the contrary, the black boy, who was stereotype as bad person, was the one who released those slaves. The slight smile on black boy’s face after he released the slaves shows he actually has a good heart.

Although all the characters in the movie seem do not know each other, but they actually intercross and connect to others. They glance aside by others, but without any notice or feeling. The detective said: “In LA nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass... I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something" (Detective Graham in Crash, played by Don Cheadl. The characters in the movie revealed their struggles of fitting in this multicultural California. They are being stereotyped, at the same time; they also stereotype others and themselves. The hatred is under a vicious circle, and sticks there. No matter how angry they are, deeply in their heart, they maybe are still good person. They still have warm hearts which can make this multicultural society much better, Just like the Mexican maid helped the Senator’s wife, and the black kid protected the Chinese slaves from being sold. The world could really be better if people trust each other instead of prejudice each other. The snowing at the end of the movie implies that the hope for the new start escape from the struggling and being stereotyped. The smile on the black kid’s face, after he released those Chinese, metaphors the goodness in everyone’s heart. The Chinese kid stands in front of the windows of the music store with his mouth widely open. He may see the hope and the fame of Hollywood, but the future is still a question mark to him. It might be heaven, and it might be hell. The movie contains many ironies, metaphors to symbolize the multiethnic people struggling to overcome their fears as being stereotyped.

Likewise, the play titled Border town by Culture Clash in America vividly described its characters, on both American (San Diego) and Mexican (Tijuana) sides. These characters always have mixed feelings about living near the borders with the multicultural. The title “Americca” is not misspelled, but refers to “America”, it connotes the mixed cultural of the border cities. If people have ever been to San Diego and Tijuana, they will see that mixed culture in both cities and realize their differences. Both Act 1 and Act 2 in the play start with the same scene of two American play writers were caught by border patrol of both sides. Both Act 1 and Act 2 are ironic and full of metaphors. They showed the different perspectives between American and Mexican.

At first, the two play writers are caught by the American patrol – Militiaman, because they look so much like Mexicans who illegally crossed the border. The militiaman stereotyped them only because of their color of skin. The background described the “two Mexican illegal are caught, frozen like deer in the harsh lights” (Culture Clash, 9). The scene satirizes how Mexicans were caught and trapped like animals and were not treated as human beings. The racial discrimination was clearly showed in the play.

The racial discrimination sometime goes even far, such as the incident happened to Tyrone Thomas. He was a black kid who was a junkie and a policy flunky. Even he was policy snitch, policemen still didn’t like him. One day they decided to “shake him down”, the kid tried to run away, but the policeman caught him and hit him hard on the head. They “hit so hard, that the gun fires” (Culture Clash 23). At that time, no one cares about this accident, because Tyrone was black. The report questioned if the same accident happened to a white kid, will people act the same? Even people live in multicultural California, are they really care about it? It says, “Who cries for Tyrone the junkie?” (Culture Clash, 24) They called him “junkie” only because he was black. The reporter said “I couldn’t distinguish the good guys from the bad guys!”(Culture Clash, 25) Who is the bad guy here, the policeman or Tyrone? Is the one who discriminate others or the one being discriminated? It is hard to tell.

Do people really accept this multiculturalism? In the border town, San Diego and Tijuana, people assimilate each other’s culture and become hybridism. A border couple was in the play, a Mexican wife and an American husband. They love each other, but are ashamed of their marriage at the same time. The woman said “the border is political. A symbol, an imposing monument impressed into our consciousness”. The man said “I do love her, and I need her, but I am embarrassed of her”. The political situation between Mexico and America deeply affect their lives. The ridiculous thing is even though they sleep on the same bed, they use different flag as their comforter. It symbolizes their own nationality, even they married each other. Deeply inside, they may still prefer to their own cultural.

However, some people do see the world differently than others. The Ex-marine is one of them. He is a very nice guy, and sees the world more impersonality. He has seen the war, the cruel of the world. He doesn’t discriminate Mexicans, instead he loves living in Mexico, where he feels more comfortable than living in America. There is no pressure, because “America is so obsessed with what color [people] are and what [the] background is.” He said in America, “everybody waving their little flags and crying out for war.” He is truly changed by acculturation.

On contrary, not everyone could assimilate the multicultural like the ex-marine. According to Donna in the play, people call East San Diego - City Heights. All “races” were put in one place, so the white do not have to deal with them. The poor and the rich were divided, so the poor will not bother the rich – white people. (Culture Clash, 48) The discrimination was obvious.

Over all, living in multicultural California is not as easy as people think. In the multiethnic immigrant community, people need to learn how to adapt the culture of other ethnic groups and try to understand others. The novel American Son, the movie Crash, and the play Culture Clash of Americca all helped people to reveal and understand the truth of living in multicultural. Although California is a multiethnic community, there is still racial discrimination, the stereotype and assimilation in the society. A lot of people still can not accept "outsiders" involved in their social lives. They think the involvement of “outsiders” made their lives worse. They are very easy to vent their anger with a variety of immigrants, or the society as a whole. On the other hand, facing the long time unfair treatment, many immigrants have given up their hope or may have been pushed over to the corner.

Letter to myself

Hi Dear myself,

The semester is ending. I am so glad that I took English 1B this semester. There were lots of readings and writings. At the beginning I felt that the cause was a little difficult for me. But I definitely think the process is totally worth of it. I have learned so much. I have absorbed a lot from the reading materials and my reading and writing skills are much improved.
The reading materials were very interesting.

At the beginning, I really thought the history of California was a kind of boring, but the more I read, the more I realized that how important it was to know the history of California. Through the English class, I have known the land I am living on better than before. Although I lived in Los Angeles for seven years, but I only noticed the sunshine and the fame of that big “Hollywood” sign. The first essay made me see how hard the life could be for some people. When I read the par t that the Mexican kids have to watch family went into the farm, I cried. They were so easy to be satisfied, a bag of candy and some oranges. In kids eyes, the world is already that beautiful, no cruelness, no worries.

The second essay of Analyze images of the California Dream is my favorite. It is the one I enjoyed most. I really enjoyed listening to the songs the professor posted online. I love those songs. While I was writing, I kept playing the songs over and over again. From the tone of those songs, I could feel their depression and was affected by them emotionally. I like music, but actually never really pay too much attention to the lyrics. After this session, I am more interested in listening to the lyrics carefully and focus on the meaning of the song. Maybe it is because of my personality, I never really felt that life was very hard, even though I started to live on my own and supported myself when I was only 19 years old. I can understand the feelings that those lyrics want to present. Living in a strange city or country we usually are full of good hopes, but reality is harsh and not everything goes to the way we want. Although my life was full of hardship, these songs made me suddenly realize that compare to others I was really lucky to have my friends and my family with me in my heart all the time.

The 3rd essay was about California history and poetry. There were lots of readings, but it was the first time I read poems that close. Although I have been living in California for almost 10 years, I never really got chance to know the history of the State. I used to be an accountant in a travel agency and took many tours with my colleagues. Although tour guys often told us the history or story of the tourist attractions; but I never really paid attention to them. After reading more and more about the California history, I connected all places on our itineraries to the great history background. Behind the beautiful landscapes and gorgeous cities, there were so many sad histories about Native American and Immigrants. The class makes me iger to know more about the history of California.

The 4th essay was in-class essay about Counter argue on Immigration policy. After the in-class essay #2, I have learned quite amount skill about fallacies terms. I could not only identify the fallacies in other people’s articles, but also could prevent them from my own essays. However, I am still a little confused about all the terms, but much clear on what I should not do in my own essays. I felt more prepared on this second essay. Through out previous in-class and out-class essays, I have got more ideas on how to prepare the “focus questions” for the essays before the test and how to follow the instructions. I tried to keep eyes on the thesis, and keep referring back to the thesis. When writing the essay, I tried to focus, remember the fallacies and not let them to occur in my essay.

The last out of class essay has the most materials. The materials are the most useful materials to understand racial discrimination and stereotype happened to us everyday everywhere. Especially the movie Crash made me feel depressed, helpless, and anguish. I cried with the characters, felt sorry for what they had gone through. There are so many misunderstandings, misleading and hatreds. If people could only communicate more, try to understand others more, the tragedies should not have happened.
After this class, I understood more about the history of California. This beautiful land has lovely sunshine and endless beach; people love it and hate it at same time. There are mix feelings. Discrimination is everywhere; people have been stereotyped all the time, even though we may not notice. Despite of the California dreams, the facts are hurtful.

Technically, I think my critical thinking and reading skills have improved. I have learned how to structure my ideas better than before. I usually start to list my brainstorm ideas before I organized them to different category and start my draft. Also during the practices, I more focus on my P.I.E. structure, which put topic sentence at first, then approve the topic with reasonable support. The sentence exercises also help me focus on using verbal, appositives and contrast phrases. They helped me to firm the connection between sentences. Another great practice I enjoyed is the peer response. My group mates’ comments were really helpful. Sometimes I stuck in my ideas, but their questions or suggestions really helped to reform all my essays. My reading skills have also been improved. Because I have to read so many materials, and do not have time to keep going back to all the materials to find the quotation I want, I highlighted and annotated my text. For the essays, I wrote down all the quotations I thought I might be able to use, and also wrote down my understandings at the same time.

Overall, I love the class. People kept telling me how hard the English 1B would be, but I think the practice is worth. No hard work, no gain. Through the class I have learned a lot. I am glad that I have made the right choice to take the class. The skills I have learned in this class also helped me to finish another class I took this semester.

what you learn after in class #2

I am glad that professor gave me some good comments about my essay. My grammar is still a big problem. I still need to do more proofreading. I am glad I have my first paragraph well follow the PIE structure, but I kind of carried away afterwards. I will need to more focus on keep doing the PIE structure, for example, try to put topic sentence at first in the paragraph and then well explain. Of course, when I explain I should prevent the fallacies in my essays. I should make sure understand the desired focus of the essay.

Even the essay was not perfect, I am glad I in the process of improving. Hopefully I could get better and better. I love this process, I think it is good practice.

Are immigrants the reasons California economy drain?

United State is well-developed modern country of science and technology. With all the attractions, many people immigration to States to achieve their dreams. Especially in California, the fames of Hollywood, the endless blue beaches, the sunshine images, and high technology development are all the attractions to immigrants. According to PPIC – Public Policy institute of California records in 2006, between 1970 and 2006, the number of California residents born abroad has increased more than fivefold, from 1.8 million to 9.9 million. Immigrants, or foreign‐born residents, include those who have become naturalized U.S. citizens (website: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/jtf/JTF_ImmigrantsJTF.pdf). Since the recession, or even start from the beginning of the economy declining, people started to question the ability of government. Some people blame the governor for the mess and some people blame the immigrants for drew back the State economy. Yeh Ling-ling is one of the people who blames that the immigrants’ policy is the reason that caused California social services a mess, including education. In her article “State Needs a ‘Time-Out’ from Mass Immigration”, she blames that the increasing of immigrants are to be blamed for California education program and other economic conditions failure. Thus, the arguments in her article content many fallacies that are weakening her opinions. Did the immigrants really cause the fortune of California? I question how strong her supports are in the article.

Ad Populum has been created since Yeh tries to convince everyone to believe what others believe. At the beginning, Yeh criticizes that California over spent the education budget for establishing the program for new immigrant children who can’t speak English and can’t understand what goes on in the classroom. She illustrates that California Department hired many teachers without proper credentials to deal with “English-deficient kids”. She then uses the public voters’ results from Zogby poll website to bring out how “most people” think about this over education spending affects California education system. According to Zogby poll released in 2005, “62 percents of voters” think immigrants are the reason why it is so hard for California education system to be reformed. Yeh emphasizes “66 percents” of this “62 percents” voters are Hispanics. She points out this “huge” percentage in order to convince the readers that only because “most” people think so, even the immigrants – Hispanics themselves, it must be right. However, the public votes could only tell how people think about the immigrants as a factor, but doesn’t mean their thought is correct Yeh takes advantage of the desire most people have to be liked and to fit in with others and uses that desire to get the readers to accept her arguments. On another hand, even Zogby International is a popular political pollster company, and their online votes are quite useful in some areas, it is still a just survey. Without actual numbers or data to be provided by official government, the surveys don’t approve that immigrants are the only reason California can’t reform the education system. For this reason, we can’t consider her argument as the truth.

Next, she seeks to convince readers by appeal to pity when she illustrates that “due to current economic woes, hundreds of thousands of workers in California, professional or low-skilled, are unemployed or underemployed.” Yeh tries to use another survey to approve her opinion, “Presently, more than half of California surveyed in the new poll are convinced that the area where they lives is in recession” The declining of the economy and the increasing numbers of the unemployed rate, have been frighten everyone since the recession. People easily connect themselves, or friends and families, to the situation. There is always someone around us that has been laid off since the recession. People all feel sorry for others, who lost their jobs, savings or even their houses and still have to supports the families. Although the facts are cruel, and this premise of an argument does support a particular conclusion, apparently, within this article it is not related to Yeh’s argument about the immigrants. She is missing her points by using this support here. The declining of our economy and unemployment are cause by various reasons. Not only California but the whole United State has been in the recession for years, even our government didn’t want admit it before 2007. Both the domestic policies and international policies are affected our economy. The gasoline rate, the currency exchange rates have been dramatically increased in the past years. Those changes make all the costs, from personal daily living costs to commercial production costs, to be increased. The war of Afghanistan has been dragging for years, also cost America billions or even trillions. All these important factors have to be taken into the consideration of the recession. Therefore, the immigrants’ policies are not the only reason, and might be just a small factor in the whole economic declining.

Towards to the end of Yeh’s article, she suggests if Governor Gray is really serious about addressing Californian’s concerns he should “urge President Bush [at the time] and Congress to adopt a moratorium on most categories f legal immigrations and fund measure to curb illegal immigration.” It sounds that the governor only has two choices: either let the California economy fall or change the immigration policies. This false dichotomy make it sounds that if the governor doesn’t urge the changes about immigration policy of United States and California, the economy situation of California would never be improved and it would keep declining. Certainly, the governor will not just let the economy fall. The elimination only left governor for one choice, which is to limit the immigrant’s benefits and change the immigrants’ policies in California.

Overall, Yeh attempts to use many “facts” to approve her points, that the immigrants are mainly causing California’s economy drawing down. She argues that as soon as stopping this “Mass Immigration”, all California’s problems will be solved. Immigrants might be one of the factors that affect the economy, but definitely not the only one. Nevertheless, Yeh’s supports have many fallacies, such as Ad populum, Appeal to pity, Miss the point and False dichotomy, which are really soften her arguments, and make people question about how strong her opinions stands. Besides the problems with immigrants, all other factors of the economy have to be taken into consideration as well. The falling economy, raising unemployment rate makes all people frustrating, but immigration policies are not the only thing to be blamed.

what you learn after out class #2

After I finished the final draft of the second in-class essay, I feel more comfortable to write. The peer response helped me a lot to see the points of view from the readers. The readings for essays also help me to see how professional writer write their articles. I try to concentrate to follow the PIE technique. Overall I think this technique is not only very useful for English classes, but also for other classes’ reports or even helping my daily job.

In addition, the reading materials are very interesting. Although I have been living California for almost 10 years, I never really got chance to knowledge the history of the States. I used be an accountant in a travel agency, and took many tours with my colleagues. Even the tour guys always told us the history or story of the tourist attractions; I never really paid attention to them. After more and more readings about the California history, I suddenly realized all places on our itinerary content great history background. Behind the beautiful landscape and gorgeous cities, there were so many sad histories about Native American and Immigrations. The class makes me what to know more about the history of California.

Waking up the long-time oppressed Native American

Many people think about the history as it started from the time when their own nations arrived at this land – United States. The great nation, especially in California, is combined by various ethnic groups, such as white, Indian, Asian, and Mexican, who have different skin color and speak different languages. Among these people, Native Indians were the people who have lived on this land for “at least 12,000 years – and perhaps for 15,000 years or more”. (James J. Rawls, Walton Bean. California: An Interpretive History. Chapter 2, the Original Californians. 10) They are also the people who had been oppressed the longest since Spanish had discovered the land. Under the long-term oppression, many Native Indians tried to use different ways to express their feeling. In both poems, “Indian Cartography” from Deborah Miranda and “Itch Like Crazy: Resistant” from Wendy Rose, these two Native Indian poets, who are struggling about the history of their ancestor’s mistreatment, are trying to use their poems to express out the depression. Their poems have similar background, but their act emotionally different.

Being Native Indians, both Deborah Miranda and Wendy Rose’s ancestors experienced the displacement. The themes of both poems are based on the displacement, and talk about the history of how Native Indians had been forced to move away from their native land. In “Indian Cartography”, Miranda uses her father as the main character who takes out the original Californian map and tries to “trace mountains ranges, rivers, county borders like family bloodlines”. All stuffs, he are tracing, are symbolized the old memories includes the happy kind and the bloody kind. In her dad’s memory, he remembers the old days with joy. There are the many wonders, such as the salmon in the rivers, and silver scales. But those Native Indian icons can not be found any more. Miranda’s father mentions that “the government paid those Indian to move away and [he] don’t know where they went.” They have lost track of their own tribe, because all tribes have been forced to move away, and their land had been destroyed.

Likewise, Wendy Rose talks about the scenes of the displacement and the reservations in her poem when she says “Selling the natives, to live among strangers”. In early 1820s, federal government had approved a removal policy for Native Indians. Their original idea was built up reservations for Native Indian to live. To finish the project, government assigned three commissioners, Redick McKee, George W. Barbour, and Dr. Oliver M. Wozencraft. . In their proposals, the reservations would be 11,700 square miles or 7,488,000 acres, which the size is almost 7.5% of the entire land area of the state. However the congress only gave them $50,000 for their projects to build the reservations which would cost at least one million. Of course, shortly the projects were failed. (James J. Rawls, Walton Bean. California: An Interpretive History. Chapter 11, Racial Oppression and Conflict, the “Indian Question”, 150). Even though some Indians got a little “paid” from the government, they couldn’t survive after their left the land. In fact, many Native didn’t even move into the reservations, but tried to find other places to live. As result, most of them died later. Rose also mentions “rewards for sine service, or kinship with the crown”, which refers that Congress adopted a suggestion from Edward F. Beale to set up the reservation as military posts for the United States Army in 1853. Historian estimate when Spaniards discovered California, there were at least 300,000 Indians within the boundaries of the state in 1769 (Chapter 2, 13). Comparing to the ratio of the Native Indian still survive now, their nation is dramatically declined. During the Spanish and Mexican periods, California Indian population down sized from 300,000 to more than 150,000 by 1845. By 1870 there were only estimate 30,000 Indian left, and in 1900 there were only 16,000 (Chapter 11, Racial Oppression and Conflict, Decline and exploitation, 154). No matter the Essenlen tribe as Deborah Miranda, or Hopi tribe as Wendy Rose, their tribes were ac accelerated declining in the 1800s.The displacement deeply hurt the nations of Native Indians.

Sharing the same background, both Miranda and Rose use metaphors to illustrate the sadness and cruelness of the history, strongly connected with their ancestral spirit. However, emotionally, Miranda and Rose use different tone of voice to express their feelings and their point of view of the history. In Miranda’s “Indian Cartography”, her father’s voice is softer and sounds helpless. While he is tracing the old memories of the mountain and the nature, he only wants to remember the beautiful life that he once had, for example that the river he once swim in and the silver scales he once walked across. For Indians, their California dreams are so different than many others who were migrants. The life style, in their dreams, is very simple and close to the nature. Even their religion, spiritually connectX them to the nature as well. When Miranda’s father thinkX s about his past, as the last generation who lived in a cohesive tribal Chumash unit (a compound in Santa Barbara) (website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_A._Miranda), only the six-packs beer could calm him down, and he will “follow [in] a longs, a deepness [thought].” It seems like he sinks into a deep dark hole whenever he thinks about the terrible things happened to his tribe. Being the last generation, he had lived in the beautiful nature once, had a really Indian life. X nice verbalAt the same time, he also witnessed the tragedy his own nation had gone though. He was helpless to watch his nation falling apart. Emotionally, he tries to “swims out” of the deep dark hole, and looks for the “lands not drawn”, which symbolize his hope eager to rebuild their Native Indian’s life style, and to re-see the light of their nation. The tone of the voice in this Miranda’s poem sounds really helpless

In contrast, the tone of Wendy Rose’s “Itch Like Crazy: Resistant” is much stronger. Miranda uses her father’s soft and gentle voice to tell the story and express the sadness and helpless, but Rose’s poem make the history sounds more bloody and hatred. She personifies the conquest as a person who was “selling [their] native”. This line is also a pun which accuses that white traded Native Indians and their land as goods, but not treated them like human being. The images of those invaders in her poem are more hideous and horrorific. The line, “The terror couches there” is to satirize the Spanish squat on their land and banished their people. “Ghosts so old, they weep for release. Have haunted too long,” is metaphor that the Native Indians have been oppressed for too long, and they are crying out for release. She uses the “blood” of her mom’s veins to symbolize the violence of the mistreatment. “My mother, the stones, the channels of water, blood for her veins, every place, a place where history walked”, her mother is also metaphor as her tribe and their land. The “stone” and “water” are symbolized the blood of her nation which has been all sucked out during the conquest. In spite of the same situation, Rose uses stronger tone of voice to criticize the mistreatment of Native Indians.

Discovered the same history, Miranda and Rose’s reaction are very different. Miranda’s poem is more like telling a sad historical story about the war of conquest. In her poem, Miranda’s father remembers the “swollen bellies of salmon coming back”. It connotes that they hope one day their tribe or their nationality would be returned just like the salmon come back every fall to spawn in the river. Every time they think about the declining of their nation, the hurtful memories make them feel like “drown by a displace river” which “fluent in dark water” with dead bodies. The depressed images draw the readers’ mind to a scene of a dark hole which is full of the bad memories from Miranda’s father.

Unlikely Miranda, Rose’s poem is more emotional with hatred. She acts aggressively to the mistreatment of history. Her poem is more active as she woke up from the oppression, and tries to fight back. She used many metaphors to embody the cruelty of the conquest. First she sees the discrimination “when [she] see Columbus in the eyes of nearly everyone” as metaphor of the racist. Clearly, she thinks almost everyone in United States discriminates the Native Indians. Afterward, she uses “terror crouches there” to describe the ugly and horror faces of those invaders who took over their land. She describes the Spanish discovery of California as “Every ring on turtle’s back, a mortar to split our seeds.” To her it was not a great exploration of new land, but the beginning of the destruction of their homeland. Towards to the end of Rose’s poem, she uses more metaphors to show the nationality is waking up, such as “sunflower bursting from asphalt, raises green arms to the sun”. She is not just sinking into the sadness of the oppression of their nation, but ready to fight back. “From which we emerge, every red thing in the world is the reflection of blood, our death and our rising…..” the violent side of the blood made their world became red, but their ethos is “rising” from the death. She is ready to fight for their rights as she “dance[s] the mission revolts again”. She starts to reveal her nationality and clarify her identity as she “know[s] strength of spine tied to spine.” The hatred makes her want to “lure the soldiers into trap after trap.” She is trying to speak out her hatred, and the sense of resistant under the long-term oppressed nationality is growing more and more stronger.

One or other, rooted in the same history, both “Indian Cartography” and “Itch like Crazy: Resistant” are illustrated the Native Indians’ displacement and mistreatment. Although both poets, Deborah Miranda and Wendy Rose, use different tones in their poems and react differently, they are using their powder to speak out the truth of their nations, and try to open people’s eyes to see what their nations have been gone through. They hope to wake up their own people to identify themselves and dispel the fear of long-time oppression

What I learn from out-class essay#1

I felt better about my first out-class essay than my first in-class essay. I have more time to prepare. I have more confidence since I prepared more and read more information. I tried to connect the previous readings to the song. Although I proofread couple times of my essay, I still feel not good enough. I hope during the process in the class, I will do better.

I really enjoyed listen to the songs professor posted online. I love those songs. When I was writing, I kept playing the songs over and over again. From the tone of those songs, I could feel their depression and affected by them emotionally. I always like music, but actually never really pay too much attention on the lyrics. After this session, I gained more interest to listen to the lyrics more carefully and focus on the meaning of the song.

Maybe because my personality, I never really felt my life was very hard, even I start to live alone, and support myself since I was 19. I can understand the feeling that those lyric want to present. Living in a strange city or country with all the hopes, but reality usually is harsh and not everything goes to the way we want. The songs made me suddenly realize, although my life was full of hardship, compare to others I was really lucky to have my friends and my family with me in my heart all the time.

California: Promise Land to Wicked Ground

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6rUb_m9M2o

Many people come to California with their dreams and hope. In their mind, California is beautiful state with full of charm. Big Hollywood sign is a symbol of hope. Sunshine and opportunities is the “sate weapon” of California (Kirse Granat Max. Golden State, Golden Youth. Suburban Eden, 12) to promise for a better life. And yet, after came to this promise land, the dreamers have to wake up and face the reality. Like Natalie Merchant sings in her song “San Andreas Fault”, the dreams were so beautiful, but the reality was so harsh..The song was divided to two sections. The first couple verses describe all the beauty of the California dreams, from basic living to being rich. In contrast, in the second section, it uses metaphor to show the dreams are very easy to be broken, just like San Andreas divided California to North and South.. Agree with Natalie Merchant, many people start to realize that California dreams do not always come true, and the “promise land” might become “wicked ground”.

In the first verse, Natalie sings many people dream about coming to the “west”, because they think here is the “paradise”. Kirse Grant May even says, in his novel “Suburban Eden”, “It’s only because the place called California, like in Garci Rodriguez Ordonez De Montalvo’s novel ‘The Queen of California’. People think the life might be better.” (Suburban Eden, 9). “You'll have all that you can eat/of milk and honey over there”, Natalie sings in her song, “Milk” is metaphor for foods and basic living condition.. The sunshine, the advantage of the weather, makes California crop and fruit farm thrive beautifully. The farms do not have to face the challenge of the weather, such as snowing, tornado and storm. People should always have food because of the up growth of California agriculture. Natalie also used “honey” to symbolize the sweetness of the west coast dream life.

The second paragraph of lyric emphasizes that many people come to California, especially Southern California - Los Angeles, to achieve their big Hollywood dream. Attracted by the fame, they want to be “brightest stars”, see the world that they “have ever seen”, and be beautiful as “sun-baked slender heroine”. Those are the images everyone would love to see themselves in the mirror. They got these ideas from well established multimedia, such as news paper, magazines and television. Beautiful women and talented artists come to California, wish one day they may get lucky to be picked up by a Hollywood agent then become a superstar. Being in the center of the entertainment industry of American, they might become famous just overnight; possibly shimmer at the Academy Awards night. It’s “quintessentially California phenomenon” (Exporting Culture, 317).

After became superstars, under the “brightest light”, people’s life will be changed dramatically. Natalie sings in the next stanza, the life should be as “dizzy height of a jet-set life”. Referring to the “jet-set”, it actually is journalistic term of lifestyle. It usually uses to describe some international social groups of wealthy people, who are organizing and participating around the world in social activities which are impossible to reach by ordinary people. This lifestyle indicates the riches and money. People who are able to travel, from one stylish or exotic place to another, via jet airplanes must be rich to have this kind of luxury lifestyle.

In addition to this luxury lifestyle, within the main stream, on the promise land, among the superstars, their friends must be fabulous too. According to Natalie’s song, the friends should have “blue eyes”, “strawberry hair”, with “sweet lips” and “firm skin”. These images might come from the California surf culture and the Beach boys as youth culture icon. The song is narrative about rich people and celebrities, because usually they put their appearances at first priority. Moreover, it is also allusion of white people and upper society as well, since only Caucasians have blue eyes and red hair. The song also raises the racialism issue by using metaphorical form. Why the friends in the dream do not have black eyes or darker hair?

Having all these fabulous friends and being a big star, the life must be better and brighter. Comparing the old lifestyle to the life in California is just like “rags to riches”. Getting rich is an easy thing.The lyric implies the different, between the old lifestyle and the California dream lifestyle, is rich and poor. World War I brought growth to California, and World War II just push it to the Center stage (Suburban Eden, 10). The fast development of Californian real estate and freeway helps building up many jobs and other opportunities. People vision California was “a place of adventure and opportunity, a place where their lives could be different.” (Denise S. Spooner. A new Perspective on the Dream, 45) Many people want to relocate to California, get better jobs to support themselves or raise a family. They think it’s a good chance to become rich, and get rid of the poverty.

The pomposity of California dreams make people tremble their knees. However, from the seventh stanza, Natalie suddenly wakes up the audience from the beautiful dreams, and draws them back to the reality. In the real world, California isn’t that perfect, and the dreams are easily to be broken. The song blames the San Andreas Fault, which was discovered by UC Berkeley geology professor Andrew Lawson in 1895, for the broken dreams. In fact, after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the professor also discovered that the San Andreas Fault stretched the earth southward into Southern Calfornia. The song personifies the Fault, such as “moved its fingers/ earth divided”, and blames this geographical division. It complains that because of the land split, all the California dreams were “shattered” along with the earth. It was ironic, but sad at the same time.

In the real world, the basic living is not that easy to make. Some people, who came to California with their dreams, are end up living under the bridge, and sleep by a campfire. Not everyone is able to find a good job and make enough money to eat all the “milk and honey” they want. Even though they really became Hollywood superstars, some of them still have to pay their surgeon to keep their faces look younger. In another words, their appearance are all fake, or maybe so as their spirit. The new lifestyle may not be glorious as jet-set. People still have to work hard to achieve their goals to get rich. Pretty beach boys are not in every corner. In California, there are many migrations with various nationalities. Not everyone has blue eyes, red hair and glamorous skin. Beside the looks, the sunny and health images of the youth may be also shuttered by “juvenile delinquent problem, young murders and violent criminals” (Suburban Eden, 22). And don’t be surprise if we see “teenage bride with baby inside” (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication). Although the promise land – California is myth of “golden land”, during the slow economic, having the high unemployment rate, it is losing the title as “a place of adventure and opportunity”. Many people lost their jobs, houses and what they fought for. Being desperate, people are depressed, they cry out “no job, no home, no peace, no rest, NO REST!” (Bruce Springsteen, the Ghost of Tom Joad)

Natalie’s song - San Andreas Fault makes the theme of the broken dreams more imagery. The dreams were broken as the ground “collided” during San Andreas Fault. The Fault tapped its figures on the ground, and made the “awful sound” which sounds like the dreams were smashed into pieces. In audience’ imagination, they can even hear that shrill noise. This promise land didn’t keep much of its own words, but gave people terrible experience. “Build a dream” like a tower or wall, is high and spectacular. Though, reality may “tear it (the dream) down”, and people have to “watch it (their dreams) fall down”. “Promise land” might become “wicked ground”. Who knows? Maybe one day the Hollywood big sign will be tore down like California dreams. Natalie’s song, “San Andreas Fault”, is full of disappointment and heart broken.

What I have learned from in-class #1

What I have learned:

About the topic/content

After the first in-class essay, I got more idea about how the class will go. Not like those ESL classes I took before. This class teach us more about critical writing and analyze what the artcle about. I think I should do more thinking when I read the articles or short stories.

About myself as reader and writer:

I haven’t taken English class for a while. The first in-class essay made me a little nervous. I felt I wasn’t well prepared. I really like things to be organized. My original outline wasn’t good enough to fit the “focus question”. I have to restructure my thought. When I try to redo my outline, my ideas were all over the place. Due to the time limitation, I really struggled to organize my ideas. Although I was frustrating, I still think it is a good practice. So next time I will know what should I focus on, and where should I start it first.

California Dream

In the touching story " The Circuit", Fancisco Jimenez told a story about a Mexican immigrant family move to California with full of the dreams. For them, California was an adventure. The parents' eyes "sparkled" every time they talks about California. To them, the life will be better in California. Through children's eyes, Francisco illuminates the California dreams into the reality. For many people, California is a good place to start a new life. The early Golden rush, and bright images of California gave people endless hope. They think the life will be as easy as "people there sweep money off the street. " (Francisco Jimenez, Under the Wire) However, in the reality, life is not always that easy. Especially for immigrants, the dreams of better opportunity, better life style, better weather and even better education, may not be perfect as they imagined. Will the reality make their dreams gone sour?

In the fiction short story, the Mexican family hoped to move to California to find better opportunities. Before they move there, all they think about is how they don't have to "get up at four in the morning to milk the cows" (Francisco, page 2). In reality, sometimes they don't really have choice about the first job. All they could think of is make the basic living need for their family. When the Mexican family, in Francisco's novel, first arrived in California, they only have "seven dollar" with them. They have to wait two weeks for the next job open, the strawberries pickers. Although the story is fiction, many immigrants really do have the same situation. The different language speaking and sometime illegal working status could be very difficult for the immigrants. In California, many immigrants can only find blue collar jobs because their illegal working status. The farmer fields, restaurant helpers are most like their only choices. Due to their situation they have no choice to take those jobs alone with the cheap labor. Outside the Home depots stores, it easily find groups of Mexicans standing there wait for people driving by and pick up them just for temporarily jobs. Sometime even $50 dollars per day will satisfy their needs. For many of them, $50 may support their whole family for weeks.

Beside the great opportunity, people also dreamed about the better life style California might have. Come to the life style, people couldn't exist but think about the big Hollywood sign. Francisco's fiction Mexican children got their imagination from some Hollywood movies and cousin's stories. They must think about the fancy life style Calfornia people have. The world leading entertainment culture, the fashion, the music, and the freedom living style are the temptations people couldn't escape. Some migrants think move to California is a good way to "escape their community". In small towns or even some countries, people have to live with others judgments, such as neighbors or colleagues. Truly, Californians have more freedom to be themselves. The busy life style, tight working schedules make people have no time to interfere other's life. Friends and family may only call each other once a week, once a month, or even once a year. However, more people criticize about this issue. In Francisco' novel, the Mexican child loved to have family gather around. He enjoyed to listen to the stories his family told. He might not notice, but the warm feeling about the family may be more important. This feeling maybe is what Californians missing.

Equally important to the better opportunities, the sunny weather of California has been taken in many migrants' consideration. California always has the bright images of its natural condition, such as the sunshine, the blue sky, and endless ocean side. The Mexican boys, in "Under the Wire", thought their favorite "Noon train" must from California. In their mind, California is full of sweetness as the "oranges, apples, and candies" they got in the brown bag. However, in the true-life, because the State grown too fast, California's environment has been "threatened"(James J. Rawls, California, CDR29) in many ways. For example, Santa Barbara had wild mountain fire destroyed thousands homes for recent year summers. The Cosco ship spilt 53,500 gallons oil into San Francisco bay in 2007, and killed thousands animals. The pollution has taken California's sunny image away little by little. Fortunately, California has a number of priority conditions of the natural. Associate with it good resource of, high-technology, the State is working on their way to improve the current situation, by developing the solar, wind and geothermal power system to reduce the pollution and keep the Californian sunny dream real.

At last, many migrant families brought their children to California, like the narrative Mexican family, just hope the children could have better education. Getting away from their poverty back Mexican, the children may have more chance to go to school and escape the daily "milking cow" routing. The education system of California or America is much different than other countries. Here, American advocates the free education system, where children could have more freedom to choose the projects they want to study. The teaching style is also different. American professors promote students doing more hand-on work, instead of just reading the material from the textbook. By this way, students actually could remember the concept more and be able to use it in the real world. Nevertheless, California tuition has been increased almost every year. According to Los Angeles Times, University of California students may face 32% increase by 2010. That means $2,500 dollars more. Due to the economic declining, many families couldn't afford the fee. Exceeding their ability, some students even have to give up for couple semester and come back later. Many students have to work themselves to help the family out.

All in all, same as Francisco described in his novel, California dreams are not pretty as people imagined. No doubt, California may have more opportunities, glamorous life style, good natural conditions, or maybe even better system. But, defining the California dreams, people may have to pay more than they think. Achieving the goals, making the dreams come true will never be easy. Those colorful dreams of California won't just become true by themselves. No matter where people live, hard work is a must.

Introduce myself

Hi All,

My name is Luping Zhang, English name goes by Sharon. I am Beijing, China. I have been living in California for 14 years. I went to Canada for school in Toronto and then move to LA to meet my parents who were transferred by their work. I was there 7 years before I got married and move to San Jose stay with my husband.

My goal is to get an accounting degree, maybe CPA if I could. (I usually don’t like set my goal “too far”, because I might think it will be “too hard and too long” to get to.) In Canada I was Computer Science major. I never thought I could be an accountant. In my previous job in a travel agency in LA, my boss moved me from another department to Accounting Department. I start to love the job even since. I surprised how much I like the profession. My mom must be very happy, because that’s the job she always wants me to do. Since I like the job, I thought why not get a degree. Canada’s education system is a little different then US, so I have to take much more General Educations. (In Canada we only need to take 20 units which are four courses in GE. Here are double.) I took this class for transfer requirement of SSJ. Hopfully I could transfer later this year or next year.

I love traveling, movies, music, outdoor activities and…… of course shopping. Hah… Since I have full time job, and goes to school at night, I usually have very limit time to go shopping during the school time. My new hobby is outdoor exercise. I take walk by the shore during my lunch break when I am at work. It makes my mind clear, and I love the fresh air. It is health and fresh. I hope I could keep this habit even my schedule is crazily tight.