Different is Beautiful

“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap.” 

― Ani DiFranco 

For many the term "different" is scary because it means to be unlike a norm that is represented by majority. It is unlike everything, separate from natural quality. Being different means standing out and and most people only want to fit in. There is a certain beauty about a word like different because it allows the ones in its category to define what it means to them and to give meaning to those standards. Genetically we are born different, but in society we wish to all be the same. 

Ethnic American Literature is the study of the differences we can't help but have and how even with those differences we are still essentially the same. We learned about the struggle of the human condition in very different and complex ways and how they shape different understandings of the world around us. How these struggles although different can bring us together. The only place in the world where being different is accepted even tolerated to an extent is America. This is the country of diversity, a God given birth right of identity where people come together to form a smaller piece of the world. And it means so many things to be an American that one description could never fit and that is beautiful. 

During the digital presentations I found out just how beautiful these differences are because no matter what color, race, gender, sexual orientation, likes, dislikes, hobbies, stories, religion we may have we have been synchronized and built by this country we have in it created who we are and who we choose to be and that is beyond beautiful. There are no boundaries. When you first step into a class it is surreal to understand at the very moment the beautiful lives of those around us at that very second and it is even more surreal to discover the intricate stories of these people, of my classmates. There will never be anything in this world like someones story, because like the stories we have read this semester they are all bound by an ultimate experience with ultimate consequences that lead us to our present states. Should we be thankful or should we be angry with the experience? Do they shatter us or rebuild us? That is a decision that we don't fully understand and at times we will never understand and that is still beautiful. I loved the stories that were shared in this class because they were all different and they were all complex and when told they give you a small part of every person, and in those small parts there are bigger parts that are still mysterious and they are still progressive. And that is beautiful. 

Digital Project

Digital story for class ebook.

Why is America the final continent?

The narrator in "The Third and Final Continent" found his home in a place far from where he came from, a place that many types of people from all over come to. What is it about this "America" that makes it so appealing to all of these people. Is it because of its diversity? or the dreams that seem to become a reality here? This country that was once ignored has become a sensation and it has grown to capture so much interest. This story is an overt representation of what America gives us despite the things that it can also rob from us. Essentially there is more value in what we have than what we lack. For the narrator this continent become home, it became stability and permanence. He decided to "grow old" here in this continent far away from his own origins removed from his culture. One of the most interesting things about America is that it is hard not to love or appreciate the life you can create here. At first anything new can be hard to adapt to. The narrator did not enjoy his stay at the YMCA perhaps because it reminded him of his difficult voyage, which was probably an awful experience. One person on their own, changing the course of their life takes absolute courage. Little change is hard, a change so big is almost unimaginable.

Mrs. Croft was the first person the narrator admired in this new place, she was not only a strong women she represented America. She was timeless and in her old age she was more fierce than ever. I think whats so interesting is the time frame of this story, America being the first country to ever invade such a foreign boundary like the moon. This makes it clear that America has no boundaries, which is what they wanted the thousands and thousands of people who came here to aim for. They wanted immigrants and Americans alike to cross and defeat any boundaries, because if we can put a man on the moon we can do anything. That is why Mrs. Croft's character is so valuable, she embodies this tradition and over the century she has lived has witnessed all the greatness. "There is an American flag on the moon" and really there is no reply for something so grand. Space travel was foreign like the how the narrator was in to the states. But despite the struggles that emerge everyone has a chance, which makes this country so special. Its a fresh start for all. Those weeks of summer were an interlude of his life, yet he mourned Mrs. Croft death because she was his symbol. She unknowingly became his America in way. And although so many changes were occurring tradition was heavily embedded in both of them, even though they were both from different backgrounds.

I have very strict beliefs on love, and I could never warm up to arranged marriages, it is too forced and I feel like people wouldn't really be happy marrying someone they just met. In this story I saw a very different side to love and how people fall in love. The narrator was fixed into an arranged marriage and he simply followed his life on the commitments marriage bring like having a job and a home for his partner. This suggests of marriage as a duty. Regularly when we marry we do it for love., but the connection that was created for Mala and the narrator was very endearing and pure because they were once strangers, they fell in love with what was on the inside while cultures like America have people looking at the outside first. And considering our divorce rates i'd say arranged marriages are actually doing better. What seemed like an obligation was transformed into something that lasts, through special moments such as meeting Mrs Croft. Even being somewhere new the reading also said that they traveled to Bengali to pick up pajamas which means that although there home is far away in never really gets lost. Which is another reason why America is so great, it allows all of that to be preserved.

Perhaps America has no real roots, which is why it is so wonderful, one can create their own roots while the past continents couldn't allow for that sense of a new beginning. The narrator was becoming accustomed to living in this new world, Mala did not have to pick up her sari because America is so "modern." It was as if in every other country something was instilled in them, but America gave them a choice which is everything. Beyond all its complexities this country is beautiful. Having a flag on the moon is like making somewhere new a home and that place exceeding expectations, it is a new and wild experience.  

"Smoke Signals"

"Smoke Signals" contained many references of Native Americans being conquered by the Europeans. The movie is a reflection still of the damage that was caused so many decades before. The stereotypes are countless and shape their characters realities. The lives of these two boys were shaped by the incident that left Thomas an orphan. Arnold was tainted by the smoke, swallowed by it. Reservations have become a demise to the Indian life and culture. It has destroyed their dignities, making many of them alcoholics, without jobs or education, and living under poor conditions. The smoke and fire is prevalent in the film, an alliteration to the traditions that were carried on by Native Americans, their chants and dances around fires. Arnold Joseph and Victor both cut their hairs like a traditional endeavor that the performed, like cutting hair somehow enlightened them, move them past something.

 Arnold killed Thomas' parents in that fire because he was drunk, but saved Thomas as a way to make up for his mistake, one that he would always live with, and a secret that tortured him until his death. Oral traditions such as story telling were a big part of the Indian community and Thomas carried on that tradition in a very magical way. " You know how Indians feel about signing papers," Victor's mother made of joke of an important element in their history, which was the treaty that they signed with the Europeans, but at the end did not amount to anything.

"Father and son"  is a theme explored as well. Arnold abandoned his son and in an argument with Victor, Thomas accused Victor of abandoning his mother mentally in a very different way, " you're there, but you're not really there." It seemed like all those years Victor had been as absent or more as Arnold. When he left in that pick-up truck Thomas left as well. When Arnold died, Victor inherited his truck. While his father ruined many lives, his son helped save on the night of the crash, by running 20 miles for help, it was in a way how he redeemed his fathers errors. Victor had to forgive his father and let go of all the anger he had towards him.

There was also a very important reference when they were playing basketball with the Christians, this is metaphorically the battle of the Native Americans against Christianity. Arnold said his son made the winning shot, but he hadn't and they had lost, just like they had lost to the Christians. They lost that battle. Thelma and Lucy represented how their culture was backwards, it was reversed in a very awful way.Their own names are European, they have been assimilated and converted, robbed of their identities.Victor says that "everything burns up" and fire is very present in the film, from the house burning at the beginning, to Susie burning the trailer at the end. Their lives have burned. The title "Smoke Signals" signify that lost and desertion, signalling the fire or the trouble that it leads or the peace it brings, because at the end, when the trailer was burning it was like a release of all the negative Arnold had done in the past.    

A Father?

The story of a father is in a way like the story of many immigrants who come to America seeking a better future. This story was much more tragic than most other stories because of what occurs at the end, but all in all the story is very common. In order to adapt to a new country and all of its surroundings sacrifices have to be made. One must abandon certain cultural commodities and beliefs. At this point there arises a clash between old and new world; between what should be left behind and what should be kept. This is the type of crossroads Mr. Bhowmick finds himself at. He is a traditional man, who came to America with his wife and young daughter to pursue "the dream" yet he values certain aspects of his culture and is dominated by certain values. Their family has certainly done well in America they seem to be middle class to perhaps even upper middle class. They have good jobs, even their daughter Babli who went to Georgia Tech and wears business suits to work and his wife works for an insurance company. They have acclimated to their new homeland quite fairly. If anything it was Mr. Bhowmick who was still stuck in past customs while the women in his household conceived and employed progressive ideas. Mr. Bhowmick felt in some way detached with the women in his life who took no concern to his goddess Kali-Mata like he did. He who so elaborately designed her at a wood shop. Every morning it was his routine to pray to his goddess Kali, goddess of vengeance, while his wife yelled from downstairs in an attempt to rush him.

On one particular morning Mr Bhowmick fell ill to his personal taboos and decided to preserve his life by staying home. This decision led him to discover that his daughter Babli was pregnant. He regretted Babli he regretted not being able to love her because she was not the woman he expected her to be, she was not tender or loving like the women of his past. This inability to love ones child makes him seem cold and selfish. A child is a gift any parent loves and protects, but he felt no real connection. She was a stranger to his ideals, like his wife. Discovering that Babli is pregnant delights him and he immediately expects a grandson. For weeks he looks closer at his daughters behavior, while guessing at who the father may be. Babli not only does not have a man in her life, but she hides her pregnancy. Finally the truth is revealed that Babli is not only pregnant, but there is no man, she was inseminated and this very notion devastates Mr. Bhowmick who beats his daughter after finding out the truth. Mr. Bhowmick, who is for all purposes, the traditional Indian man was more ashamed at the reality of how his grandchild was conceived than by the overall pregnancy. He preferred a pre-marital pregnancy than one who had a faceless nameless father. This progressive idea that a woman can control whether she wants to have a baby or not on her own is absurd to him. In his rage and loss of control over the woman in his life he commits a horrible crime.

The story is loaded with irony. Mr Bhowmick prays to a female goddess, who controls him, but abhors the control the women in his life have on their own lives. It terrifies him. Progressive woman have no place in his conscious. The title of the story "A Father" is also very ironic because in this story there is no father. Mr. Bhowmick  isn't a father to Babli and Babli's child bears no "actual" father. There is a displacement in the sense of what a father is and who or what makes a father. There is also irony around the mother who was ashamed and angry at her daughter's pregnancy even though she claims to be a progressive woman with modern ideologies.The clash between old and new is an ordeal as well as what is traditional and non-traditional. It drove Mr. Bhowmick insane to know that his daughter disrupted something so fragile, by taking maternity into her own hands. It devastated him. These are things immigrants sacrifice, their very worlds become distorted and these changes are not well assimilated. There are certain boundaries that should not be crossed and Mr Bhowmick was seeing all these walls coming down on him. Kali has made a fool of him, she has mocked his world even with all his reverence. Betrayed by his own ideals.

I Would Remember-Carlos Bulosan

Death is always memorable in a frightening way. The finality of it is so grand that it constitutes the way we live our lives. The presence of death in life is too overwhelming throughout this particular reading. It seems that no matter how death occur it is always shocking and taunting for those who witness it. The narrator who experiences different tragedies in his life in which death was prevalent. The deaths of his mother, his carabao, Marco, Crispin, and Leroy all lead us to envision the difficulty of death and its nonnegotiable intimacy with a reality we ourselves do not want to face. Overall, that message is that there is no escape from death, it is cruel and untimely and imminent. But again what is a beginning without and ending?

It seems like every death is a loss inside the actual character. A loss of some part of him that he cannot regain.The story takes place in the poverty-stricken Philippines where the narrator works day in and day out on the rice fields of his homeland. His first death and loss happens to be his mother who dies when he was very young in childbirth. Metaphorically his mother in this sense is his homeland. Her death literally signifies the detachment from the place he was born and his grief in losing that part of him. In losing his mother he loses his homeland which results in the loss of his own identity. Severing these ties can only result in a separation. Throughout these deaths nature is a repetitive theme. As the narrator is sobbing on the fields he sees a bird being chased  by a bat, which could represent the loss of his innocence. This tragedy altered his life because it suggests a loss of who he is and who he can become.

The narrator witnessed another violent death when his father brutally killed their carabao, who he considered to be a brother to him more than his own brother who basically killed his mother. The caraboa which basically represents the work they do in the fields is the symbolic death of his future in his homeland. It signifies how they work because they use the carabao to pull loads so that they can tend the fields  but this particular death is his realization that he has no future in his homeland and I think it is his saddest death because of his reaction to it, along with his mother's death this is another death where he faces grief, unlike the rest of the deaths where grief isn't as present, hes almost accepting  of it. Combined this with the loss of the image he once had of his "gentle" father- "I wanted to strike my father," but he fears and loves him so he doesn't. This is becomes a loss of his identity because his father undoubtedly would represent what he is to become, it was almost like this cruelty by his father symbolically made him dead. It altered his perceptions and pushed him to embark on this new journey.  

The third death he witnesses foresees the loss of dreams and hope. Marco being the opposite of what the narrator seems to be is the representation of  dreams immigrants look forward to in a new country. They come to fulfill what they cannot do in their own countries. People immigrate for lack of better options in their own countries. On the boat to come to America the narrator meets a boy that represents his own homeland, his murder becomes an extinction of his past life an his homeland along with a foreshadowing of the difficulties he will be encountering in this new world. Marco was a happy person, full of vivid emotions, a selfless person that aided him all the times he felt seasick. He is what remains of his home. His death being the final detachment from where he come from while also tainting his new journey.

We as people are a combination of people, of identities, feelings, and thoughts. And in each of us there is a piece of things we want to be. Crispin is a man the narrator meets in "the coldest winter" in Seattle and by the context clues we assume Crispin is some sort of artist in some way because of the poetic way in which he is described. This death again represents the ending of hope. Crispin dies in a very quiet, non-protesting way. He simply is there one day and gone the next. In this death there is almost a comparison between what it is to give up or continue, does fighting hunger and exhaustion make you a coward or a hero or are you a hero because you prefer death? Crispin let himself die and that to some is brave but with him he took this light that he reflected upon the world. So is the narrator a coward because he prefer to choke on newspapers than just end it right there? The melancholy in his eyes reflected what little peace the narrator could accept from the nightmare he was living in. Crispin is that last glimmer of hope, and his death the loss of even that little hope. Because death isn't itself sad, its the permanence of that loss we must face everyday.

The last death seemed to be the most violent and most unnecessary of all the other deaths. There is an assumption that Leroy was a black worker, speaking against the system, promoting ideas. He was a contemporary thinker and the narrator admired him for his wisdom. He was drawn to him because of his courage and in his ruthless murder Leroy was robbed of  his manhood, his voice, his, sight, his courage. He died a meaningless death. This death would be engraved in his memory forever. And at the end of this story he doesn't comment on the complexities of politics at that time he only states that he would always remember "all the things Leroy taught him about living." What's interesting is not that he says all the things he taught him about life, but living which makes it more personal. Life would have been much more general, but living is much more personal, like Leroy helps the narrator see into his own life and find his own sense of living and identity in it and in the losses hes faced.  Like the title it sparks this belief that these deaths impact the life of the narrator, and they are imprinted in him forever.

When immigrating somewhere there is always a loss of culture and ethnicity, immigrants are foreign to new areas where they must become accustomed to a new identity and at times we get lost in these new identities and forget where we came from. This is assimilation, which is a cruel because we don't even know it is happening or at what point we can no longer retreat from it. Losing your culture is something many immigrants face in a country as diverse as America. In the story races are mingled they are not identified so we don't exactly know what Crispin was or Leroy, we can only assume. But each of these men face a certain  type of loss of identity.

Quote by Cuban author Jose Marti

I wanted to just share a simple quote  by a Cuban author who is admired in my Cuban family.