POST 3.3

This text reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank. I had to read this story maybe three times in high school. And everytime I read it i liked it more and more. Although both of these stories are generally informing about the Holocaust, when I read, and watched both of them, there was obviously something more that was trying to be said. Not one of the stories reflects love better than the other. In The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne was taken, but not before her and her family fought for as long as they could for their safety. It was clear that the family loved eachother so much and were willing to fight for their lives together. In Life is Beautiful, Guido fought just as hard to keep his family together and safe. Love is love, and family is family. There is no way to say that Guido loved his son and wife more than Anne loved her family and her family loved her back. They are the same story to me in that way. And watching Life is Beautiful last week, I could not help but relate it to The Diary of Anne Frank.
I can also relate it to the reading we read earlier in the semester about memory. And how memory can deceive us  at times. Our memories tell our past and we can only work off of what we trust oursleves to remember. Joshua is telling us this story through memory. Our knowlege of what really happened will only be as correct as Joshuas memory is reliable. If we do not tell people about our life and past accomplishments, or regrets, there would be no history for us to uncover. Which is exactly what Joshua did for us, the viewers. He told the story of his family during the Holocaust the way he remembers it, and the way he was probably told. I can'not recall the name of the text we read earlier this semester but it talked about how we have to tell people things we remember, or there will be no history. Thanks to people like Joshua, (although it is just a movie) we are knowledgable about the Holocaust and keeping family close during it.

History and Memory in Life is Beautiful

Right away when reading this text by Scott Ryan, I could tell that he was writing to us to prove that no matter how evil and bad things may get in life, happiness and laughter can overcome any amount of evil. Referring to the character Guido from Life is Beautiful, we are presented with ways that Guido himself showed evil no mercy. It seems to me that Guido never really took anything too seriously. This way, letting the better aspects of like shine brighter than the ugly. This was especially expressed when Guido and his family were send on a train to an unnamed death camp. Although Guido knew for the most part that what they were about to have to overcome was not easy, he was not about to let his son see. It could be said that perhaps that was not the smartest thing to do, because of the atmosphere of the train ride, and especially after arriving to the camp, was no "surprise for his birthday", like Guido had told Joshua when they first arrived to the camp. Not to mention other victims at theses camps were telling Joshua exactly what was going on.
Scott Ryan suggests in this passage that aside from the fact that these Nazis are practically dehumanizing the Jew's, there is still the connection that we are all human that some of the Nazis can't overcome. "Guido’s innocent fantasies highlight the far-reaching mendacity of the Nazi regime: that they hid their intentions from their captives and some may say from themselves".(Ryan Scott) No matter how bad things can get, there will always be the obvious that we are all human and equal in more ways than we can imagine. Family will overcome individuality any day in my opinion. No matter what little amount of good Guido may see in any situation, there is no doubt that without his family present in the short time they had together, Guido would have approached his situation a lot differently. Perhaps with more fear. It is amazing what family can do to someone. The presence of a family member to me, can make any situation better in an instant.
It is pretty straightforward what Scott is trying to get across in his text. "While the film can be accused of simplifying historical events into a fight between good and evil, it nevertheless reaffirms the protective sanctuary of imagination as it was necessitated and tested by the holocaust. It is ultimately a parable about the capacity for human creativity to transcend life’s banalities and our entrapment in historical circumstance". (Ryan, Scott) These feelings explained by Scott Ryan are nothing of a surprise. It is not unusual in anyway how he feels about the movie. Or how he thinks although the movie was not to inform us about the holocaust, but to show us that happiness and laughter can overcome any evil. I don't think that many people could really argue with that. Personally I agree with mostly if not all, of the things Scott talks about in his text.

Post 3.1

When reading The New Colossus: Exploring the Idea of Border, by John Washington, I felt a sense of anger in his voice. But not the kind of anger like he wanted to hurt someone. The kind of anger that just wanted to be heard and wanted anything for things to change. Reading this story, I get the side of the author that is giving us all of this information and facts because like he said, his mother crossed over the border illegally as well. Perhaps this passage is not only about the Mexicans that struggle everyday, but the anger he has inside knowing that his very own mother went through the same thing at one point in her life. Judging by all that he has done for the migrants, he is possibly giving back to his mother. But in a way that is not really giving to her, but actually to the millions just like her. He has a heart for these illegals and shows it in the best possible way he can. He believes that there should be a better way of handling the immigration laws a lot better. "Asking migrants why they cross the border, why they leave their homes and family, the answer is almost always, in some form or another, to survive, to give their children or their spouses or themselves a fighting chance".(pg.253) And thanks to people like John, the unfortunate migrants being sent back to cities they have never seen once in their lives, have someone waiting with aid and a good face to look up on. The fact that some of the migrants actually let out their feelings and unfortunate events  to John, means only one thing, that they were comfortable with him. "I think of Ignacio, a 57-year-old man I met in Nogales last summer. He told me his story of trying to cross the desert to reunite with his daughters in Atlanta. He got lost in the desert, spent days wandering, following cows to water tanks, drinking dirty water, succumbing to bouts of diarrhea, vomiting, delirium". (pg.253) I'm sure it doesn't take a lot for a migrant to feel comfortable with someone who is trying to help them especially after the horrible things they have been through for the past days or weeks, it still says something that these people that know not one thing about John, can confide in him and trust him. It is definitely clear in the story that John believes in helping make better lives for Mexicans. This is told through personal stories, and tough facts to even read about. To me, it sounds like John is an angel in the form of a man to these migrants. All that he does for them is something that he is not bound to. He does not have to be spending his time giving back to people that really have done nothing for him, but the fact that he does only says so much about his character. John is obviously comfortable enough with his identity, that he can speak so supportingly about those of migrants. John seems like a good person that only wants better for migrants, and I am happy I was given the opportunity to read this story by him because things I have heard previously about immigration were nothing like the facts I read about in this story.

Post 2.2 Community Project

Starting this project has been a little difficult for me. I tried to contact the girl I spoke to that day we went to the english as a second language classroom. I am not sure if I am not reading the e mail correctly or what is going on. So I've e-mailed the other student from Japan that I interviewed that day. I am hoping he will write me back soon. It has been a while since I've e-mailed him so I am going to go to his classroom tomorrow after our class. I hope I see him and that he is not weirded out by me showing up! I am really interested as to what he has to say to some of the questions I have ready to ask him. I can't wait to find out some answers to some questions I am prepared to ask him that I was not able to get in the day we were able to speak. I hope after tomorrow my project will be well on its way!

Community Identity Project

I have decided to explore an exchange students personal Identity for my community identity project. I think it will be more interesting to find out more about someone elses lifestyle I know nothing about, than just learn more about my own community that I already know a lot about. Talking to just two students in the classroom we visited a few days ago intrigued me and made me want to learn more about how different it is for them to be living in Tucson other than where they are from. Some of the things Takashi told me, made me really want to know more. More about his traditions he might have left behind in Japan, or even just about his culture. I have always wanted to visit Japan and I think that spending time with Takashi for this project will seriously expand my knowledge of Japan and help me decide if it is in fact somewhere I would like to seriously visit. During our interview, he also mentioned wanting to be a psychology major. That in itself is interesting to me, but he told me that the reason he didn't study it in Japan, is because the program was extremely new. So I would like to look more in debth about  how different psychology is in Japan compared to here. Im sure Takashi was more interested in studying it here because we have a more developed psychology program. So finding out what is different about it in Japan would be pretty cool. Learning anything about Japan would be cool for me. So that is why I am going to work with Takashi for this assignment.

Sonny's Blues

Reading this story opens my eyes to what family really is. It at the same time puts into perspective families that are not as close as mine. And how many more hard times they must go through; but in the end always staying a family. I have always been blessed with great parents, my brothers that I love so much and a big family that all love spending time together. So I cant say that I know what it feels like to have to deal with a family member who is like Sonny and has a lot of problems. But this story proves that no matter what families get into together, they always come out on top. Sonny's brother expresses his feeling toward Sonny's choices in life and how he chose to deal with them. It is obvious that he was not very happy with his brother. And every time they would see each other, they would fight. But that does not change the fact that in the end, Sonny's brother is the one watching him play with his band. The one that has not always been there, but in a cense, has. "Family" in my opinion defines who we are. Where would we be without our parents or the ones we've grown up with. The ones who know us the best. The ones that have seen us at our worst, and at our best, and no matter what there is always that connection that is family. Having a relationship with your siblings, in my case, my brothers, is just as important. If you have these people to live with, why are you going to make it something bad, loving each other should just come so easily. Seeing that I only can say that it is to me, I don't personally know how it can't come so easily to others. People see me and my brothers when were together and they ask us how we are so close, and that they hope their kids are like us when they are older. And I don't really understand why they ask this sometimes because what I ask myself, is why aren't they already like that. There really is nothing more important to me in life than my family. Since i've moved out i haven't had the chance to really spend time with my parents like I used to, and it kills me everyday. I know my friends tell me I need to grow up and move on but the thought of not having them forever makes me want to pack up and move back in with them right now! haha but I know I cant do that. So for now, all I can do is love them and I know nothing will ever come between my family.

Memory and Imagination

This so far has been my favorite reading for this class. Every other reading we've had, has been good writing. But I've never really related to any of it in the way I related to Memory and Imagination. I guess you can say it has to do with the remembering things and writing down what Hample, would say are "lies". I can say I struggled with it all throughout high school. Kind of a lot in Spanish we were given assignments where we would have to reminisce about a memory with the family we might have had. Or something like that! I would find myself filling in I guess you could call "gaps" of memories that were a little fuzzy to me, with lies. Or something I would make up for the moment to fill those gaps. But a difference about the steps I took from those of Hample's steps is that I wouldn't go back after my first draft and change the "lies" I wrote in the first place with something I might have remembered to actually be true. I don't know if it is because I was lazy to actually take the time to create a good piece of writing, or I never really thought about it. Maybe I was just in the mind set that I couldn't mess with my first draft I had to leave it the way it was, only fixing grammatical errors my teacher might have found. Its more like when I am writing statistics or facts that I would go back and maybe fix something that was wrong. Never to my own memories did I fix anything. To be honest without reading this text I don't think I would have ever realized I was missing something in good writing. But does going back in your writing fixing things like memory glitches make you a good writer?
         Maybe writing things down is the only way TO remember something fully. If its never asked of us to go back and remember a time we once had, how often would we actually try to remember a time with our mom, or a dress that used to be your favorite? If we are not going to remember our pasts, then who is? Like Hample said, there are 1000 books I think that try to prove that the holocaust never happened. Why do people insist on trying to rewrite history? If we just sat back and never tried to remember something that once happened, we might loose our selfs all together.

a crot is hard to find.

I thought this reading was pretty interesting. I've never really heard of a teacher doing their own assignment  to help the students better understand the assignment. That is really cool of a teacher to do. I know that if I ever had a teacher that was willing to take on the paper herself it would put things into perspective for me for sure. Especially an assignment like the one this class was given. It was obvious to the professor that it was going to be a little more difficult than the students walked out of the class thinking it was going to be. The professor taking hours out of her afternoon to help out her class really shows that she does care about them and how well they do on the assignment. By doing this, her class was able to go home and really take on the paper the best they can. It was also really interesting to me how her class was coming to her with all the same questions. Was it because she didn't really explain the assignment as well as she could have? Or do all students have selective hearing, hearing only bits and pieces of what the professor was talking about? I'm sure they were listening but I think its funny how they all left the class thinking they had an easy paper coming their way. Only to find out it would be even more difficult than expected. "You know, at first I thought this assignment was going to be easy, but it was hard, one of the hardest papers I've ever written." pg. 46 It sort of makes me wonder how I myself would do writing a paper like this. Having to go against everything I've learned throughout the years and actually having to write UN COMPLETE sentences. I wonder if I would be able to leave the bubble I am used to being in when writing something for a class?

Disliking books at an early age

After reading Disliking Books at an Early Age, I did feel like I could relate to the author in some ways. One way I would say I felt differently about my younger school days was not wanting to be made fun of for wanting to do good in school. Gerald Graff talks about how he didn't want to be made fun of for being a book worm in school. I was most definately not feeling that way in grade school and especially not high school. What people thought about me sitting in the front of the classroom and being as involved as I could during class was the last of my worries. It was every so often too that someone would say something to me, like I was a teachers pet. But I could honestly care less. As long as my hard work was showing in my grades people could talk all they want. I also don't think I would have gotten beat up for wanting to do good in school though like he says he would have. Now that I am in college, like Graff, I am trying more than ever to stay on top of my grades. So I can say like him college is the time to really buckle down and take my education more serious than ever. NOT saying I never have taken it seriously before!

ME!

HELLO! Mostly everyone already knows my name is Raquel Gonzalez. I have lived in Tucson Arizona my whole life which is why I decided to attend the U of A. In high school i loved being involved with the school which is why I cheered for the whole four years I was there. I really enjoy being part of a team and taking charge if it is necessary. I have two older brothers Andres and Gabriel. Andres is 28 and is a firefighter for Tucson and my brother Gabriel is starting Pima this week to be a full time student. I am very proud of both of my brothers and I know they will feel the same about me as I continue my time here at the U of A. As for the U of A i couldn't be happier to be here. I was beyond nervous the week before school started I couldn't wrap my mind around actually being in collage. Now that I have seen the campus and all of my classes much of the stress has worn off. I love being part of this school I cannot wait to become more involved and hopefully join a club pretty soon. I can't wait to get to know everyone in my English class this semester I know I will have a great time as long as I stay focused!!