I was born in 1966. My father was 52 and my mother was 42 years old. My father was born in 1914. I knew my mother's story but my father's side remains a mystery still to this day. My grandmother was born in 1895 in Kiev. I have done a lot of research to try to figure out how she came to America. Many struggles were going on during that time so it is hard to tell what drove my grandmother to America. It was persecution but against whom by whom is the mystery. She only told the story of an arm reaching under the bed while the village was burning and covering her with a blanket. Then, she was on a ship to America. She did tell me that her brother was killed right in front of her eyes..."and that was it,"she ended always at this point. I was just a little girl when she passed and did not ask questions about too much. My grandfather died before I was born and my father was the only surviving child and only knew the most important thing was to be American. Everything was lost; the language, the history, connection with the past, the culture. I mourn this loss down deep and I am drawn to folk music of all cultures because somewhere in all of them is my story.
Reflections for February 3rd, 2010 Chapter 3 Assessing Students' Literacy Development
Reflections:
Through the reading I discovered that assessment and evaluation are completely different. Assessment is formative and evaluation is summative. Understanding the difference is a key to unlocking the mystery that is a childs' reading development. I say mystery because educators are only now developing classroom tools and applications to try to incorporate all types of learners. Finding the right combination for a new reader takes time, patience, record keeping and interpretation much like solving a complex puzzle. The classroom is no longer a one dimensional teacher centered place. It is an environment for teacher student interaction and student investment. It is an environment of mentoring, a student to student interaction taking place. The task of the teacher is to get to know each students' strengths and weaknesses through an assessment process. It is an ongoing process that changes as the child learns and discovers.
An example of a portfolio was given;
A traditional portfolio as well as a portfolio online, considered part of the new literacies, is a wonderfully creative way for a child to exhibit his/her work; to take ownership, set goals and, I believe, most importantly, to motivate the other children in the class to take part. Just fantastic. I always thought I understood the importance of a portfolio but now realize how valuable a tool it is in the assessment process.
This text is extremely useful because it makes references and lists other readings and websites to utilize.
Highlighting and Summarizing Chapter Three
Aunt Rose and Uncle Mike
These two were the family that came once a year to visit from far away. They arrived on the same day and departed on the same day and so, naturally, I thought that they were married. Years later, I discovered that they were not and really not related to each other or to us at all once so ever. He came from California and She from Chicago and they only had one thing in common. I found out that they had met my grandmother in NYC working together in the textile mills. The one thing that they shared was having lived near the same village that my grandmother, Mary, had once lived and fled. They each had a story similar to that of my grandmother's and they found solace in one another. We eventually lost touch with this part of the family as each of their lives they led. I loved when they visited. They would drink vodka and cry and laugh.
I am the little one with no shirt and my sister, Carol, is the girl with the dark hair. It is 1967 in this picture.
Takaki Reading 10/27
Quote:
"Anti-miscegenation laws had prohibited Punjabi men from marrying white women, so many of them married Mexicans. In central California, 76 percent of the Sikhs had Mexican wives, most of them twelve to twenty years younger. They had met each other working in the fields and orchards and developed relationships leading to marriage. Love was not the only reason why Sikhs married Mexican women. Most of them had been farmers in India, and they wanted to become farmers in California. But the Alien Land Act of 1913 had prohibited landownership to "aliens ineligible to naturalized citizenship." and Asian Indians were not "white." (Takaki p.292.)
Comment:
The basic freedoms that are written in the United States Constitution that are unique to our nation's creed and are not found in any other nation are not extended to all her people and therefore, I believe, do not exist at all. In summation, if these rights do not exist for all than they do not exist.
1967, 84 years after micegenation laws were made, The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving vs. Virginia stating that "Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existance and survival..." (Reference Congressional Record)
It is written and yet in 2009 Kieth Bardwell, Justice of the Peace in Louisiana denied a couple from this basic right.
Question:
We are designed to love and recieve love. Who, under God, would try to step in the way of love? I say, woe to them.
Quote:
"Included as laborers, Mexicans were excluded from Anglo society."...."Anglo farmers in Texas wanted the schools to help reproduce the labor force. "If every (Mexican) child has a high school education," beet sugar growers asked, "who will labor?"..." farmer in Texas explained: "If I wanted a man I would want one of the more ignorant ones..." School Policy was influenced by the needs of the local growers. (Takaki p. 303.)
Comment:
I am a folk singer and believe strongly in the tradition of storytelling so I want to offer up the lyrics of this song as my response to this reading.
Plane Wreck At Los Gatos
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?(Guthrie 1961.)
This song, I believe, brings to light the immigration policies of the Bush administration. These policies reflect those of 100 years ago. In the United States, immigrants are good enough to be laborers but not to become citizens.
Quote:
"The black migration to Chicago sparked an explosion of white resistance. "A new problem, demanding early solution, is facing Chicago," the Tribune warned. "It pertains to the sudden and unprecedented influx of southern Negro laborers." The newspaper depicted the newcomers as carefree and lazy."
Comment:
The white oppressors used whatever means to generate the stereotype of blacks not being qualified to be American. Seemingly harmless images like Aunt Jamima and movie characters such as the mammy played by Hattie McDonald in the classic Gone with the Wind, 1939. These seemingly harmless icons depicting African Americans only served to harm them and perpetuate hatred. This was orchestrated and calculated in this fashion for the reason of oppression by those in power to remain in power. Hattie McDonald who won the oscar that year for best supporting actress was not allowed to attend the premier opening of this movie in Atlanta because of racism.
Honestly, I laughed at her character when I first saw the movie. I still laugh at her inflections and tone of voice and her attack of the script and situation. However, I have since come to realize that these suspicious, lazy, sweet, dumb characters created by white folks to be played by black folks, just like the Tribune article, created a collective mindset in American that still haunts society today. After Hattie's triumph of winning the prestigous award she spent most of her remaining career playing menial roles. Upon her death in the 1950's Hattie McDonald was denied her request to be buried in a Hollywood cemetary.
Quote:
"The "New Negro" would be a "collaborator and participant in American civilization," and black intellectuals would be in the forefront of this great movement. But first blacks had to accept themselves. In his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes explained that the tragic problem of black intellectuals was denial: they did not want to be black or write about black life. "...." To overcome the "racial mountain," Hughes insisted, black writers had to declare boldly: "I am a Negro-and beautiful!"(Takaki, p328-329.)
Comment:
I chose this poem for my response here because Nikki Giovanni is a poet and a student of Langston Hughes and a contemporary poet who, in this poem, writes of someone perhaps that does not see themselves as beautiful.
Life Cycles
she realized
she wasn't one
of life's winners
when she wasn't sure
life to her was some dark
dirty secret that
like some unwanted child
too late for an abortion
was to be borne
alone
she had so many private habits
she would masturbate sometimes
she always picked her nose when upset
she liked to sit with silence
in the dark
sadness is not an unusual state
for the black woman
or writers
she took to sneaking drinks
a habit which displeased her
both for its effects
and taste
yet eventually sleep
would wrestle her in triumph
onto the bed
Written by Nikki Giovanni
Quote:
"Why fight the white man's war?" asked young Indians after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Why enlist in U.S. Armed Forces, when the Indian people had been losing their lands ever since the arrival of the English colonizers at Jamestown in 1607?" Now they were being asked to defend their conquerers." "Yet, during World war II, Navajos enlisted. Almost 20 percent of all reservation Native americans in the military came from the Navajo Nation in the Southwest." (Takaki p. 367.)
Comment:
I have written a poem about loyalty to a nation that denies the very rights to a person who enlists to defend those freedoms on foreign soil.
America, Are You Worthy?
I am a soldier that has been fighting all my life
Past the boarded up houses and the cardboard boxes that surround Fox Theatre and down the avenue.
No job, nothin to do but get stoned and drive someone else's car like mad through these streets I have called home. Nothing to do but to listen to my neighbors complain about the newborn baby needing milk.
I have no milk to give.
The united states army has milk to give; so mothers leave their babes.
I leave my mother. My mother who would not recognize me on the street.
Pollution, like confetti, gathers lightly at my boots down at the recruitment center with along with promises of something different.
Carry on. Fight. Time.
It is the only land I know and it is where I rest my body tightly and cautiously covered in sweat and rings.
It is the only land I know and it is where I took my first everything including a piss.
Resolution, like concrete confetti, gathers firmly at my hand as I sign the papers that will send me.
We leave because of America. (Ritchie 2009.)
The last line can be because of loyalty, necessity, racism, poverty. The soldier from these conditions puts his/her life on the line. The reasons for fighting do not matter because it does not change their level of commitment. God Bless Them and Keep Them.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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Takaki Reading for 10/20
Quote:
Medicine man Yellow Bird began dancing the Ghost Dance to reassure the worried Indians. He urged them to wear their sacred shirts: "The bullets will not hurt you."....."There were only about one hundred warriors and there were nearly five hundred soldiers," Black Elk reported. (Takaki p. 215.)
Response:
The soldiers searched the tepees for guns and ammunition and found none and saw the Indians engaged in their dance. They also must have known that, they, the soldiers out numbered the Indians and still they proceeded to shoot indiscrimately. I can only imagine that after the sight of the carnage the horrible feeling of being forsaken and alone would have filled their hearts with sorrow. Those who followed Yellow Bird's instructions perished leaving behind those who must have wondered how the Great Spirit could have abandoned them.
A type of psychological stratagy used by the American government for centuries not only to strip away land and property but to strip away customs and beliefs.
Questions:
Wovoka of the Paiutes called for the Ghost Dance as protection against the enemy. (Takaki p.214) How could the Washington Indian Bureau represent Indians without knowing about this dance? Were there other reasons for interpreting those who performed this dance as the "formenters of disturbances?"
This space reserved for future references of Life Notes.
Quote:
Not allowed to "escape work," they would be "required" to learn industrial skills until at least one generation had been placed on a course of "self-improvement."(Takaki p. 220.)
Francis Amasa Walker became Commissioner of Indian affairs during the 187o's and tried to avoid the use of armed force against Indians. (Takaki p. 218) Later, in the reading the commissioner was once noted when talking to a friend as to describe the Indians as "children" who disliked school and preferred to play truant at pleasure.
Comment:
I believe this philosophy to be as dangerous as the use of weapons because it provided justification in continuing the same policies that were used for over a century only this time with a little twist; to break up the reservation and turn the Indians into landowners. (Takaki p. 221.) As we know this had devastating effects on Native Americans. The tribal system would be destroyed; the idea of owning common lands would be rejected. These lands would then be divided into allotments and sold to the inhabitants with any remaining lands sold to the white man; more dangerous and more devasting than guns.
Questions:
The idea to advance and civilize the Indians designed to invoke sympathy and pity actually did more harm to the Native Americans than good. What gives a man the right to decide what is good for another? "Who decides what is
"good?"
Quote:
"Tragically, the stock reduction program was unnecessary as an erosion control program.....overgrazing was not the source of the problem." (Takaki p. 230.)
Comment:
When I lived in Cuyahoga National Park I saw first hand how park "experts" were called in to determine and then handle a problem. In the 1970's, this park was a national recreation area and those who lived on these lands were asked to move by eminent domain or sign life long agreements that would only provide the fair market value assessed in 1976. I met with individuals who's families had broken up as a result of these federal actions. I understand my example is small in scale compared to that given in the book but what I saw was devastating on a few. When I read this portion of the text I could empathize with the Navajo. The sheep was a way of life for them and the loss was great especially since the problem identified was not the problem at all and the loss was for nothing. The Navajos, all along, reported to the federal government that erosion was due to drought and not to overgrazing.
Questions:
Why was the experience of the Navajo so overlooked by the federal government? What would this world have been like if the idea of common ownership instead of individual ownership prevailed?
Quote:
"Culture was critical, for it had the power to deny or provide a way for people to affirm their individual self-esteem and positive group identity." (Takaki p. 246.)
Comment:
This is referring to Japanese workers in Hawaii The physical structure and layout of the plantation symbolized the hierachy of, in effect, America. It also served as a dividing wedge between the different nationalities and kept them, in the beginning, from organizing. I cannot help but think that there is a manual somewhere for evil greedy people who want to stay in power at all costs to structure and implement these plans to strip away an individual's identity to leave them with nothing except the need to survive; dependent on the very power that holds them and keeps them down. We have seen these types of plans throughout the reading.
Questions:
How could a teacher, as described in Takaki page 250, keep a child from learning nothing more than what is necessary to work on a plantation? Could this be considered a crime against humanity?
Quote:
"The sojourner identity, in turn, was contributing to confirm hostile claims that they were foreign and unassimilable." (Takaki p. 256.)
Comment:
This, in the reading, is about the Japanese but it is about every group that is feared. The Jews throughout history have been plagued with this sojourner's identity. It is a cycle of fear and isolation. One lends itself to the other: one appears to be a wanderer and so never assimilates and one never assimilates because they wander. We see that the Exodus from Russia with its many who fled because of persecution wanted to blend into American society so much that they left their customs behind readily to fit in, which is tragic. It is tragic because we are left with a homogenized landscape that is colorless and empty.
Questions:
What fills in the emptiness when culture and identity are gone? What kind of legacy is left for future generations to build upon?
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
When the movie first begins, the boy is standing near the river and speaks of killing. The Indians have always been depicted, until recently, in Hollywood movies as war mongers who took pleasure in killing; savages. This only served to perpetuate the fear of difference in American society. The young man is made to fight to save his people and to survive. This, he says, has turned his people into killers.
Another scene in the movie that stays with me is when the train pulls away and the boy's father is left aside the rails to say goodbye. He says a Christian prayer yet the cadence of his voice echos native American drumming. Again, people doing what they need to in order to survive turning into something that is foreign to them; to blend into the white man's world.
The Youtube sight above for Buffy-Saint-Marie, a Native American Folk singer who in one of the videos describes war. It is called the Universal Soldier. It makes me think of the young boy beside the stream in the movie.
