R.I.P Jason Whitten Lee

I dedicate all my work to Jason Whitten Lee, he inspired me to keep going with my English class and he was the most happiest and cheerful person I have ever met. Thank you for letting me meet you. you made the English 1B class at Foothill College the most special of all. I will miss you so much.
With Love;
Estephania Maupome

Reflective Letter

Dear Estephania;

This is your 4^th year at Foothill College and you completed the last English course, English 1B. Your goal in this class was to maintain your writing on an essay level, especially with the paragraph and sentence structure, PIE. I know you were trying hard to get a better focus on PIE, but you need to do it harder and practice more so you can become a proficient essay writer. However, you learn more in this class; you learned about your dreams, critical thinking, music and the history of California.

The first thing to learn in the curse was about the importance of defining the Dream, the California Dream. In which you were able to define your own California Dream and the difference of American Dream, with the help of the readings from the Course Reader and the California reading book. To finalize the chapter you were asked to do an essay, which you called it The State of Hope, in this essay you talked about that California is the only state to be successful in life and give you the hopes to reach your dreams. The grade you obtained was 69 out of 100 because you did not focus o the sentences and the ideas were not clear. Also in your conclusion you tried to tell something to reader, that the dreams are always going to become true in California; but the way you wrote it the read it got it as to keep dreaming because to keep dreaming means to be Californian, so California you are. I thought it was funny how your sentences were not clear.

Then, the music of California was knocking on the door; in this chapter you learned to use your critical thinking to have a better understanding on music, how to interpret what the singer is singing and what kind of metaphors he is giving to the world. The song that cached your attention was San Andreas Fault by Natalie Merchant and with this song you were able to write an essay called California’s Fault, such a pun; the reflection on this essay was to see how the singer was talking about California and the California Dream. In this essay your sentences were much clear and focus, but still you need to work on PIE. The examples that you gave on the essay were kind of out of the context because there were not too related to the son, such as the Governator and the Kardashians.

The class kept going and the elections were coming up, so the teacher decided to change plans and introduce politics to the class. Since the prepositions in California were very strong, your class met on in groups in which one of them had a preposition. You were on the preposition 35, Human Trafficking. Human trafficking is going to help by increasing prison sentences up to 15 years, big fines foe human trafficking convictions and extra police training. With your group, everyone was helping to analyze the proposition, with opinions and examples gave by your group mates. Also you study the fallacies in America and your group focuses on: Hasty Generalization, Missing the point, Post Hoc and Slippery slop.Once you and the group were ready, were able to present a class to your other fellow classmates in which you guys rock! Thanks to your group formed by Smeeta Maharag, Kasey Nelson, Arianna Blankenship, Mishell Koh and Jason Whitten Lee; you were able to write your essay of why we should vote for the proposition 35. In this essay called Against Human Trafficking, you prove that your introductions was going better, and the sentences were way much better, but the structure was adequate I know you can do an excellent sentence. Do it!

At this time you were almost to finish the curse, to understand the subject you needed to take out the Shakespeare in you. Poems and History was the chapter and this was very interesting. You had the opportunity to work with your group again and this time the discussion was about Indian Cartography and the history of the Native Americans. Learning about this type of history was perfect for you, it was your first time and you did well. Since other groups also have other poems about the same subject, you and your group have to compare the poems and find the similarities and differences between your assigned poem and the poem presented by the other group. At the end you have to choose a poem to compare with yours. You choose Indian Cartography and The First; the tile came up to be Indians vs. Modern Society. The essay talked about how unfair the government was with the Indians and how the government “tried” to make them feel better in the modern society. On this essay one of your paragraphs were upside down, and the points were not clear, you left your reader hanging. But you r almost very last paragraph was so much better and clear which that save you for failing the essay; the conclusion was so cool that the teacher love it!

Now that you reached the last chapter in your English class you had to be more focus. This time your focus was in Multiculturalism, since was the last chapter you had to read more that usual, but you had to watch a movie named Crash which takes all the boring lectures aside. Sadly, this last chapter came up to be a different one; Jason Whitten Lee passed away. Your Classmate was the only cheerful, happy and talkative in the class, which inspired you to participate and see the life happily. Everyone in the classroom was sad, including the teacher, but thanks to him you did not went down and quit. You were able to write an essay called The International Arena; I think you did well in that essay, although there were too many readings on that one. I hope you did not unfocused in the subject or thesis. In this chapter you learned how the culture and all the cultures in the world comes to one place and change life and people in general. You also find out that you have to accept others people culture to become Multicultural.

I am so proud of you for the progress you have built up in this quarter; I think your writing skills and creativity really stack out more. If you keep this up you might be a good journalist.

I want to dedicate all my work to Jason Whitten Lee, I will always miss you and you are in my heart. Thank you for let me meeting you and I promise you I will write my essays more sexy. Love you.

Thank you Mr. Brian Lewis for your teachings, for listening, for supporting me when I was down. You are such a great teacher that I wish you were teaching all subjects at Foothill. I promise you I will represent you in my other classes when I write my essays. THANK YOU.

Sincerely;

Estephania Maupome.

12/15/12

The International Arena

The International Arena

Multiculturalism constitutes on several cultures or ethnic groups within a society, which makes it a melting pot. California has all the ingredients to be a good melting pot; it has all the countries, languages, cultures and ethnicities all together, therefore California has become and international arena where all the cultures crash into one making the state a very dangerous playground. To understand the meaning of living in a multicultural California I will use the following genres of art What is Multiculturalism? By Gregory Jay, American Son by Brian Roly Ascalon, the movie Crash by Paul Haggis and the article White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh.

 When we talk about multiculturalism we think of all the possible cultures America has, including the white privilege. On the essay What is Multiculturalism? Is asking if America has a melting pot, for most of the people would say yes, but to some white Americans the concept of melting pot is to assimilate to a white American “America’s traditional conception of itself as a ‘melting pot’ of diverse peoples joined in a common New World culture has been challenged by those multiculturalists who consider the ‘melting pot’ metaphor a cover for oppressive assimilation. To them, the only way you were able to melt into pot is by assimilating to the dominant white culture” I think America has not being melt to the fullest. People would say that this country is a melting pot because it has so many cultures and so many people of different countries. In some parts of America such as the south, still discriminating people for who they are. For example, Arizona has the most outrageous laws against the Latino culture and people, to the point that Latinos move to another place because this state does not want them just because they are not similar to the white culture. Arizona is not the only state but some of the east states are against these people. America needs more heat on thinking to melt the pot.

In the article White Privilege talks about the example of the privilege and how is it work. This lead to you of not being able to change your color or feel bad/good that you are white and born with such “luck”. This is an asset of how educated you were and what you want to do in life. But also it misleads that people are jealous of it and the white people suffer from robbery or discrimination in other countries. “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain obvious. White privilege is like invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, tools and blank checks” The white privilege is going to be in our lives forever, until a great miracle of changing people minds to get rid of this privilege is going to disappear. This privilege is just a pain to the rest of the people that are not white because is the belief of this type of things that people come up as a white culture. For example this case was a real life situation and most of the cases it happens. The police people go immediately to assist the white victim in a robbery, but when it comes to another ethnicity or immigrant person they take quite time to get there. I would call this a white privilege. Same in other places if you are white you get the best stuff, the first in line, the warmer lunch, is like the “devil” in an angel body. There is white privilege in the country and some white people take advantage of it but some of them they just do not care. By doing colliding different ethnicities in California would crash onto one another until they would depend on each other.

The melting pot in California has increasing in the past few years; more cultures have been crashing into each other making the melt to boil. In the movie Crash the director made in a way to force the white Americans to see the reality of race and discriminations. The theme of the movie is that everyone is prejudice, the white, black, Latino, Asian, Iranian, etc. This movie reflects a bag full of anger, grievances and fears. Even when the characters feel that they are making progress from their actions, they find themselves in a very complex frustration and they tangles themselves in their own decisions. I think the white people they know their privileges and have being maintaining them. The movie shows how white Americans are to other racial ethnicities and when the film goes on you can see how the film make the white people to feel better by helping the other races in somewhat actions. This movie wanted to show how the different ethnicities developed together in a new society created by them. In my opinion Anthony, the carjacker that Ludacris played was the one who understood the white supremacy because he was always making revolutionary arguments about how white people react towards other ethnicities and stereotyping them. We have to crash to respect one another; we need to do it before that.

 In California, we have a lot of cultures and the people identify with other cultures, in the American Son novel we discover how powerful a culture can be to a teenage person and how find himself living in a multicultural society.

 The American Son focuses on Gabe, a half white, half Filipino adolescent, who is caught in an identity crisis as he faces pressures from both Filipino and American cultural values. The novel that is defined as “the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order.” The individual in this case is Gabe the character that has the Filipino and American societies; at the beginning Gabe is illustrated as shy and timid, and is afraid to speak out, enduring the relentless beatings and insults from his brother. Gabe is shameful of his Filipino heritage and rejects his identity. Gabe explains how he is embarrassed of his mother, who he describes to be “self-conscious about her English.” He states, “Still, I do not like having her pick me up from school. She is short and dark and wears funny-looking giant purple glasses that are trendy on other people’s mothers but which do no match her brown skin tone” (30). After being beat up by his brother, Gabe decides to take his brother’s car and run away, however, he explores his identity of being white and Asian. At this point of the novel, Roley essentially integrates the protagonist’s “major conflict between self and society.” Then a truck driver state, after demeaning various ethnic groups, “But it isn’t near as bad as San Pedro. Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians,” he continues, “All those mute Asians won’t even learn to speak English” (84). Afterwards, a discomfort comes over Gabe. Roley describes Gabe to be avoiding the rearview mirror in order to visually demonstrate Gabe’s shame of his own identity as an Asian. Gabe is also surprised at this point that the truck driver does not recognize his own Filipino heritage and verifies the fact that he may possibly “get by” or “pass” as a non-Asian. Throughout this experience with the truck driver, whom Gabe regards as a father figure, he finally feels accepted and finds a place for himself. After returning home in the last part and experiencing “clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an undoing social order,” Gabe attempts to develop a new identity conforming to a misconstrued image of being American. He joins a gang and follows the path of his brother, a life of violence. Gabe describes, “Ben laughed even though I was older. But now he is respectful, his head bowed”, “I feel a rush not of anxiety but of confidence” (214). Gabe finally overcomes his shame and is no longer the introverted adolescent he was. This shows how America society change people home “culture”, but still we find ourselves in other culture. My mom once called me that I am becoming American because I do not act like a person, like her when she was my age. My Mom told me I need to be with her until I get marry, and to never leave her alone. The time changed people, so society; my mom let me moved out before marriage and sometimes my mom calls me her American daughter.

In California and the rest of America is a big International arena where everyone is in danger to crash on the playground. If we don’t crash, we would never learn to accept each other. Before crashing we need to learn to accept ourselves and the people around us because we are human beings, and our culture makes us richer.

Multiculturlism

Free write

What is to you to live in a Multiculturalism world?

To me live in a multiculturalism world is very sensational, but at the same time is very hard. it is pretty cool been surrounded by so many cultures. In California we have so much diversity that makes this state a privilege one. it is hard because you are trying to identify yourself with so many things, and honestly the society shapes you; so it is hard to find something to follow. Especially the immigrants that come to California its hard to accept other people cultures and the American born as well.
With this multiculturalism
*we learn new things
*learn from others
*great for business
*But also misunderstanding.

Indian vs. Modern Society Essay Response

Essay Response

Indians vs. Modern Society

 You choose Indian Cartography and The First; the tile came up to be Indians vs. Modern Society. The essay talked about how unfair the government was with the Indians and how the government “tried” to make them feel better in the modern society. On this essay the intro was great, but you missed to introduce the Poems as poems because the readers would not know that these are poems. On your first paragraph was upside down, and the points were not clear, you left your reader hanging. It was upside down because the main point was at the bottom instead on the top. But in your very last paragraph was so much better and clear which that save you for failing the essay; the conclusion was so cool that the teacher love it!

What I learn from this chapter was to understand people and that everyone have bittersweet memories, also to compare two poems and to understand them deeply with critical thinking.

Indians vs. Modern Society

Indians vs. Modern Society

When you were a little kid you played the game Cowboys vs. Indians and you always wanted to be the cowboy because he was the smart, handsome and the hero of the story, but have you ever thought why the American Cowboys were always fighting with the Indians? And how the Indians felt from this invasion? The Indians have been living in California for around 15,000 years, away from civilization. When the white man (Cowboys) arrived to the Indian Territory they wanted to remove them because they were not white civilized people they gave them the name savages. To better understand the situation between how the white men treated the Indians and how the savages felt towards them, I am going to compare Indian Cartography and The First.

Indian Cartography by Deborah Miranda wrote one of the most vivid image poems of what society used to be in America. The word Cartography means the practice of drawing geographical maps, in the beginning of the poem by opening the map to California to locate the places the Indians used to be “My Father opens a map of California –traces mountain ranges, rivers, county borders like family bloodlines”(CDR, 72). On The First by Gary Soto, the poem opens in a very similar way “After the river gloved its fingers with leaves and the autumn sunlight spoked the earth on two parts, the villagers undid their houses, thatch by thatch” (CDR, 426). These two writers have something in common, they have some Indian origin and their parents are the latest Indian generation. When they opened the two poems by identifying the places their ancestors used to live by passing their fingers thru a map and thru the imagination of how the river gloved its fingers in the autumn it makes them feel glorious of how much they used to have and how beautiful it used to look. The tone of the opening in both poems is powerful and proudly happy. A lot of history in America and especially in California has been removed through natural and physical ways, these poems unfolds the landscapes that California used to have, and gives us an idea of how the modern world has changed California to the present day.

Those beautiful verses on the poems are just the good memories of what the Indians have left in the world because the white men sweep them away from their lands. In the Indian Cartography has a remarkable paragraph “[In] my Father’s boyhood: days he learned to swim the hard way, and days he walked across the silver scales, swollen bellies of salmon coming back to the river that wasn’t there. The Government paid those Indians to move away”(CDR, 72) In this sentence the tone and the theme on the poem is starting to shift to the sad part of how the Indians felt when the white man took their lands away. In history the Indians where struggling with the white man because they were unfair on the payment they were offering to them, to the Indians the land was their mother not a thing that is in dispute. On The First poem has a similar phrase just in this one it uses the personification and metaphors to identify the atrocity of how the white man were “What the sun raised- squashed and pumpkin, maize collared, in a white fungus-they left for the earth was not as it was remembered”(CDR, 426) The white fungus is a personification of the white man, the fungus comes and never leave always killing what it touches. This symbolize that both poems have the same ideology that Indians were replaced in their own land by what the modern society is about. Sadly the Indians lands are not recognizable anymore because of what the modern society has done to it by creating industries, factories and entertainment, therefore is no longer any natural beauty to the Mother Earth.

Another aspect is discrimination. The Indians suffer discrimination and racism from the white man because they look different from them. The Indians were natural and have no concerns of who owned the land, while the white men wanted to take everything feeling superior from them. The white man though they have no knowledge of anything, that by treating them like animals would be the solution to get rid of them. The Indians remember how dark this period of time was in Indian Cartography shared the feeling of an Indian who lose everything “Maybe he sees shadows of a people who are fluid, fluent in dark water, bodies long and glinting with sharp-edged jewelry, and mouths still opening, closing on the stories of our home”(CDR, 73) and on The First “A path that closed behind them as the day opened a smudge of its blue, they were the first to leave, unnoticed, without words, for it not longer mattered to say the world was once blue”(CDR, 427) Both poems show the closing of the Indian life, there is no go back to what they once had. The only way to go back is to remember the good memories they have. They were the first in California; they had the right to keep their home as a civilized people. Unfortunately our modern society has always being the fungus that is destroying the world. Would you play the Cowboy again?

Indian Cartography Summary

SUMMARY

Indian Cartography

The poem starts with the motion of opening a map of California from the Father of the Author Deborah Miranda. The Dad was tracing “mountain ranges, rivers and borders like family bloodlines” over the new places we have in California like Los Angeles, Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, etc. Then the father’s boyhood was separated by the Lake Cachuma where he learned how to swim in the most difficult way, where he walked across the silver scales to see the salmon coming back. But the river was not there, in the map was gone.

The government paid the Indians to move out of their own land.

Deborah’s Father do not know where they went, he began to imagine how the valley used to look back then when he was a kid. He might “sees shadows of people who are fluid (…) and the stories of our home” in which they are not in the map anymore.

Respond

The poem was really interesting and sad at the same time. We use maps to locate places that are really in there. But the man in the poem was looking at the map as a memory and family album. His boyhood was in the map before, but thanks to the government is gone now. The only thing that is left for him is the imagination and the memories that are left to see the map.  In some way the way she wrote the poem was to stay alive and to heal, by the way she I describing her dad. Also the maps are not only indicators of political and boundaries, it illustrates life, social conditions and memories. One of the most intense sentences I read in the poem was “The government paid those Indians to move away, he says; I don’t know where they went”. To my prospective the Indians did not wanted to move because they were owners of that land and the government need to respect, I think since the Indians did not move they were killed by the government; that is why the Father don’t know where they went.

Deborah Miranda gives a really vivid image of the making of geographical maps, because in California has been a lot of changes in the physical and natural ways since the Indians lived here. Her poem gives an idea of how Indians look at their homeland all destroyed, and all what is left is the good memory from it. I also encounter in the poem a kind of discrimination from the government. It was more important industries and other places rather to not taking it away from their real owners, which are the native Indians.