Another response to reading. This time the reading is American Dreamer!

     First of all to start this blog, I could simply introduce what this article written by Bharati Mukherjee is about. Basically she's trying expose to the general public what it means to be an American. In her writing, she mentions multiculturalism as a way for immigrants to be "mixed" into this American melting pot when they try to become Americans. The meaning behind her view of multiculutralism is how American society was based on a central culture which implies that it's incorporating other cultures into it but it's superior than all of them because those central believes are established as the norms in society. Also that relates to racism against other cultures and immigrants because it's saying that Euro-American cultures are superior which means Caucasians are the superior race when compared to immigrants from other countries. These believes were established before the 90's but during this time period, people start revising their views on this subject of what it means to be an American and the author is trying to persuade her audience to change their old viewpoints and support this change. 
    In the author's point of view, she's rejecting this idea of hyphenation when addressing immigrants who settled in American such as Asian-American because it's depicting the sense that an immigrant is still a citizen of another country.That was especially true in Canada when its Prime minister phoned India's Prime minister to offer their condolences for India's lost. Additionally she views of America as being a country where many cultures are being incorporated into one while maintaining their distinct features and without including the sense of superiority or racism. Since immigrants each bring with them parts of their culture to the U.S, they should use them to define the American culture as the unity of many distinct cultures which would decrease this notion of a superior race and reduce racism throughout the country. What she had in mind had been presented in the minds of many individuals and like her, I believe her America would eventually become a reality.      

   P.S. I like how she writes in a way where I could understand clearly what she's talking about. 

King Still King?

     Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American Civil Rights Activist during the early and mid 20th century that protested for the end of segregation and racial discrimination against African Americans. Throughout his protests, he specificly told and trained his fellow protestors to not use violence as a way to accomplish their goals. His way of not using violence in his protests made him well respected by later Americans in the U.S which was why the holiday on January 17 was dedicated to him. Although he had already died a long time ago, his values of protesting against unjust laws and injustice in society passed on to the present generation of Americans who followed in his footsteps and protested against another subject.

     One of the recent protests on the issue of global warming that took place in 2009 was an example of civil disobeidence where people surrounded the U.S Capitol which was a building that's responsible for the use of tremendous amount of coal each year;thus contributing to global warming. Base on people's opinion on that day, it was the largest civil disobedience on Global Warming in U.S history which putted alot of pressure on the U.S government to try to start caring about this issue. Simiarily to King's ideas of revealing hidden tensions and increasing people's awareness of the current situation makes it easier for these idealistic improvements to become a reality. As it's stated by the Biel, "We refuse to tell our children and grandchildren that we had the solutions, but lacked the courage," and "We're in a fight for our children's lives, and we can't afford to play by the rules," it demonstrates the point of how if something is unjust in society, people wouldn't have can choose to break its rules and express their opinions openly on the subject which would benefit the future generations. King's ideas are deeply imbedded in types of protests like these and without them, society wouldn't be showing any major signs of improvement throughtout time.

Respond to Children of the Sea

     Well first of all, I think this story was the most entertaining out of the material that we're read this week although it was also the longest. Also I like the format it was written in because it makes the story more interesting that two people are writing letters to each other while they're many miles apart. Additionally, the overall plot of the story was very insightful because I've never realized how horrible the situation is in Haiti because we never hear about that country in the news unless there were natural disasters such as the 7.0 magnitude earthquake last year. With the female character providing most of the information about the "current" situation in Haiti and the male character describing his situation of trying to survive on the boat, it makes this story more entertaining and gets me thinking at the same time.
     After analyzing the female character in this story, I think that the author created her character to summarize the current situation in Haiti. Some examples of that is how she mentions about the soldiers killing off people associated with the Youth Federation that opposed the government and how it's very difficult to leave the country with regulations such as the gasoline ban. With her, I could also see how true human nature surfaces in the face of a crisis. When I say that, I mean when people are in a life or death situation, it's human nature for most people to run away or not care about what's happening in order to survive which was demonstrated when her father didn't go save madam roger when she was murdered by the soldiers.
     The female's writing only covered half of the story while the male's journal entries cover the part just outside of Haiti. By reading the male character's writing, I could tell that the situation on the boat is dire because food was running out and boat was about to sink. When many of the people on the boat including the male character lost the hope that they were going to live, they all thought about how many of their brethren were waiting for them in the sea. Consequently, many of them jumped off thinking they're sacrificing their lives so the others on the boat could have a greater chance of living. Also these acts demonstrated to me how these people thought there's a journey after death they go through which could be part of their religious belief. Additionally his thoughts about sacrificing himself seems to show me how when people see death as inevitable, they would make the most use of the time they're living so death wouldn't be so painful which the male demonstrated by writing to the female and potentially jumping off at the end.