Premium Essay

Personal Narrative: I Joined The Union

Submitted By
Words 854
Pages 4
I joined the union because I wanted to feel powerful. As a black girl from Eastern Kentucky I have never felt powerful as I moved through the world. Like the rest of black and brown America, I had been watching as our justice system failed time and again to protect my community. The death of Trayvon Martin and the birth of Black Lives Matter ushered in a time of anger, frustration, and fear in my life. The experience of watching my disabled brother be arrested while sitting in a parking lot because the officer thought he “looked suspicious” affirmed a narrative that I had no agency over what happened in my life or community.

The fight for justice, equal treatment, courage, and influence are all fights that the union takes on every day. As a union member, I saw black and brown people taking charge and demanding change. People of color, especially women, made …show more content…
The luster of winning had faded to draining, difficult work and I didn’t think I could do it. At this time Yifei, my campaign, lead gave me some advice. Work will always be work; there will always be a boss you hate, a company with questionable morals, a disagreeable customer. These things don’t stop with the union or with hospitality industry. However, knowing your own strengths and vulnerabilities and being able to use them to push through what’s difficult and pull people through with you: that is organizing. That is power. Building power came from using the cards you were given and motivating yourself and those around you to change your circumstances for the better. While her advice didn’t change my life, nor did it change my attitude for a while -I was still tired, frustrated and more than a little bit anxious- over the next two years Effie’s advice and the sense of responsibility that came from organizing helped me to manage my expectations about my campaign and my

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Bussiness Administration

...An example of an autobiographical essay/personal narrative [Written by a student in the Labour Studies program, used with permission] My name is Carlo, and I was born in June, 1958, in Italy. Our family, made up of my mother, father, and a brother, emigrated to Noranda, Quebec, when I was five years old. I encountered my first, but not last, taste of racism when kids in the neighbourhood laughed at my poor command of English. As fast as I could I learned not only English, but French as well. I became trilingual, speaking fluent French and English, as well as Italian. In the process, I made new friends from a lot of different cultural backgrounds. We then moved to Toronto, Ontario, where my Dad got work in a rubber factory. From my earliest days, I knew our family had to struggle for every penny. My Mom baked pizza which my brother sold by the slice, door to door. I caddied at the local golf courses and brought home all the money that I made. I hated it when other kids made fun of working people, like garbage collectors, who cleaned up trash for a living. When I was in grade six, I was ill in hospital for two months with a kidney infection, and it changed my whole life. I seriously took up playing guitar. I began to do photography, and joined the audiovisual club. I discovered I was artistic with an interest in graphic art, although I didn’t always agree with the kind of art assignments the teacher gave us. However, I had no idea what to do after high school graduation...

Words: 940 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Cover Letter

...An example of an autobiographical essay/personal narrative [Written by a student in the Labour Studies program, used with permission] My name is Carlo, and I was born in June, 1958, in Italy. Our family, made up of my mother, father, and a brother, emigrated to Noranda, Quebec, when I was five years old. I encountered my first, but not last, taste of racism when kids in the neighbourhood laughed at my poor command of English. As fast as I could I learned not only English, but French as well. I became trilingual, speaking fluent French and English, as well as Italian. In the process, I made new friends from a lot of different cultural backgrounds. We then moved to Toronto, Ontario, where my Dad got work in a rubber factory. From my earliest days, I knew our family had to struggle for every penny. My Mom baked pizza which my brother sold by the slice, door to door. I caddied at the local golf courses and brought home all the money that I made. I hated it when other kids made fun of working people, like garbage collectors, who cleaned up trash for a living. When I was in grade six, I was ill in hospital for two months with a kidney infection, and it changed my whole life. I seriously took up playing guitar. I began to do photography, and joined the audiovisual club. I discovered I was artistic with an interest in graphic art, although I didn’t always agree with the kind of art assignments the teacher gave us. However, I had no idea what to do after high school graduation...

Words: 940 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Church on the Edge

...Ministry and Contextualization II | | Dr. D. Kortright DavisProfessorEvaluation of My Church Experience | Jacqueline D. Rooths 2/23/2012 Jacqueline D. Rooths 2/23/2012 I have attended five churches in my life. Born and baptized in the old Israel Baptist Church. During the height of the Civil Rights movement, my family transferred membership to the Church of the Redeemer Presbyterian church in Washington DC; we relocated to Long Island in my senior year of high school and we joined Memorial Presbyterian church. As an adult, I joined Hemingway African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church and for the past 24 years, I have been a member of Union Bethel A.M.E church. I stood on the fringes of the first four churches, observing from a far, but by virtue of age and experience I have been intimately involved in the bowels of Union Bethel A.M.E. church. Each church denomination has their body of governance. The Baptist denominations follow congregational church governance in which each individual congregation is governed autonomously, free from the direct control of any other body. The Presbyterian Church has a democratic form of city and church government called "presbyterian," meaning "governed by elders." The Presbyterian Church is a connectional church, functioning on several levels, the first level being the local church. Local churches...

Words: 1652 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

The Trauma of Gender

...The Gender Politics of Narrative Modes I want to challenge two linked assumptions that most historians and critics of the English novel share. The first is that the burgeoning of capitalism and the ascension of the middle classes were mainly responsible for the development of the novel. The second is that realism represents the novel's dominant tradition. [note 1] I want to propose instead that, as surely as it marked a response to developing class relations, the novel came into being as a response to the sex-gender system that emerged in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [note 2] My thesis is that from its inception, the novel has been structured not by one but by two mutually defining traditions: the fantastic and the realistic. [note 3] The constitutive coexistence of these two impulses within a single, evolving form is in no sense accidental: their dynamic interaction was precisely the means by which the novel, from the eighteenth century on, sought to manage the strains and contradictions that the sex-gender system imposed on individual subjectivities. For this reason, to recover the centrality of sex and gender as the novel's defining concern is also to recover the dynamism of its bimodal complexity. Conversely, to explore the interplay of realist and fantastic narratives within the novelistic tradition is to explore the indeterminacy of subjectivities engaged in the task of imposing and rebelling against the constraining order of gender difference. ...

Words: 5434 - Pages: 22

Premium Essay

Middlesex And Fun Home: A Literary Analysis

...The two readings that I have chosen to write my final paper for our “Queer Americans” class over are Middlesex and Fun Home. Although the two books are very different stories, they also have undeniable similarities at the same time as they portray the struggles as well as the rewards in dealing with their queer sexualities. These readings connect well because they both deal with two coming of age individuals dealing with struggles in discovering their sexualities, with very dysfunctional home lives. The way queerness is depicted between the two storylines have been drawn out in two very unique, yet equally effective within the messages that the books portrayed. Queerness, usually a word or phrase that describes a type of sexuality, it correlates...

Words: 1757 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Rhetorical Criticism

...Pentadic analysis incorporates five basic elements of drama called pentads. These include act (what is being done), agent (who is doing the act), agency (the means employed by the agent to do the act), scene (the backdrop against which the act occurred), and the purpose of the action (the reason why it happened). Act is the artifact itself whatever it may be such as speech, poem, monument, event, etc as it stands for what is actually being done or happening. Agent refers to the main communicator of the artifact which could be an actor, orator, writer or manager of the act. Agency refers to the main medium of communication which includes a book or televised film, presentation or personal communication. Scene is the backdrop against which the action occurs including the actual, physical scene and the context in which something happens and is meant to be understood. Lastly, purpose is the motive or the message which is conveyed and understood. Pentadic analysis has its roots in Burke's Theory of Dramatism which looks at life as a play where symbols and language are used to express thoughts as a way for humans to comprehend the reality of the world. Burke developed this theory as a way to attempt to understand the bases of human conduct and motives. Thus, the purpose of a pentadic analysis addresses the content of what is being done and what are the motives of a certain artifact as crafted by a rhetor. Burke believed that ratios interconnect important terms and map out a clearer...

Words: 1873 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Narative Report

... A NARRATIVE REPORT ON On the Job Training National Food Authority (Nueva Ecija Branch Office) In Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Course of Bachelor of Science of Information Technology Presented to: RHOEL ANTHONY G. TORRES CICT, OJT-1 Coordinator Presented by: Hazel Anne P. Bago Alice L. Cino BSIT 2-O Donna Mae A. Pascual BSIT 2-K TABLE OF CONTENTS * Approval Sheet * Acknowledgement * Dedication I. INTRODUCTION a. Objectives of OJT b. Industrial Linkages & Coordination Office (Philosophy, Mission & Goals) II. The Training Agency / Company Profile a. Company Philosophy (Mission, Vision, Goals & Mandate) b. History (Company Background) III. Company Organization a. Organizational Structure b. Profiles of the Company c. Function of the Company d. Programs & Initiatives e. Expected Benefits IV. Experience Evaluation a. OJT Experience b. Insights Problems Encountered Suggestions & Recommendation V. APPENDICES a. Daily Time Record b. Weekly Report c. Evaluation d. Pictorials e. Certificate of Completion f. Author’s Data Approval Sheet Acknowledgement I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude...

Words: 3084 - Pages: 13

Free Essay

North American Fiction

...Fiction we must understand what American Literature is in itself and which pieces of writing we can include within this label. It is believed that when a piece is written in North America, more precisely in the USA, it would automatically be given this epithet. But it should be taken into account that this idea is quite broad and doesn’t reflect the real essence of the term. However, there is also another definition that gathers this essence: American Literature is the one that represents the Americanism, the singularity of the USA philosophy and culture. This way, instead of focusing on who the author is, it is focused on the content of the writing. In that which concerns Fiction, the following documents are the ones considered as narrative: Speeches Letters Short Stories Essays Political Documents Sermons Novels Diaries 1 FIRST LITERARY EXPRESSIONS The first documents in which the idea of Americanism is very present are the Sermons. They respond to the strict Protestantism settled in the New Continent after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans in the Mayflower (1620) and the Arabella (1630). They established a theocratic community whose main and only point of reference was the Bible. That is why the idea of the ‘city upon a hill’ is still very present in American mentality. As we all know, their community was also governed by the concept of Predestination. This belief was based...

Words: 12691 - Pages: 51

Premium Essay

African Americans and Their Service

...Afghanistan, the African American soldiers have served and broke down racial barriers in the face of adversity. This is a look at the contribution of service to this country as soldiers from 1865 to present day. During the years of the Civil War, 1861-1865, the African Americans were participating in the war whether they were freemen or slaves. In the southern states many slaves were forced to aid in the war effort by the Confederate army. On the other hand, the Northern states turn away black men at the beginning of the Civil War, but towards the end of the war the Northern army (the union) began accepting Negro soldiers into the army. “For the black soldier in the Union Army, the reason for the war was to free the slaves”, although President Lincolns effort was to save the Union. Emancipation or freedom of the slaves became a major part of the Civil War and it provided additional resources to the Union Army in the way of black soldiers (Simmonds & Carter, 2010). According to Simmonds and Carter (2010), the “Negro Soldiers” fought bravely and won praise in over 200 battles during the Civil War (Para. 4). One of the most recognized or famous black regiment was the fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment. The fifty-fourth was established in 1863 and was one of the first black units organized in the north. The unit was led by Robert Gould Shaw and the unit was of great interest to many in the north. The unit trained under Shaw and other white officers and provided aid to the white...

Words: 3303 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Researcg

...richness and range by any of his contemporaries. Living a life wholly devoted to the craft of conjuring a world through words, he was the writer’s writer. In the passion with which he embraced his country’s manifold being, he was his people’s writer as well. Nick Joaquín was born in the old district of Pacò in Manila, Philippines, on September 15, 1917, the feast day of Saint Nicomedes, a protomartyr of Rome, after whom he took his baptismal name. He was born to a home deeply Catholic, educated, and prosperous. His father, Leocadio Joaquín, was a person of some prominence. Leocadio was a procurador (attorney) in the Court of First Instance of Laguna, where he met and married his first wife, at the time of the Philippine Revolution. He shortly joined the insurrection, had the rank of colonel, and was wounded in action. When the hostilities ceased and the country came under American rule, he built a successful practice in law. Around 1906, after the death of his first wife, he married Salomé Márquez, Nick’s mother. A friend of General Emilio Aguinaldo, Leocadio was a popular lawyer in Manila and the Southern Tagalog provinces. He was unsuccessful however when he made a bid for a seat in the Philippine Assembly representing Laguna. Nick Joaquín’s mother was a pretty, well-read woman of her time who had studied in a teacher-training institute during the Spanish period. Though still in her teens when the United States took possession of the...

Words: 8246 - Pages: 33

Premium Essay

A Call for Further Research: Afro-Chinese Marriages in 20th Century Cuba

...Further Research: Afro-Chinese Marriages in 20th Century Cuba Katie Wang UCLA Professor Wright-Dixon I. Introduction Coalitions through marriage is a long understood concept. Kingdom alliances through marriages are ones that first come to mind. Often fictional portrayals of real pressures for pressures to gain resources or military alliance for a capital or imperial need involve young princes and princesses who are forced to marry. However, in a nonfictional example for this paper, Chinese indentured laborers or former indentured laborers and African slaves or former slaves married in 19th century Cuba both romantically and strategically. I argue that there needs to be further research around Afro-Chinese marriages in Cuba and a recentering on women. I had originally planned to center this paper around African slave women who married Chinese men in Cuba in the 19th century but was not able to because of the lack of literature available. However, I aim to focus on a reading against the grain for indications of women’s agency and voice in this set of literature. My personal stakes in this topic are two-fold. First, my mother’s side of my family lived in Cuba for a few decades from the late 1920s to 1960 as a part of an entrepreneurial endeavor and as refuge from persecution from the Communist Party of China. Because of my personal tie to Chinese in Cuba, I seek to uncover untold stories and hidden transcripts. Second, this paper is a part of a larger project on Chinese...

Words: 3789 - Pages: 16

Premium Essay

Homosexual Marriages Should Have the Same Rights as Heterosexual

...Table of Contents · Introduction · Homosexual Marriages Should Have the Same Rights as Heterosexual Marriages. · Comparisons to Other Countries · Europe · Africa · Background · First Argument with Gay Marriage · Changes in the Ability to Get Married · Hate Crimes · Identification of Policy Alternatives · Legalizing Gay Marriage Amongst All States · Legalizing Gay Marriage Amongst All States, but Naming it “Civil Unions” · Legalizing Gay Marriage/Civil Unions Against Some States, Recognizing it in All · Recommendation · References INTRODUCTION: Same Sex Marriages Having Same Rights as Heterosexual Marriages Gay marriage has been an active debate amongst politicians, religious figures, and the public. The debate has spanned over a decade with little change for either side. The issue of gay marriage is not just about the name of what the union is called, but the right to be able to legally join as homosexual couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples. Reasons for someone to be in favor of this topic are that there should be a separation of religion and politics, it deprives homosexuals of their natural rights, and this issue has escalated to violent hate crimes towards homosexuals. As it stands, currently 9 million adults are homosexuals, representing 4 percent of the 18 and over population in the United States with no signs of diminishing. Public administrators have done little...

Words: 4035 - Pages: 17

Premium Essay

Examining the Ways Immigrants from Former Ussr Experience and Cope with Workplace Aggression Qualitative Study

...Different country, different problems: examining the way immigrants from former USSR experience and cope with workplace aggression. In this qualitative study I analyze the way immigrant workers experience workplace aggression in Israeli companies, actions taken to deal with aggression and possible actions to be taken in future. Study participants were immigrant workers, emigrated from former USSR during last 23 years. Their narratives were analyzed for common topics. Data show that most participants did not take some actions to cope with aggression; however, some mentioned a few different ways. Two participants’ strategies were successful. Employer responses included indifference and various forms of retaliation. Most participants would allegedly act differently in future. Questions for future research are suggested. Table of Contents I. Introduction 4 II. Theoretical background 6 1. Workplace aggression 6 2. Types of workplace aggression. 7 3. Measuring Workplace aggression 8 4. Immigrants as victims of aggression 9 5. Immigrants form former USSR in Israel 11 6. Preventing and coping with workplace aggression 12 III. Method 14 VI. Findings and discussion 16 V. Summary and Conclusions 28 VI. Bibliography 30 VII. Appendix 35 I. Introduction Almost anyone who has ever worked has experienced workplace aggression in one form or another. Workplace aggression is something we do not like to talk about and something that a lot...

Words: 6576 - Pages: 27

Premium Essay

Levis

...Fashioning an identity ‘In a lot of ways, branding is simply telling a story.’ Exploring the fashion world occasionally feels like gate-crashing an exclusive club. At least, that’s the sensation I experience as I climb a spiral staircase in a building near Place Vendôme – the grand Parisian square that is home to the Ritz. César Ritz opened his celebrated hotel on 1 June 1898, and its rich patrons attracted the attentions of Cartier, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, and the other jewellery and luxury goods boutiques that crowd the square. This particular building is the headquarters of a publishing firm, but its location is entirely appropriate. Over the past ten years, Assouline has published a series of glossy books, each minutely dissecting the history of a legendary designer label. With offices in Paris, London and New York, it has become a luxury brand in its own right. I reckon that here, at least, I should get my first insight into what makes a fashion icon. As so often on these occasions, the claustrophobic staircase and labyrinthine corridors of the old building lead to a large office, with a bright picture window overlooking the potted trees and shrubs in the courtyard. Martine Assouline, an elegant French woman, sits me down at a glossy slab-like table and considers her response to my question. ‘At the moment we are in a period where the brand has an exaggerated importance,’ she tells me. ‘Designers like Tom Ford, John Galliano and Marc Jacobs injected new...

Words: 5312 - Pages: 22

Premium Essay

The Secret of Language Leadership

...SECRET LANGUAGE of • HOW LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION THROUGH NARRATIVE The LEADERSHIP STEPHEN DENNING John Wiley & Sons, Inc. More Praise for The Secret Language of Leadership “Out of the morass of strategies leaders are given to transform organizations, Denning plucks a powerful one—storytelling— and shows how and why it works.” —Dorothy Leonard, William J. Abernathy Professor of Business, Emerita, Harvard Business School, and author, Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom “The Secret Language of Leadership shows why narrative intelligence is central to transformational leadership and how to harness its power.” —Carol Pearson, director, James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland, and coauthor, The Hero and the Outlaw “The Secret Language of Leadership is not only the best analysis I have seen of how and why leaders succeed or fail, it’s highly readable, as well as downright practical. It should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in engaging a company with big ideas who understands that leaders live and die by the quality of what they say.” —Richard Stone, story analytics master, i.d.e.a.s “A primary role of leaders is to create and maintain meaning for their organizations. Denning clearly demonstrates that meaningmaking comes from stories well told.” —Thomas Davenport, President’s Distinguished Professor of I.T. and Management, Babson College, and author, The Attention Economy “Steve...

Words: 100587 - Pages: 403