...It is common to classify “Hispanics/Latinos” into a single category; however, these people come from a variety of countries, have their own cultures, and can even speak a variety of languages. It is important to remember that these people are human beings like any other group of people and they have their own unique lives and stories. These stories are rather important as they tell us the harsh reality of immigration through personal narratives, and many Hispanic immigrants like sharing their stories to inform others and give themselves a voice. Personal narratives tell us that Hispanic immigration to the United States needs to be reformed promptly. These narratives tell us that immigration will never end despite the current US government’s...
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...Dave Eggers. “What is what” is a tale of a young Sudanese boy and the tribulations and challenges that he experiences as he flees from his war torn country of southern Sudan. The book paints a vivid picture of the epic journey that the main character in the story, Valentino faces from the time that he flees the country to the time that he finally reaches what he thought would be the “Promised Land” in Atlanta, United States of America. He was soon to realize that even in America, life would not be a bed of roses but it would be marred by unexpected acts of violence and racial discrimination (Dave 28). One striking thing in the narrative is that the author brings out the culture of the Dinka people. For instance, polygamous nature of the Dinka people is clearly illustrated. The myth regarding the origin of the Dinka people is as well demonstrated (Bess). In regards to this origin, the Dinka people are given a choice by God to choose between the cattle and the “What is the What”. They choose the cattle which they understood better rather than “What is the What” which they did not as demonstrated in the line, "—you didn't tell us the answer: What is the What? My father shrugged. —We don't know. No one knows” (Dave 64). Through the narrative, a reader is informed on the historical background of the south Sudanese people. The relative geographical locations of the three African countries of Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya are well described, painting an unforgettable picture...
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...G U I D E T E A C H E R’S A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE BY SOLOMON NORTHUP bY Jeanne M. McGlInn anD JaMes e. McGlInn 2 A Teacher’s Guide to Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Table of Contents SYNOPSIS......................................................................................................................................3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY GUIDE............................................................................3 MEETING COMMON CORE STANDARDS.............................................................3 THE SLAVE NARRATIVE GENRE...............................................................................3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW..........................................................................................................4 DURING READING.....................................................................................................................6 SYNTHESIZING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.......................................................................9 ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES.......................................................................................................9 ACTIVITIES FOR USING THE FILM ADAPTATION........................................................ 11 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.....................................................................................
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...Personal Narrative I got my first glimpse of the world outside of the United States as the plane flew across the clear, blue sky. The plane ride was an enjoyable experience for me and I grew eager with the thought of spending time with my family in St. John. Leaving the United States for the first time added to the excitement my family and I were about to endure. This trip impacted me greatly; traveling so far away from home opened my eyes to the fact that there are many different cultures and I became much closer with my relatives. The first flight we had taken was from Virginia to Puerto Rico. Once there we had to board a smaller propeller plane to complete the journey to St. John. While I had flown on planes before I never flew across so much water. It was an enlightening experience for me as a kid because I began thinking about how big the world is, and how small each individual is in comparison. After sitting through the short connecting flight, we arrived at St. Thomas. It was like a whole other world. The mountains all around casted a majestic light, and the people and their clothing were so different and unique. After I admired this new land I was in our family boarded the ferry to make the final leg of our trip to St. John. Upon arriving we had to rent cars in order to get around and check in at the house we were staying in. Even as a young kid I could appreciate the house we stayed at. It was truly magnificent. The house sat on the side of one of the mountains in...
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...lucky recipients of a label they carried with them for life, or until they “recovered.” Mental health labels carry with them a certain stigma that communicates to the person they are different, perhaps less of a person and that “normal” may never be a reality with their “illness.” Recovery would be based on becoming symptom-free, or at the very least, a significant reduction in symptoms (Gehart, 2012). The mental health field has experienced tremendous growth in terms of understanding the plethora of conditions people experience, as well as in treatment of those conditions. However, one thing remained unchanged until recently. The idea behind recovery shifted from coercive treatment to person-centered change (Onken, et al, 2007). Gehart states is this way, “instead of using the medical paradigm of disease, the recovery paradigm approached mental “illness” using a social model of disability that emphasizes psychosocial functioning over medical symptomatology” (2012). The focus of recovery shifted from the illness to the person. The recovery model gave way to the idea that change can happen and that the person should be at the center of the decision-making process to “reach their highest possible level of functioning, while developing new meanings for their lives”...
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...describes stories from her childhood that reflect the immigrant experience, addressing the constant presence of the Caribbean and its influence on Marshall’s life while growing up in the United States. Marshall’s mother and her female friends, immigrants from Barbados, would gather in the Marshall kitchen after their days of working in low-paid jobs to chat, gossip, and “tackle the great issues of the time” including the economy, politics, war, and their nostalgia for home. They discussed their adopted home, America—acknowledging both the racism they endured, and also the wealth of possibilities that the country offered. These women and their stories were, for Marshall, the origins of her fiction. She asserts that a writer’s ability to render everyday speech is derived from close listening, and the talk that “filled the kitchen” additionally functioned as a kind of therapeutic catharsis, a release of creative energy. The special kind of language used between certain groups of people gives writers their own narrative and unique language: “The principle means by which a character in a novel or story reveals himself and gives voice sometimes to profound feelings and complex ideas about himself and the world.” Although Marshall ultimately transitions from the kitchen table to the library, she states that something was missing...
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...Lower East Side Memories : A Jewish Place in America By HASIA R. DINER The Lower East Side and American Jewish Memory I'm Jewish because love my family matzoh ball soup. I'm Jewish because my fathers mothers uncles grandmothers said "Jewish," all the way back to Vitebsk & Kaminetz-Podolska via Lvov. Jewish because reading Dostoyevsky at 13 I write poems at restaurant tables Lower East Side, perfect delicatessen intellectual. —Allen Ginsberg, "Yiddishe Kopf" The poet Allen Ginsberg, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, returned in his later years to a narrative style of expression, shifting gears from the anger and fire of his early career. In this poem from 1991 he also touched down again, after a long hiatus spent exploring Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, upon some Jewish themes, as a way of remembering the world of his youth. He described that world in one poem, "Yiddishe Kopf," literally, a Jewish head, but more broadly, a highly distinctive Jewish way of thinking, based on insight, cleverness, and finesse. That world for him stood upon two zones of remembrance. The world of eastern Europe, of Vitebsk, Lvov, and Kamenets-Podolski gave him one anchor for his Jewishness. Thai space of memory gave him a focus for continuity and inherited identity, tied down by the weight of the past, by family in particular. The other, the Lower East Side, nurtured and...
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...ENGL124 Literature Analysis Nov.11 2014 The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a novel written by Mohsin Hamid, set in the year following 9/11, constructed through a conversation between a Pakistani named Changez and an unnamed American in a café in Lahore.. The Reluctant Fundamentalist uses a variety of narrative strategies that contribute to the novel’s atmospheric world. This essay is going to focus on the metaphorical and symbolic techniques used in the novel and analyze the connection between them. It will also elaborate how does the metaphor relate to the first-person narrative in the novel and how do these two methodologies work together to derive the deeper meaning of the author’s intension. After analyzing the use of metaphor in the book, we could see better the real meaning and power of metaphor used in literature. The book is riddled with allegory and metaphor. Take names as the most significant example in the novel. First of all, let’s talk about the name “Changez”. While several reviewers have assumed that “Changez” is too obvious a name for a character in this situation, Hamid has pointed out that it doesn’t signify “change” but is instead “the Urdu name for Genghis, as in Genghis Khan.” He elaborates: It’s the name of a warrior, and the novel plays with the notion of a parallel between war and international finance, which is Changez’ occupation. But at the same time, the name cautions against a particular reading...
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...Introduction How exciting it is to open the bible to the book of Exodus and read the narrative of the fulfillment of God’s promise in the rescue of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt—the call of Moses, the plagues, and the dramatic manifestation of God on Mt. Sinai. Though the book of Exodus is most famous for the revelation of the Ten Commandments contained in Chapter 20, it remains vague in terms of where the biblical account actually occurred, and yet we cannot begin to fully understand the Old Testament if we look at it as merely a piece of great literature, or as some have suggested nothing more than interesting legend, or the elaboration of superior ideals. … The Book of Exodus is a narrative of the sacred history of Israel from the sojourn in Egypt to the completion of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. The term Exodus comes from the Greek terminology and literally means “going out,” an appropriate title for the book that narrates how under the leadership of Moses, the Israelites escaped from Egyptian persecution and began their journey back to the Promised Land. To be certain, all human history is the scope of God’s sovereignty. God became especially involved in the lives of a relatively unknown people, culminating a historical event that changed biblical history and altered the course of their lives and culture. When we seek to understand the meaning of our individual life events, we don’t actually begin with birth or infancy, even though a biographical account...
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...reflective process and that your wounds produce an effective narrative. I also learned that, “the core of writing is communication”. For example, Dr. Williams is very passionate about civil rights and justice and communicated his thoughts through books and the Huffington Post to touch people. He further discussed how important social media is as a form of sharing and writing one’s opinions and thoughts about anything you care about, “Be a part of the conversation”. Dr. Yahuru asked us to write five things that we care about and then elaborate on one of the topics. I wrote a paragraph about the crisis in Syria because...
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...Clarens I. Desir Professor Matthew Lau EN 101 6 February 2014 Regine, Beyer. “Life after the Holocaust” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Revised Edition. N.p., 10 June 2013. Web. 8 May 2014 Regine, Beyer’s article. “Life after the Holocaust” (2010), asserts that he learned that human being cannot be reduced to one period of their lives, even though it might have been the determining one, and About the strength of mind and spirit in sometimes frail bodies. About forgiveness, and not being able to forgive. About mutual sympathy and respect despite age and cultural differences. He made it he’s purpose to look for people who tell their story well (without sounding "professional” in any way) people whose stories can provide a different view on aspect of the overall story we have taken for granted. Base on the article Beyer is writing to Holocaust survivors, and anyone who’ve had their lives affected in any way cause of the Holocaust. He’s purpose was to get their stories out there, because those stories made a big impression on he’s life. Children during the Holocaust. “United States Holocaust Memorial Museum”. Web. May 8 2014. “Children during the holocaust” (2013), prove that children were especially vulnerable doing the holocaust because the Nazis advocate killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators...
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...instead of one that had pictures of the Menudo boys who were popular in the 80’s. She was upset that her parents would not allow her to pierce her ears. Most girls her age had their pierced. It sounds like she struggled to fit in and still keep her Korean culture Her lifestyle changed tremendously. She went from having a chauffer to taking public transportation. She had to get used to being called an Asian when she had only heard that term in school in South Korea. She no longer had a maid. She had to take her clothes to a Laundromat to wash them. In South Korea, she had a governess helping her with her homework. She now had to do homework by herself. The purpose is to describe what her journey was like coming to America and how her life transformed. The genre is a personal story of her life. She wanted to explain what she went...
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...How can one consciously make an effort not to do this, perhaps one can also reduce comments and actions that lead to racism? First one must understand where it all begins. In the Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares her personal story to show the audience how freely one can succumb to the perils of stereotyping, without even realizing it. Tanzina Vega also illustrates this in her New York Times article “Schools’ Discipline for Girls Differs by Race and Hue,” where she reports on information from a sociological study that exposes the difference in how a girl is punished based on the shade of her skin color. Additionally Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay “Letter to My Son” demonstrates many stereotypes as he writes a very personal piece passing on his knowledge to his 15-year-old son on several important themes including consequences from generations of stereotyping and his observations of the...
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...There are currently about twenty-four million people in the United States addicted to alcohol or drugs (“Abuse, National Institute on Drug”). However, only about eleven percent of these people will seek treatment; the remaining eight-nine percent of people continue their lives with this incurable disease. There are various reasons why they are not being treated, some are unable to afford the cost, some lack the support and family and friends and others are still in the state of denial. In the book Clean by Amy Read, the Documentary, Russell Brand from Addiction to Recovery and the short story, “A Counselor’s Personal Narrative on Drug Addiction,” by Lauren Armstrong express that until society accepts that addiction is a serious disease, the...
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...prominent African American, mixed media artist from Harlem, New York known for her painting, quilting, and activism. Ringgold’s artistic journey is intertwined deeply with her experiences as a black woman in America. Some of Ringgold’s most influential pieces are her narrative quilts. The designs, colors, and fabric are all woven together to represent the personal and historical stories from the African American perspective. Through her quilts, Ringgold brings attention to overlooked histories and celebrates the resilience of her community. Her artwork explores themes like race and gender, which challenge societal norms and advocates for equality. Born in Harlem, New York in 1930, Faith Ringgold was brought up in a community that embraced creativity. The Harlem Renaissance exposed her to many African-American artists, such as Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. Additionally, art was very intertwined with her own family, particularly fiber arts. Her mother was a fashion designer who taught Faith how to sew and create patterns with fabric at a young age (Seiferle). Ringgold’s great-great-great-grandmother made quilts as...
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