...and identity that helps her to overcome prejudice. The context of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings focuses on the problems associated with racism that was prevalent in the southern states. Racist oppression is a common theme in the book that is portrayed by all the major characters; in fact, all the other themes in the book are closely related to racism, identity and segregation. In addition, the style and genre, and the structure of this literary work make significant contributions towards its thematic development, which focus on resistance to racism, the significance of the family, self-identity and definition and independence. Walker (95) argues that I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings is characterized by thematic unity, which is achieved using the structure adopted in the text that takes more of a thematic form rather than a chronological form. In addition, Angelou managed to emphasize on the universal ideas in her literary work irrespective of its periodic quality. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou used the major characters of the book to facilitate its thematic development identity, racism and literacy throughout the text. Basing on this assertion, this essay uses evidence from the book to affirm the role that the major characters played in the development of the major themes in the book. The first major theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is identity. In the course of the text, Maya is depicted as symbolic character representing every African American girl...
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...Introduction: African American history. It has great and true stories to tell. These African Americans have different and unique stories to tell. Because of these people, they have made the United States a better place. Let’s go deeper into African American history. Pre-20th Century Contributions Way before the 20th century, African Americans made outstanding contributions to various characteristics of American society despite the challenges of slavery and discrimination. They excelled in areas such as literature, politics, arts, music, abolitionism, and entrepreneurship. But what people have had a huge impact in this era of Black excellence? Let’s list a few. Phillis Wheatley. She was the first ever published African-American female poet....
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...the decades prior to the Civil War. A slave in America until the age of 20, wrote three of the most highly regarded autobiographies of the 19th century, yet he only began learning to read and write when he turned 12 years old. After an early life of hardship and pain, Douglass escaped to the North to began his soul changing and spiritual beliefs of all men and women should be created equal. The institution of slavery scarred him so deeply that he decided to dedicate his powers of speech and prose to fighting it. In this paper it will include discussions on Frederick Douglass's early life childhood, the struggles he overcame to became a successor his motives and morals, the impact he had on the civil war, his achievements, and the legacy that went on within his name. Frederick Douglass was born as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and was a slave from Talbot County, Maryland. His date of birth varied because slaves couldn't keep records, in result Frederick adopted February 14 as his birthday because his mother Harriet Bailey used to call him her "little valentine".(Douglass, (1885). When he was only an infant, he was separated from his mother, and she subsequently died when he was about seven years old. He then lived with his grandmother, Betty Bailey. His father remains unknown. Douglass had stated that his father was a white man, possibly his owner, Aaron Anthony, but later he stated that he did not know his father's identity (Douglass, (1885). At the age of seven...
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...The formation of self-identity is a process each of us must go through on our journey to adulthood. The development of a system by which to lead our adult lives is difficult for all children, but especially for African American children. In addition to defining their personal character, they must define themselves in terms of their culture and nationality – African American and American. One of the ways in which black children create their self-identity is through the illustrations they see in the literature they are exposed to. We look to African American children’s books to help promote self-esteem, cultural identity, and pride for African American children. As books are read to them, children concentrate on the images, and become subject to the impressions these images create. Children’s books that are authentic to African American culture, physicality and intelligence are few and far between. With consideration to our theme, “Black Literary Contemplations on Thomas Jefferson and Western Enlightenment Ideologies of Race and Humanity” and Thomas Jefferson’s Query XIV, it is my belief that the images in children’s literature are important to development of self- identity and esteem in African American children. In Query XIV, in his comparison of whites and blacks, Thomas Jefferson commented on the beauty of whites and blacks, and critiqued blacks because of their “immovable veil of black” and lack of flowing hair. He then stated that black men favored white women over black...
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...African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey...
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...Through narrative therapy a counselor can help clients gain access to preferred story lines about their lives and identities taking the place of previous negative and self-defeating narratives that destroy the self. Presented in this paper, is an overview of the Narrative therapy and the Social Construction Model and several facets of this approach including poststrucuralism, deconstructionism, self-narratives, cultural narratives, therapeutic conversations, ceremonies, letters and leagues. A personal integration of faith in this family counseling approach is presented and discussed also in this paper. NARUMI AMADOR’S FAMILY CONSELING APPROACH Introduction Narrative therapy is found under the Social Construction Model. Using the Narrative approach, the therapist will not be the central figure in the therapeutic process, instead he will be influential to the client, helping him/her internalize and create new stories within themselves to draw new and healthier assumptions about who they are. This process enables clients to distract from focusing on the negative narratives which defined their past, redefining their lives into future positive stories. Narrative therapists define the problem as the problem instead of defining the client as the problem. The therapy process begins redefining the problem, externalizing it and getting it out in the open. The narrative therapist uses the questioning technique and creates alternative narratives to connect...
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...Faith Ringgold is a 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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...The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave Written by himself Throughout its autobiography, Douglass narrates his life as a slave, from his birth, in 1818, in a plantation of Maryland, to his evasion in 1838, which allowed him to take refuge in the North of the United States. He quickly became there a figure eminent and respected by the abolitionist movement to which he dedicated then all his energies. At first, we shall focus on the inhuman conditions from which Douglass suffered. Then we shall redraw the road he took towards freedom. We shall finally analyze how Douglass criticizes various institutions. The author makes us go right to the heart of the absolute horror of the institution of slavery. Throughout his personal experience, Frederick Douglass counts us the story of thousands of other slaves who were subjected to the same conditions under the influence of the white slaveholders in the southern plantations. Thus, this account illustrates how these human beings were condemned to a terrible tragedy that was inherent to their color. Being black justified their entrance to a process of dehumanization. From his youngest age, Douglass suffered from identity issue. He expressed his disorientation due to not knowing his father or his date of birth[1]. He was also deprived from experiencing the protection and the love that a family should bring. Indeed, he was separated from his mother at the age of one and in spite of his blood relationship...
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...Set of Reflections on Filipino Culture, Nationalism, Economic Development, and Philippine Politics and Democracy By: Virgilio Angelo G. Gener A Review and an Overview – the Introduction As I begin to think on what I will write on my reflections on the significant lessons and insights that I have distilled in my readings for the past two months, I remember that American journalist and essayist Henry Louis “H.L.” Mencken once opined that: “A Historian by his nature, is an unsuccessful novelist.” If there is a commonality that I have noticed in the methodology of writing of the scholarly articles that I have read, it is the fact that majority of them was written in a narrative and historical standpoint. Thus, when I was brainstorming prior to the completion and formal writing of this essay, I deemed it necessary that the methodology or mode of presentation of my reflective essay should complement the style of writing the journal articles were presented. This was one of the things that I had in mind and served as my setback in finally commencing the writing of my reflective essay. The past two months of attending classes and racing through the pages of the assigned readings were, in my own personal opinion, a review of history as well as an overview of the opinions of scholars on certain social aspects, whether they be on the past, present, or the uncertain future of the Philippines. It is a review, since most of the readings discussed matters and happenings that were...
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...RAMBO Theories of Conversion: Understanding and Interpreting Religious Change The author explores the nature of theory and provides an overview of resources for the study of conversion to Islam. Theory is valuable in so far as it illuminates different aspects of a phenomenon. Various theoretical approaches include some dimensions and exclude others. Scholars of conversion must be aware of theoretical issues and systematically utilize theoretical options with sophistication. Such an approach will expand understanding of conversion and also enhance comparative studies of conversion. Theoretical orientations considered in this paper include: globalization, post-colonial, feminist, cross-cultural, religious/spiritual, intellectualist, narrative, identity, ritual, psychoanalytic, archetypal, attribution, attachment, process/stage, and Islamization theory. L’auteur analyse et offre un panorama des théories disponibles pour réaliser une étude des...
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...homogeneity, and stability that has been associated with mainstream twentieth-century anthropology, hundreds—possibly thousands—of anthropologists have tried to redefine, reform, revolutionize, or even relinquish that abhorred “C” word—”culture.” The range of engagement is suggested in the apparent congruence between postmodernist American anthropologists (for example, Clifford & Marcus 1986) and their now classic critique of the Geertzian notion of cultural integration, and the older European critique of the structural-functionalist idea of social integration, which was led by people such as Barth (1966), whose rationalism and naturalism is everything but postmodernist. In both cases, presuppositions of integrated wholes, cultures or social structures, have been debunked. From being a discipline concentrating its efforts on understanding nonliterate societies, often implicitly positing the uncontaminated aborigine as its hero, anthropology increasingly studies cultural impurity and hybridity, and the dominant normative discourse in the field has shifted from defending the cultural rights of small peoples to combating essentialism and reifying identity politics. While this development has been important and necessary for a variety of reasons, the perspectives 154 CREOLIZATION developed risk being one-sided and inadequate.1 A focus on mixing and flows that does not take continuity and boundedness into account ends up undermining its own social theory: Every social scientist knows...
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...Tony Williams Rather than being read in exclusively postmodernist terms, Tsui Hark’s series Once upon a Time in China may be understood as a new version of a Hong Kong cinematic discourse involving historical “interflow.” It deals with dispersion, China’s relationship to the outside world, and strategic forms of reintegration designed to strengthen national identity. In Sammo Hung’s Wong Fei Hung Ji Saam (West Territory Mighty Lion/Once upon a Time in China and America, 1997), Master Huang Fei-hong (Jet Li Linjie) travels to the Wild West to visit an American branch of the Po Chi Lam Clinic set up by his student Sol. During the journey, he bangs his head against a rock in a turbulent stream and loses his memory. He is rescued by a friendly tribe of Indians. Moments before we see Huang again, an Indian emerges from a tepee proudly announcing the birth of a child. When Huang recovers, he stumbles around in the Indian camp wearing an Indian costume, and his loose unbraided hair is flowing like an Indian’s. After using his martial arts prowess to defeat a hostile Indian, who ironically mouths racist American platitudes against the outsider—”His clothing is different, his skin color is different, his speech is different”—Huang is adopted into the tribe and given the name “Yellow.” Before this, he attempts to remember events of the recent past. But his vague recollections reveal images reproducing culturally blurred boundaries paralleling his sense of ethnic and geographic...
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...Exhibiting the Human Body: Carnivalistic Primitivism at the World’s Fair of 1893 Aimée L. Arcoraci-Davies HAVC 191P: The Image of Time Final Paper June 12, 2014 The World’s Columbia Exposition of 1893, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, was a vibrant hub of exhibitions showcasing the latest in technological innovation and ethnographic inquiry of “primitive” and pre-modern ‘Others’. The Chicago World’s Fair was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in America, but was held a year later than planned. The World’s Fair symbolized progress and the idealized society as portrayed through the “White City” and neoclassical architecture. This essay will be analyzing the display of peoples participating in the Midway Plaisance section at the World’s Fair as contrasted with fairgoers and their sideshow managers, the exoticization imposed upon the bodies of the participants through the spectator gaze, and the association with the rationalization of time relative to the turn of the century period of colonialization, mechanization of power and shift in time consciousness. Viewing the fair using symbolical and rational measurements of time through a contemporary lens, I plan on examining the ways colonialism, entertainment, and hegemonic ideologies led to socially engrained hierarchical prejudices and racial stereotypes in United States popular culture. I plan on analyzing the correlation between the World’s Columbian Exposition’s founding principles of industrial...
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...autobiography was “a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment,” readers for nearly a century have found it richly rewarding. Today, Up From Slavery appeals to a wide audience from early adolescence through adulthood. More important, however, is the inspiration his story of hard work and positive goals gives to all readers. His life is an example providing hope to all. The complexity and contradictions of his life make his autobiography intellectually intriguing for advanced readers. To some he was known as the Sage of Tuskegee or the Black Moses. One of his prominent biographers, Louis R. Harlan, called him the “Wizard of the Tuskegee Machine.” Others acknowledged him to be a complicated person and public figure. Students of American social and political history have come to see that Washington lived a double life. Publicly he appeased the white establishment by remaining cautious in his charges and demands. Privately he worked tirelessly to undo the effects of institutional and cultural racism. Although he seemed to have made a grand compromise, first with the white south and then with white America, he worked in deepest secret to undermine the compromise and advance the social and economic position of blacks. No doubt exists as to his greatness....
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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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