E367: Writing and Diversity

Decades of the Same Issue: Can it be Resolved?

After viewing this debate, it does not shock me that James Baldwin successfully won the debate, “Is the American dream at the expense of the American Nigro?” Baldwin was able to eloquently describe his points that were, especially at the time, controversial topics of race to a room of around six hundred white men. His stature and confidence in his presentation was impressive. His argument was that in order to understand how the American dream hinders the American Nigro, perspective of an individual can greatly affect how the question is answered. If someone does not have experience from the perspective of an African American, then it becomes extremely difficult to understand the setbacks that are present. Baldwin states:

“The reaction to that question has to depend on an affect, an affect on where you find yourself in the world. What your sense of reality is, what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which we hold so deeply as to be scarcely aware of them.”

This is a significant point in his argument because it allows him to next explain the American dream in the eyes of an Africans American man. By emphasizing that there truly is a gap that divides black and white peoples’ experience, Baldwin captures the audience’s attention, an effective transition in his setting.

Baldwin explains to the audience that as a child, African Americans are raised thinking that they are white, truly equal, until about the age 8. Reality turns the world upside down, and by the age of 30 nothing has changed, despite all the efforts. The idea of being raised to value a society that does not value you is incredibly difficult to comprehend. Today, most people are told to make a name for themselves, to make a space in society that is significant to them. It is staggering that this notion is still applicable today. The effort of true equality can only start on an individual level, and across every household and in every group. The only way to change the outlook on groups of minority is to change the way we teach about them. As Baldwin suggests, history and the way it is taught must be made more diverse.

Class, Mon, 9/23

From Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen (1988). Oliver Reed is Vulcan; Uma Thurman is Venus.

Dolmage, Metis, Cunning

Does the fact that Hephaestus is very capable, very much able, very creative, allow people to overlook or ignore his disability? Does a valorization of his metis negate his disability, or does it require it? Might this allow for an identity for the disabled that incorporates a variety of different roles? Is Hephaestus’s presence in myth more about his ability than his disability? Is his cunning, not always used in service of “good,” a form of trickery or a kind of crafty pragmatism? What of the tension between his role as a kind of “exceptional cripple” and his labor and sweat, which seem to be a symbol of the God’s humanity? Is he a symbol of the weakness of gods or of their “normalcy”? Is he a symbol of godliness in the “normal”?
Jay Dolmage (132)

Fastwrite

Jay Dolmage defines metis as an embodied intelligence, cunning, a way of turning a seeming liability into an asset. His examples refer to tales of the Greek god Hephaestus. See if you can come up with an example of metis from another sphere. Perhaps from one of the texts we’ve read together? Or from something else you’ve read (or seen, or listened to)? Or from your own experience?

Of Interest

Jay Dolmage, “Metis, Metis, Mestizo, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies across Rhetorical Traditions” (2009)

dolmage-2009-metis Download

Anthony Kwame Appiah, “What Does It Mean to ‘Look Like Me'”?” (NYT, 9/21/2019)

To Do

Mon, 9/23, 4:00 pm: Group B posts responses to James Baldwin’s debate with William F. Buckley, Jr.
Tues, 9/24, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group B’s responses and posts comments on at least two. We will use these responses and comments to structure our class discussion on Wednesday.
Wed, 9/25, 4:00 pm: Group C posts responses to Barack Obama’s ” A More Perfect Union”.
Thurs, 9/19, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and posts comments on at least two. We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion on Friday.

“Abstracting from immediate experience”

The “scholarship boy” “abstracting from immediate experience” as an attempt to reformat or understand his drastically different life within the classroom and household is something that I feel I have noticed not only within myself but as Rodriguez mentions within the rare scholarship children whose ambition gleams from their eyes and dwindles their confidence.

What I took from The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning “Basics” was that there is a space in which some children might stumble upon, especially those of working class/minority families, where they must decide, at a relatively young age, what is most important to them considering what they know they are capable of and most importantly what their environment is like.

The “scholarship boy” here aka Rodriguez became passionate about knowledge not knowing the level of intimacy academia requires or what he would have to give in order to fulfill his desires. These desires happen to fall out of line with not only his immediate family but his culture and effectively alter his experience with them. Although I have never considered myself much of a “scholarship boy” to this extent, I will say that I can relate to his feeling of guilt and withdrawal. Children generally have little conception of management or balance and wildly chase their desires unaware of the bewilderment it could cause around them. He mentions his passion separating him from other academics in college, what was once rewarded in primary and secondary school is now frowned upon as an adult because apparently no one of his background should know as much of or care as much for academia as he does which again can be confusing and frustrating. After years of struggling to find his pace yet still deepening his love for knowledge Rodriguez is finally able to describe his roller coaster with learning and accept it.

This ending is very heart-warming to me. Seeing that Rodriguez persisted among his constant reflection and dissatisfaction gives me hope that we are all able to do the same, being that we are consistent in our search and willing to fail on the way there. This excerpt makes me think of the phrase “ignorance is bliss” especially when he quotes one of his teachers who says “The importance of the praise of given the un-solitary, richly passionate life is that it simultaneously reflects the value of reflective life” I think that means – those who live more passionate lives are usually not reflecting (unlike the reflective one) they are acting in the moment and giving their truest selves and opinions within their judgments rather than allowing what they know to cloud their proposals. As for the one who is more reflective, they will only allow themselves to be as passionate as their understanding of the moment allows them to be, “Abstracting from immediate experience”

Class, Fri, 9/20

Richard Rodriguez

What are the losses as well as the ends of education? Can you lose or change a home (primary) discourse?

Winston, Bridget, Anthony on different ways to read the closing of Rodriguez’s essay
Jennifer on a different sort of scholarship student
Olga Seguro, “Why the Writer Richard Rodriguez Refuses to be Put into a Box”

To Do

Mon, 9/23, class: Read Jay Dolmage’s “Breathe Upon Us”. I will lead our discussion. I am particularly in thinking about metis as a way fo describing how less powerful people can speak back to more powerful ones.
Mon, 9/23, 4:00 pm: Group B posts responses to James Baldwin’s debate with William F. Buckley, Jr.
Tues, 9/24, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group B’s responses and posts comments on at least two. We will use these responses and comments to structure our class discussion on Wednesday.
Wed, 9/25, 4:00 pm: Group C posts responses to Barack Obama’s ” A More Perfect Union”.
Thurs, 9/19, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and posts comments on at least two. We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion on Friday.

Hunger for Education

Richard Rodriguez had an interesting upbringing paired with his academic experience. In his piece, “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics,’” Rodriguez creates this interesting notion that his primary discourse – or what it should have been – is in fact not his primary discourse at all. He grew up in academia. He loved it. He forced himself to read about and learn about subjects that he did not like because he felt as though he needed to have all of the information available. It was also no secret, he was far better off in the classroom than either of his parents had been. He makes an ample amount of remarks regarding how his parents were always discrediting him and his intelligence as he got smarter because they were not entirely sure how to handle it. Despite him noting that he absolutely had the love and support of his family, he was uncomfortable at home. He loved the language of his teachers and mentors. He often found himself trying to mimic them and be like them. These were the people, he thought, that knew what they were doing. I just want to finish this thought with, no, I do not believe that he thought his parents were not doing anything right, he just adored his hunger for learning and had to keep feeding it and the teachers were the ones with all the knowledge.

To continue, I found it interesting how he ends up coming full circle and he begins to learn to appreciate his past and his parents and everything. Rodriguez understands that he does not act like those of his family at home. He is different, he chose a different path than them and felt as though the discourse that he picked up along the way was what felt comfortable to him. Rodrigues highlights his eventual longing of the past when he notes ,

“I remembered in my parents, growing older—before I turned, unafraid, to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for long, the end of education.”
Rodriguez, 254

I found this to be an interesting way to finish off the piece because he recognizes the differences in himself from his family and he attributes it to his hunger for education and always wanting to learn more. He does not denounce it or even say it was negative, but he understands that what should have been his primary discourse and first course of language ended up being an uncomfortable secondary discourse for him because he never truly embraced it for what it was.

Response to Rodriguez

In Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics,’” Rodriguez highlights the struggle of balancing an academic career with his home life. When he throws himself into his studies at an early age, he quickly notices the implications that it has on his home life. This struggle is especially reflected in his relationship with his parents. He mentions that whenever his parents would ask him about what he learned at school, he would keep his answers short and vague, not wanting to share too much. He would read often, which caused him to engage less with his family, staying in his room, so he wouldn’t be distracted by the sounds of his home. He mentions that he felt his parents “were always behind” him. His parents gave him and his siblings the means to succeed academically, however, it also caused them to distance themselves from each other. Rodriguez’s interest in academics didn’t only affect him, but it also his parents as well.

There’s no denying the sense of pride that Rodriguez’s parents feel towards his academic success’s, however, Rodriquez mentions that they began to become dismissive of his intelligence. Whenever there was an argument in the house, his parents would defend their statements by simply saying “It’s what we were taught in our time to believe,” which immediately ended the discussion. Even though Rodriguez has had more academic success than his parents, they are still his parents and still have authority over him, which makes it easy for them to discount his statements.

Rodriguez has conflicting emotions when it comes to his academics. He feels a draw towards learning that seems to overpower the guilt that he also feels. This guilt coming from the separation he notices between himself and his home life. He feels like he is responsible for this change that has occurred in his home.

“I kept so much, so often to myself. Sad. Guilty for the excitement of coming upon new ideas, new possibilities. Eager. Fascinated. I hoarded the pleasures of learning. Alone for hours. Enthralled. Afraid. Quiet (the house noisy), I rarely looked away from my books – or back on my memories.”
Rodriguez, 243

Even though his schooling caused him to distance himself from his home life, he also became appreciative of it later on. His studies gave him the knowledge to look back on his childhood and try and recover what he lost.

“I needed to understand how far I had moved from my past – to determine how fast I would be able to recover something of it once again.”
Rodriguez, 254

I feel like many of us can relate to the fear of coming home with a report card to show to our parents, scared that they aren’t going to be pleased with the results. Maybe the few times they weren’t, it caused tension in the house, with maybe a grounding or two to follow. Rodriguez has a whole different take on it, which I never really considered before. He was scared to succeed rather as well as fail. Rodriguez was a good student (although he highlights he was really only good at mimicking, instead of forming his own ideas), and he felt like he had to hide this from his parents. If he shared his successes with his parents, he felt like they wouldn’t understand, but when he keeps his thoughts to himself, he’s separating himself from his parents.

Trying to relate to Rodriguez, I can think of one example. I remember when I entered high school, the only thing that I knew about politics was what I heard about from my parents. However, the more educated I became, I began to form my own opinions, which opposed the views of my parents. I remember expressing some of my views and immediately being shut down. It felt similar to when Rodriguez would try to have a discussion with his parents, who wouldn’t really listen to his side of things. I learned to stop bringing up my own thoughts whenever the conversation turned to politics. I learned to keep quiet because I knew I would upset my parents if I said anything contradictory. Although this is only a small piece of my home life that has been affected, it seems like Rodriguez is expressing a shift in his own home life which has a much greater magnitude. “In place of the sounds of intimacy which once flowed easily between us, there was the silence.”

Smart Cookie: Scholarship Boys and Discourse Translation

The “scholarship boy”—lets translate it to “scholarship student” since this isn’t the 1970s anymore—is a student that becomes obsessive over academic success and becomes changed by this education obsession. They separate themselves from all distractions—mainly their family and the things they once loved. Richard Rodriguez illustrates his time as a scholarship student and how he found himself isolating himself in book, finding that he was distancing himself from his parents in favor of studying. He was distancing himself from his primary discourse—from his home and family and first learned behavior, in favor for a non-dominant secondary discourse.

The scholarship student is driven by success, the approval of superiors, and the knowledge they gain—social goods. However, because it is a secondary discourse, it’s hard to insert themselves into this space—they have to develop the body language, the values, and language associated to this new space. But, because it’s not their primary identity and discourse then it’s not going to be easy for them to conform. Rodriguez was forcing himself to read books he didn’t like because it was on some smart-sounding list and felt he would further understand the space he had sat himself in. He idolized his teachers and found himself trying to speak like them, mimicking them. It was all imitation and through that imitation he nurtured a secondary discourse that seemed to have overtook his primary one. He became so immersed into his secondary discourse that he forgot how to perform in his primary discourse. But, was his primary language truly replaced or was he just adding new behavior to his primary discourse?

In trying to support this thought, I stumbled upon a whole long paper written by Taylor Weeks, Understanding Discourse Transition. I only read a little bit of it because its 47 pages long and I’m not that crazy, but the gist of what Weeks is trying to propose in his paper is basically figuring out what Rodriguez and other scholarship students go through with their discourses. He questions “if a discourse can be changed slightly over time, is it the same discourse that person first learned as a child?” And he also asks, “if we do indeed change any small parts of our discourse over time, then can we replace the initial discourse we learned as children with a completely new discourse or has it become a strong dominant secondary discourse?” He decides to explore these questions by looking at military veterans and how their time in the military had affected them over time and how they interact once they are placed back into civilian life—specifically looking at how they adjust to college.

Throughout boot camp, a recruit’s initial discourse language begins to be replaced by a military discourse language. This military language is about sameness, about being indistinguishable from their peers appearance-wise, body language-wise, speech-wise, and so on. Once dropped into a different situation, a civilian situation, like a classroom, there is a difficulty to act within this discourse full of uniqueness. They don’t understand their place in this “new” world. This is like how education—a space that’s organized and quiet and full of logical—and then going home to a space full of disorganization, loudness, and more emotional. Even if the home space is what they grew up with, someone so enraptured by education has made their initial discourse language foreign to themselves. They can no longer function in that space the same way they did before. Weeks equates this process to baking cookies. “Depending on the recipe, you can make different cookies. Like a person’s discourse, we all learn at least one way to make cookies when we are children. As we develop our social language, we sometimes add things to our primary discourse. As with baking cookies, if we add any new element to our cookie recipe, we have changed our cookie recipe. No matter what we added to our cookie recipe, we will not make the same type of cookie that we learned how to make when we were children.”

Taylor Weeks’ Understanding Discourse Transition: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4000&context=etd

Response to Anzaldua

Anzaldua’s essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is a fascinating perspective on how seemingly minor distinctions in language can have a large impact on the people that speak it. While she does spend a portion of the essay comparing Chicano Spanish and Standard Spanish, her message is not about the similarities or differences of the languages. Rather, Anzaldua’s purpose is to show the validity of Chicano Spanish as a language that Chicanos can be proud of. To Anzaldua, her language is one of the most essential defining parts of herself. An insult to her language is an insult to her.

“So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity-I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself”

What stands out the most to me with this piece is the anecdote Anzaldua includes at the beginning of undergoing a procedure at the dentist. The key parts that stick out to me are the horrible smell, her tongue pushing away cotton and needles, and that she is physically unable to restrain her tongue’s movements. Each of these elements applies to the rest of the paper. Anzaldua mentions the resentment and discomfort Chicanas feel towards themselves when speaking to people from other Spanish dialects, as they consider Chicano Spanish “illegitimate” or a “bastard language”. This can be related to the smell produced by the procedure. This disgust or resentment Chicanas feel towards an aspect of themselves is reflected in Anzaldua’s disgust at the smell of the plaque being scrapped away from her teeth. Anzaldua’s tongue pushing away the cotton and needles reflects her convictions in pushing away negative outside influences and keeping her Chicano Spanish. “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing”. Finally, the wild tongue represents Anzaldua’s pride in her language and her inability to be kept quiet or restrained. While this metaphor may seem to fall apart with the assumption that Anzaldua proceeds with the procedure, she does close her essay with a message of the patience and persistence Chicanas have.

Class, Wed, 9/18

Gloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Different Kinds of Difference

Gloria Anzaldúa joins Barbara Mellix and Min-Zhan Lu in a growing list of writers who describe having to shift and adjust the ways they speak and write to meet the needs of the different situations they find themselves in. (Richard Rodriguez will continue this theme.) In some ways, you can hardly imagine a more banal insight—since we all routinely change how we talk depending on who we’re speaking to and why. So I’d like to press the question I raised in class on Monday a little more strenuously now: What do these writers add to that familiar observation? How is their version of difference different? And, most important, how do they differ from one another? What does Anzaldúa say that distinguishes her from Lu and from Mellix? How might the terms and ideas raised by Pratt, Hochschild, and Gee help us notice and understand those differences? Please locate a passage in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” that you feel will help us talk about these issues.

Donald Trump in New Mexico, Mon, 9/16

The Problem of We and Us (with thanks to Amanda G and Kyle)

To Do

Begin to think seriously about possibilities for your final project. In particular, think about the materials you might want to analyze: The books, articles, videos or music you’d like to analyze; the situations or experiences you’d like to describe. You will have a proposal due in three weeks (10/10), and will be asked to submit a text for the rest of us to read and consider in four weeks (10/17).

Wed, 9/18, 4:00 pm: Group A posts responses to Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire”.
Thurs, 9/19, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group A’s responses and posts comments on at least two.
Fri, 9/13, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion of Rodriguez.
Mon, 9/23, class: Read Jay Dolmage’s “Breathe Upon Us”. I will lead our discussion.

We Need More Unity

After reading Anzaldúa’s piece, I was thoroughly intrigued by her use of language and how she would switch back from English to Spanish. This created a unique piece that I would describe as not “Anglo” literature or “Chicano” literature, but instead a combination of the many influences she has had on her writing as well as her life experiences. For example, she writes about the many languages used in the Southwest, which were: Standard English, Working slang English, Standard Spanish, Standard Mexican Spanish, North Mexican Spanish dialect, Chicano Spanish, Tex-Mex, and Pachuco. All of these languages and/or dialects influence her writing and it is shown in this work. Therefore, I would argue that Anzaldúa’s work was not an American or a Mexican piece, but an amalgamation of the unique culture present in America’s Southwest.

Although I did thoroughly enjoy Anzaldúa’s piece and the structure of it, I do have some issues with parts of her work. For example, she constantly utilizes the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ when referring to Chicanos. Does this mean that she is speaking for all Chicanos? If so, I feel that it is very difficult for one person to accurately speak for an entire group of people. In addition, I feel that she could have ended her work on a more conciliatory tone. For example, in her second to last paragraph she makes the statement, “tenémos que hacer la lucha,” which roughly translates to we have to fight. Also, the last paragraph it almost sounds if she is saying that Chicano and American culture is incompatible; and that Chicanos “will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business…we, the mestizas and mestizos, will remain.” This quote and the general tone of her ending should have stressed unity and co-existing, not that only the mestizas and mestizos, will remain.