So we have read a good amount of books this semester, and i'd have to say, probably never read that much in my life. The most enjoyable book to me was When The Emperor Was Divine. I have always been interested in history ever since I was inspired by my 7th grade history teacher, so books that relate to past events really get my attention, and keep my interested. This book actually shocked me for the most part, because it shed light upon a piece of history that I knew little to nothing about. Not only was I able to learn a little more about the history and a little more background on what went on in the U.S in that time period, but I was also able to see it first hand. You can always read up about a piece of history and see or get an idea of at least, what it may have been like. However, when you read something in the context of this book, hearing it from someone who experienced it first hand you can really get a feel of what it may have been like, by hearing peoples feelings, and the emotional/psychological effects that these sort of events may have on someone. My least favorite book that we read this semester was Push. I honestly don't have one hard particular reason why, its just a number of little things. I really didn't like reading what I was reading about. The book did have a good theme to it showing Precious' progression and motivation, as well as how far she came by the end. But there were just certain things I couldn't really stomach, such as the fact that she got pregnant by her father, and her abuse. There was just so many graphic scenarios in my head reading this book that I didn't really want to picture in my head, as well as the sadness from reading a book like this.

two or three things i know for sure

Dorothy is basically a hard core feminist. The interesting thing about this book is that you get to hear of a womens insecurities. Dorothy Allison put this book together well by being able to relate to any women gay or straight by shedding light up on the many hardships that women face, and there obligation to be sheltered and innocent. On page 54 she writes "Women talk about sex in such strange ways- carefully, obliquely, cautiously, almost shamefully." Males are more comfortable, and more likely to openly talk about sex, in most cases with pride, which is the complete opposite of how most women talk about it. She then goes on to say that "the art of flirting is the art of indirection." This is something that caught my attention right away in the book. If you really think about flirting, it in fact is an art of indirection.When you flirt, you try to relate, as well as propose your best behavior towards someone in a way that YOU think you can get that person to begin to have interest in you. You paint a picture of yourself and leave yourself vulnerable to someone and see if they take the bait, and spark a relationship. Dorothy thought herself immune to love and boys, due to her family passed with boys, this made her want women instead. Through her own eyes she can analyse women because she is one and tell a story with it. In the same passage she says (talking about flirting with another women) "Talk to me. Tell me who you are, what you want, what you never had, the story you've always been afraid to tell." She said that most women blush and squirm in reaction to this, and now and then a few gather up the courage to flirt back. I Think that her way of outright talking to a women and asking her these questions digs deep into a womens insecurities which is why she gets the response she gets.

The Shawl ending

Rosa was sent to florida for destroying her shop in New York. The concentration camp as well as the loss of her daughter had a huge and devastating effect on her, so bad she had to be put in a mental institution in Florida. Its pretty intriguing how Rosa still presumes that her niece Stella is evil.  I mean i know she was part of the reason for magdas death, but she was a little girl herself, Rosa had saved her life in the concentration camp, and Stella essentially pays for her living in florida. Rosa lives in two worlds one in which she functions in and one in which her daughter lives in . The loss of her country her family and her daughter caused serious emotional devastation for her which in return caused Rosa to lose herself.

When the emperor was divine ending

The ending of this book was pretty interesting. The beginning of the fathers confessions really capped off the ending of the book by giving the reader a sense of helplessness that was felt by most American-Japanese of the era. He was tired and hungry, so he used a false confession as a means to an end, by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear to determine his fate quicker, and get it over with either go home or accept punishment. There seems to be three parts to his confession. In the first part of the confession, the father starts to state just about everything that the American-Japenese (spies) were being accused of: "I poisoned your reserviors. I put insecticide in your food. I sent my peas and potatos to the market full of insecticide." ect. In the second part of the confession, he throws out as many roles of an everyday American he can possibly think of: "Who am I? You know who I am. Or you think you do. I'm your flourist. I'm your grocer. I'm your porter. I'm your waiter." etc.. Then in the final part of the confession, he starts to spit out all of the slang terms used to insult Asians: "I'm the one you call slits. I'm the one you call slopes. I'm the one you call yellowbelly. I'm The one you call a gook." and so on. At the very end  he said "And if they ask you someday what it was i most wanted to say, please tell them, if you would, it was this: I'm sorr. There. Thats it. I've said it. Now can I go? I found myself questioning alot about what was going on in this part (the ending) more so than any other part of the book, and still skeptical of what to make of it. In my opinion, he was simply laying all the cards out on the table for judgement. Again, he had seemingly given up hope and essentially just wanted fate to take its course.

When the emperor was divine

So I just got the book yesterday and began reading it. The book sort of dragged in the beginning but started to get my attention because of the events that were taking place. In chapter one we learn that the story begins in Berkeley, California in 1942. Signs begin to spring up all over town saying that any persons of Japanese decent must prepare to be located. It is interesting how were always taught and well informed about Hitler and the Nazi regime growing up, as well as the concentration camps. However, we barely hear of this event that happened in the US. Although these camps were no where near similar or as horrible as the concentration camps, the stories of these camps are still overlooked in our teachings of history. Its interesting that we are reading this book in class and starting to learn about a subject that for the most part (speaking for myself) is unspoken of. I'm interested to learn a little bit more about this time in history in the U.S. It's pretty coincidental that in my philosophy class, we began learning about the genocide and dehumanization that took place in the 90's. They had concentration camps as well similar to the ones in WWII! and this was in our time. Its interesting how these parts of history can be overlooked, and it amazes me how unaware I am.

Push: readers guide question

In this post I'm going to focus on a question from the readers guide of my book. Q: Push presents what one viewer called "one of the most disturbing portraits of motherhood ever published." (city paper November 1996). How would you explain or interpret Precious' mother Behavior?

Precious' mother was basically not a mother (in my opinion) She had abused her daughter all the time, giving her beatings for the slightest things, and throwing things at her. She insults her daughter every chance she can get calling her "fat ass," "lying whore," "You cant learn shit," even things such as "I should have aborted your ass." She hits her daughter every which way possible not only physically but verbally. When you have a mother thats doing this it can cause a child a great deal of harm, an inability to grow up to be a "normal" civilized human being. Along with the verbal and physical abuse, her mother sexually abused her as well. I think that she was more or less in a sense enslaved by her mother. Not only does her mother abuse her sexually but her father as well, and her mother blames that abuse on her. When I think of a mother I think of a warm hearted person who gives her unconditional love, and support to her child. When I read this I was reminded of the definition of a mother. (mŭTH'ər) n.

1. 1. A female person who is pregnant with or gives birth to a child.
   2. A female person whose egg unites with a sperm, resulting in the conception of a child.
   3. A woman who adopts a child.

Push

When I first started reading this book it kind of dragged. I wasn't really sure what I was in for, and was startled at the grammar but I started to put the picture together as I read on. This was one of those books that when you read the first couple chapters you start to get an idea of what might happen and what the overall moral of the story is. I'm not gonna lie certain parts of this book made my stomach do flips, but nonetheless this is whats keeping my attention (haven't finish it yet). In this blog I wanted to talk about the title "Push" and its significance. I think that it is a perfect title for the book, and my interpretation of it. (in my own opinion) The title signifies the struggle of Claireece Precious Jones to essentially learn and depart from her home life and poor role modeling that was instituted by her parents. Her father raped her frequently and got her pregnant, her mother used her to please her sexual desires, and abused her. In the beginning of the book it seems as though Precious' desire to learn wasn't there. But you can start to see her change, and eventually start to push herself not only to learn school wise, but to learn right from wrong something that she was not familiar with. "Miz Rain" is a determined teacher in the book who wants to see her succeed, and pushes her to do her best. The title "Push" signifies a push of precious' self to do better, and push from her determined teacher.

Fun Home final response

As I posted in my previous blog entry, reading the book "Fun Home" was a whole new different experience for me. I think that Alison Bechdel decision to make this book a graphic novel was a great choice because it helped make sense of the book a little bit better. When you read a book, you really have to have a sense of imagination in order to capture an image in your head from what your reading. I tend to have a little bit of trouble with this because I'm not an avid reader, nor do I enjoy reading too much unless its something that captures my attention from the moment I begin reading it. The images in the book made it that much easier for me to understand what was going on which allowed me to read the book faster. I don't think I've ever read a book as fast as I read this one. This book overall was just a wierd book to me but definitely not in a bad way, because the wierdness kept my attention. The entire plot was just of a situation that many can say they have never heard of in real life or can even relate to which compelled me even more. I think that Alison's father definitely killed himself. I don't think that he planned on it but merely saw an opportunity and was spontaneous about it. My reasoning for this conclusion is because it was evident that he was very uncomfortable with his own sexuality and despised it. You can see in the pictures that Alison was very boyish even at a young age and he tried to get her to be more lady like. Then Alison opened up to him and told him she was gay and shortly there after he killed himself. So I think that her coming out bothered him that much more and when he saw that truck coming it was just a spontaneous "I'im killing myself."

First response to "Fun Home"

When I first got this book I was intrigued by the format that it was in. The way its set up like a comic book and pictures really caught me off guard. Growing up I was never really into comic books and as far as I can remember, I don't think that I had ever read one. This book is bringing on a new experience of reading for me because not only can I capture an image in my head through the text, but the pictures that are illustrated through out the entire book help paint a better picture in ones head through facial expressions, scenes, etc. when you might not know exactly whats going on the pictures clear up the confusion if any at all. When I found out that Alison was in fact gay, it was kind of like a go figure because of the pictures in the book when she was little she dressed like a little boy with a boy haircut. This isn't to say that any young girl that dresses like this will in fact turn out to be gay but had the pictures in the book not been there.

In the time of the butterflies

This book was pretty interesting. When i first started reading the book it seemed to drag a little bit and wasn't really appealing. I think this had to do with the fact that it started off with Dede meeting with the interviewer so i thought that the story would be just her recount of what the book was about. However in the second chapter when Minerva came in i realized that the this book would be like that. I think that that was the most interesting thing about the book that certain chapters were told by a different Maribal sister giving the reader a different point of view. The books ending surprised me as well when i found out that three of the sisters were killed although it was expected because the went against Trujillo, alot of the times the main characters always make it!!

Minerva is the third maribal sister. From an early age she was smart, and self confident. From an early age she wanted to become a lawyer but her father did not want her to, however he agreed to let her attend Inmaculada Concpcion with her older sisters. This was after she spent 3 years at home after graduating high school. Once shes up at school she becomes friends with Sinita Perozo. Sinita tells Minerva about the deaths of her male family members. They were murdered for resisting Trujillo. This is really what ignites the fire in Minerva to become involved in the anti-Trujillo underground movement. She discovers that an old childhood friend who was a boy that she definitaly had a crush on was writing her letters in which her father had hidden from her. This angrys her but she reaches a truce with her father although shes still cold to him. She discover she has four other sisters out of this. She then attends law school where she meets her husband Manolo Tavarez. I haven't read much farther than this! Hopefully ill be done with the book by sunday

"I dance"

The first page of this poem was a little hard for me to interpret what was going on because it was all just one word per line. This caused some confusion as to what exactly the point of the poem was. Of course as I read on, I was able to recognize that the author was in fact talking about dancing. But I think that this poem has to do with alot more than dancing. I think that "dancing" in this poem actually symbolizes moving forward in life and progressing. She mentions dancing when doing normal everyday things; "I dance to the traffic/to the crowds/to the silence." "I dance cause I'm pissed off/I dance cause I can't study anymore." Not only does the author refer to everyday things and "dances" through them but she also mentions "dancing" to bad times in history; "I dance past the killing fields/ I dance past Wounded Knee/ I dance past the skeletons and bones/ I dance past slave branding and holocaust tattoos." I think that this story passes off a very important message about life, and "dancing" really means moving forward and progressing regardless of mood, history, problems etc.

So this girl is trying really hard to fit in with the popular girls at school. She try's to imitate there fashion, and do what they do in order to fit in or be popular. She is even mean to Wendy who she claims to like only in front of these girls because Wendy was apart of them but no longer is.  However none of this seems to work because Julie and her "posse" are constantly nit picking little things which makes her feel left out, and won't even let her sit next to them at lunch. All she wants to do is fit in with these girls and be popular which is surprising because they are pretty nasty towards her. I don't even know why she bothers she even says to herself in her head "Grow up. Be real. Stop pretending. Leave me alone." So you can tell as the reader that this girl herself doesn't even like these girls. So in reality shes not even trying to fit in with Julie and her friends but just desires to be known as one of the "popular" girls. The ending of this story really confuses me. She goes from yelling at julie and her friends in the lunch room to collapsing then waking up in Wendy's bedroom. I think that Wendy is in-fact the narrator of this story. Wendy is the girl trying to fit in. I say this because in the end of the story it says "Wendy is sitting next to my bed drawing a picture of me as an angel in transition." and at the end says "Wendy is laying in my bed" I think this story illustrates the importance of being yourself and not conforming to anyone. Wendy was in fact putting herself down by letting these girls make her feel like a piece of garbage.

"I was there in the room"

This was a very interesting piece. Upon reading I was at first confused but steadily progressed in my interpretation. whoever told this story was talking about a baby being born and her experience in the room actually witnessing the event. I really liked the metaphors used when she was talking about the vagina as the baby came out; "I was there when her vagina changed from a shy sexual hole to an archeological tunnel, a sacred vessel, a venetian canal, a deep well with a tiny stuck child inside, waiting to be rescued." She also mentions seeing "all the colors of the vagina" and I think that this goes beyond the actual experience, I think she uses the graphical language to dip into the hardships women face and the "secrecy" of the vagina that for some reason we still see today, how everyone gets uncomfortable when the word is used. "saw the bruised broken blue, the blistering tomato red, the gray pink the dark; saw the blood like perspiration" I think she uses this intentionally to make the reader feel uncomfortable to perhaps make the reader feel like the women in labor? Towards the end she related the vagina to the heart, and some of the analogies she brought up to link the two I thought were pretty interesting "The heart is capable of sacrifice so is the vagina the heart is able to forgive and repair so is the vagina" etc. However I'm still not quite sure what shes trying to get it in comparison of the two. Perhaps trying to say if there was no vagina there would be no life which is technically true. I think this story illustrates well the effort Ensler put it to soften people up when the vagina is being talked about particularly at the end when she compares it to the heart.

Moaning Language?

So in this story this women talks about moaning. I'm assuming of course she is a lesbian within the very first line "I love vaginas. I love women." However, I was a bit confused reading in a few more lines when she said "women pay me to dominate them, to excite them, to make them come" so does this mean that she is a prostitute that strictly specializes in women? Or does she do this without sexual contact because further on she mentions how she uses "props" such as chains, whips, handcuffs etc. I'm not sure how to interpret this story because I'm pretty confused. So does this women go from being a lawyer to a prostitute who gets paid by women to make .them "come"? She talks about how she practiced moaning in the mirror and recorded it then played it back to see what she sounded like and said; "but always when I played it back, it sounded fake. It was fake." Maybe this was another reason in which lead her to want to make women moan but really moan not a fake moan. Towards the end of the story she writes about ALL of the different types of moans. You can really see her progress in the story of her understanding of moaning women. It seems to me like a big misinterpretation and I don't know if its because of whats being talked about or if its just me.

"hair" The vagina monologues

Reading "Hair" as well as the beginning of The Vagina Monologues was an entirely new experience for me. I was a little shocked at what i was reading about which i thought was just vagina. Even when i started reading "Hair" i was getting caught off gaurd with lines such as "when he made love to me,my vagina felt the way a beard must feel." and "i could feel his spikey sharpness sticking into me,my naked puffy vagina." it wasn't until the very last line where i started to interpret what in fact this was about. "you have to love the hair in order to love the vagina. You cant pick the parts you want. and besides, my husband never stopped screwing around." I think that shes using the vagina to symbolize love, and the hair to symbolize all the flaws. I wonder if my interpretations are right could she be saying you have to deal with the and look beyond the little flaw and perhaps even not look at it as a flaw rather something good to have love?

"Between the pool and the gardenias"

This story takes place in the Dominican where a women named Marie finds a baby wrapped up in a blanket in the street. I'm assuming that the babies name was Rose because that was embroided on her clothing. What was intriguing about this story is that you don't realize shes speaking of a dead baby until the end, unless you catch her symbolism ahead of time. The first sign was when she wrote "she smelled like the scented powders in Madames cabinet the mixed scent of gardenias and fish" this stood out because upon reading it i was thinking to myself "ok so she smells like fish gross" and i couldn't figure out why until i realized the baby was in fact dead. Marie talks to the baby and refers to it as if it was alive and well telling her about all of her miseries through out life about her cheating husband, her miscarriages, and how she slept with a Dominican pool cleaner. When she finally decided to bury the baby the Dominican calls the police saying that Marie was evil and killed the baby.

Krik? Krak! "Night Women"

"Night Women" is from what I understood a story of a women who is a prostitute. My first speculation of this was when in the beginning when she introduced her son she wrote "For a brief second, I almost mistake him for the ghost of his father, an old lover who disappeared  with the nights shadow a long time ago." This brought line brought about two speculations for me, either she was a prostitute, or her son was concieved due to a one night stand. I later found out that although my speculations of her being a prostitute was right, her son's father however may have infact been a person of importance in her life that may have passed. She goes on to talk about the men that visit her for her services and the excuse she would use if her son had ever woken up during these sessions, or for when he gets old. "I will tell him that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from heaven for a while." SHE BETTER COME UP WITH A BETTER EXCUSE THAN THAT!!! or at least do a better job hiding it maybe taking her activities elsewhere LOL

Krik? Krak? "Children of The Sea"

I am not an avid reader, and it takes something very interesting (to me at least) in a book or any reading to keep my attention. "Children of The Sea" was a very interesting story in its context because it was two people who were in love writing letters to one another in which either persons would never see because the man was in a boat fleeing Haiti. The letters contained all kinds of expressions towards one another including passed conflicts they had "I look up there and i think of you and all those times you resisted. Sometimes i felt like you wanted to but I knew you wanted me to respect you" this is a prime example in  which I think they may be referring to sex The father opposes there love and gave up all of his possessions to protect his daughter. What intrigued me about this tail is the ending because it leave you wondering if they will ever see each other. One question that i asked myself in reading this is what the black butterfly symbolize? Black always symbolizes death and butterflies usually symbolize freedom. So how do the two conjoin? I wonder if he made his escape, or if the boat was him that sank.

"Her Way"

This poem intrigues me the way it was written starting from the title "Her Way." Although the title justifies the poem upon the first few lines I seemed to get caught off gaurd; "What water she poured on the floor/Was more than she needed" this seemed to take my idea away of my idea of the poem being about a women who literally gets "Her Way" because Nye seemed to discredit an act done by her "pouring too much water on the floor". Then the poem seems to twist "Yet her buckets were full/The great buckets of field and orchard/She was dragging them room to room/in a house that already looked clean". The buckets seem to symbolize the women having some sort of a burden upon her, or some duty, and the clean house I think has to symbolize her work load yet already done. In the third stanza Nye talks about soldiars and blood, could she be referring to war? "she was walking with her neck straight/Her eyes placed ahead" I think this poem starts at this point to show a women with an ambition to do good and "her way". I still however don't understand fully the point of this poem. What is this women that cleans necessarily portraying?