Well, this weekend, I went home to Grandville, and was talking to a woman from my church who identifies herself as Mexican, being that she is from Mexico City, and she started going into a talk about how she will never go into the dollar store in Grand Rapids, again. She was complaining about "those people who habit the inner city" and was complaining about how she doesn't understand them or the way they talk, and really saying some offensive things to me and my mother when we were serving her coffee after church! I immediately thought about how interesting it was that this interchange happened the week I was reading Project Mulberry and thought about how I could actually relate what was happening in that moment to the book. Although the ethnic groups were not the same, the fact that there was racism was the same. I really wanted to delve further into why she was racist towards others, but didn't have a chance, nor thought it was appropriate for small talk during coffee serving hours. I thought, in the novel, it was a bit distracting from the bigger picture of the story, the deeper issue about the mom and her feelings toward African Americans, but I am wondering if that is why I maybe picked up on this conversation a little more---maybe because I had just read this novel and it struck a chord with me. I am not sure, yet, how to analyze deeper, but will be thinking about it. I just thought that was an interesting anecdote that related to Project Mulberry.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
weekend connections.
I had a very interesting experience this weekend that strangely enough, ties exactly into some of the themes in Project Mulberry. In PM, the main character's mother seemed to have some racist tendencies toward African Americans. The main reason, in this story, for the racism was because the main character thought her mom may have felt some racism from her ancestors because of the African Americans that came into Korea during the war, when they were fighting.
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3 comments:
Interesting how a good text can illuminate reality - this is a great connection, and I'm so glad you brought it up!
I agree--great connection! We used to do a warm up in TE 448 where people would share connections between our readings and their lives (personal, news, etc.) The problem, if it really is one, was that we were spending so much time with those connections that we weren't talking about the books! Although I decided not to continue the practice, I still think it is important. I'm glad the blog has turned out to be a place where we can do this work.
This is a tangent, but I'm curious about the public service announcement that is at the top of your blog. Did you insert it? Or did Google do it "by itself"?
Very interesting connection. This just shows how literature can span many cultures and how students might be able to connect with, or see themselves in diverse texts that might not necessarily be about their race, religion, gender, etc. I also agree that the topic of racism in the book took away from the general theme of Julia coming to grips with her race, but then again the racist views of her mother can be compared to those who called Julia "Chinka-Chinka-Chinaman," so this side of the story can't be ignored.
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