Dear Diary,
It is the beginning of the rest of my life. My family and I have decided to travel north, to the land of prosperity. Theses roaring 1920s have given us a boost to the New Negro aspect of life. Although the fear of lynching and other murderous tactics that have taken place since I can remember, there is hope for a brighter tomorrow for me and my people. Now, I have to keep my moving north secret. If the white folks were to find out, they would treat me poorly and do whatever it took to keep me here, to continue to be mistreated and used for their labor, but more importantly for their pride. No matter how or where I live, I had to watch my back. A white person is always out to get me and I’m tired of his lifestyle. My family deserves better, I deserve better. Now is the time to make something of myself, of my heritage. I should be proud to be an African America. It is a time of rebirth, of Renaissance. I’ve seen how the government takes no action in any effort of my life, and just flat out doesn’t care. Realizing this, we’ve taken action into our own hands. I’ve recently joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Our unity is what will get us through, unity in purpose and promise. Day by day, we are writing our own history. We are focused on the poor African Americans. I am a bit skeptical about this organization because it is taking a different approach, although it is unified, it is saying that we are not equal. We are never going to be thought of as equal, so why try.
We want to make a name for ourselves. Our African Americanism entitles us to a country of freedom, liberty and democracy, not into a lifestyle of fear that we’ve so recently been forced into. Mr. Marcus Garvey, an ambitious man for the people of color as well as the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, wants to take the people back to Africa and then capture Africa from the American colonies. I do not agree with this. America is the land of the free. We are African Americans, we’ve worked hard for our citizenship. Our ancestors are the ones who made this country prosper. I believe that it will eventually be realized that we need each other to survive peacefully, what we’ve been called to do as Americans.
The members of my community have taken action by writing to a prosperous friend of the Southern African Americans, The Chicago Defender, asking the Defender for money to give us, yes myself included, for the chance at a better opportunity not so much ourselves, but for our families. Our cost of living is increasing so much, all the while our wages are getting smaller and smaller. Although the North provides tons of jobs for our people, with which will come prosperity, the problem many of my problems, as well as the problems of others, goes back to transportation. We have no way to get there, especially with the shortage of money we are already facing. Nothing is more frustrating than knowing there is a better life, but not being able to reach it. Those jobs are available, heck, they’re even wanted! We want the jobs, the employers want us to have the jobs. They’re calling this move to the North the Great Migration. I’ve been fortunate enough to have saved up for the move, but through the unity of my people, I cannot help but feel their pain. I would hate to leave anyone behind, but have to put the needs of my family, my first and foremost unified people. My people have even gotten so desperate that they’ve written the editor of the Defender offering a deduction of pay from their salary to cover their travel costs once they get to the free land, the North.
I know that the world has yet to fully recognize us as people, but we have come a long way from where we were half a century ago, even a decade ago, or a couple of years ago. Just last year the New KKK, oh those horrible, horrible people did such terrible, terrible things in the Red Summer, Tulsa and Rosewood. Liberty has no cost, as my family and community have been witness to the death of many for our liberty. The North has the hope for a better life, yet no promises. To the white folks of the north, I will be forever grateful. I cannot wait for the life that my family will have their, giving my children the chance at an education, something no one can take away or render from them. This is something I will treasure forever in the debts of my soul.
Tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of my life, or should I say, tomorrow, I begin my life. Although I am scared, my faith has to be that we will succeed, that our lives will be worth living and we will be unified through our differences.
Until we meet again,
Abbot Lutcher
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Mexican American
It’s 1920 and you, Alonzo Vasquez, are a Mexican immigrant to the United States. While you love your new country, it is very important to you that your family remember and honor your culture and traditions, many of which are tied to your homeland. You are increasingly worried that your children, in the process of becoming “American,” are ignoring the importance of their heritage. Why is it so important to you that your family retain some cultural connection to Mexico and your Mexican heritage? What evidence is there that your children are being wholly “Americanized?” What conflicts has this created between you and your children?
*This assignment, while allowing for creativity, MUST draw from your VoF readings for the week and Becoming Mexican American.
America is the land of the free. As a native-born Mexican, and chosen American, becoming Mexican American, is not the easiest process. Although I do love the land of prosperity and as well as the Sunshine State, California, my native culture will never leave me. It is very hard to balance two completely different lifestyles. Entering into a land full of Native Angelino’s, there are many unspoken expectational characteristics. Such as the children going to school, I, Alonzo Vasquez, the father, as the working breadwinner, my wife balancing a job and the caretaker of the house, while still receiving less pay. It was unheard of in Mexico for my wife to work, now she actually wants to. Rarely was English even spoken in Mexico, now my family hardly speaks any Spanish. It’s understandable that we would lose some of our Mexican culture, but it darkens my soul to it slip away more and more each day.
It is important to me and my family to maintain our Mexican culture and heritage because it makes us who we are. It’s what I’ve always known is right. I want to instill in my family that I can provide for them and give them the lifestyle that they deserve, while still showing them the importance of family and Mexican pride, from which our heritage originated. Family has always been extremely important to us, it was hard on my mom and dad to see us go; to completely forget my heritage and culture would be unacceptable to them. I want to prove to them that I can come here and still be who I am, that I am not ashamed of who I am, where I came from. That I am proud of them, I want to make them proud of me as well.
The transition hasn’t been so easy on my children, they forget who they are because of how little time they spent in Mexico. Their mother was strategically targeted to the Americanization process. They wanted to get her from being the domestic leader, my life wouldn’t even make us rice and beans anymore. Tortillas replaced with bread and beans with lettuce. She’s fallen into that trap and it’s made me resent her. I don’t understand why they would want to change our culture and the strong family ties that we have. They don’t understand why I don’t want to fit in better into this new land of the free.
I’ve learned how selfish America is. She doesn’t care about the people. She cares about industrialization. She cares about prosperity of herself, not about the wellness of the people. She is open to immigration, but nothing outside the perfect American lifestyle, needless to say was not in any way perfect.
*This assignment, while allowing for creativity, MUST draw from your VoF readings for the week and Becoming Mexican American.
America is the land of the free. As a native-born Mexican, and chosen American, becoming Mexican American, is not the easiest process. Although I do love the land of prosperity and as well as the Sunshine State, California, my native culture will never leave me. It is very hard to balance two completely different lifestyles. Entering into a land full of Native Angelino’s, there are many unspoken expectational characteristics. Such as the children going to school, I, Alonzo Vasquez, the father, as the working breadwinner, my wife balancing a job and the caretaker of the house, while still receiving less pay. It was unheard of in Mexico for my wife to work, now she actually wants to. Rarely was English even spoken in Mexico, now my family hardly speaks any Spanish. It’s understandable that we would lose some of our Mexican culture, but it darkens my soul to it slip away more and more each day.
It is important to me and my family to maintain our Mexican culture and heritage because it makes us who we are. It’s what I’ve always known is right. I want to instill in my family that I can provide for them and give them the lifestyle that they deserve, while still showing them the importance of family and Mexican pride, from which our heritage originated. Family has always been extremely important to us, it was hard on my mom and dad to see us go; to completely forget my heritage and culture would be unacceptable to them. I want to prove to them that I can come here and still be who I am, that I am not ashamed of who I am, where I came from. That I am proud of them, I want to make them proud of me as well.
The transition hasn’t been so easy on my children, they forget who they are because of how little time they spent in Mexico. Their mother was strategically targeted to the Americanization process. They wanted to get her from being the domestic leader, my life wouldn’t even make us rice and beans anymore. Tortillas replaced with bread and beans with lettuce. She’s fallen into that trap and it’s made me resent her. I don’t understand why they would want to change our culture and the strong family ties that we have. They don’t understand why I don’t want to fit in better into this new land of the free.
I’ve learned how selfish America is. She doesn’t care about the people. She cares about industrialization. She cares about prosperity of herself, not about the wellness of the people. She is open to immigration, but nothing outside the perfect American lifestyle, needless to say was not in any way perfect.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Poor, Jewish Woman
It’s 1892 and you, Esther Klein, are a 17-year-old textile mill worker in the American northeast. You are new to the country and to industrial work, having worked previously on your parents’ farm in the old country. As much as you longed to come to America, your life as a poor Jewish industrial worker in the United States makes you have second thoughts. And life at the mill—why you and some of the other girls dream of organizing and standing up to the mill owners, but what you’ve seen of other labor organizing worries you! So tell me, Esther, what are the sources of your dissatisfaction as a poor woman, a worker, and a Jewish immigrant? Why have your dreams, of what life in America would be, changed?
I came to America to change my stars. I fled with hopes of seeking a better life than the political and religious persecution I received as a Jewish girl in Europe. America was portrayed to be a land with a boosting economy and industrial revolution, not to mention the freedom to be who you are. It was the land of the free. We were thrilled to come. It didn’t take long for me to see the true colors of America, beneath the natural resources and the boom of transportation, communication through scientific breakthroughs, such as electricity and railroads.
There were many jobs, but with harsh conditions. I experienced my first discrimination working as a girl in the textile mill industry. I was forced to work extreme hours, with less than half the pay of the men workers. I was unskilled, coming from Europe, to do the entrepreneur sorts of jobs that were making America explode. Because I was unskilled, I could be easily replaced. I had to work under my employers conditions, simply because I needed a job. Not to mention, some of the jobs a young woman such as myself were forced to do were monotonous. They were tedious. We had little respect and our employer had no relationship with me.
As a poor, Jewish woman I couldn’t rise to be anything else than the condition of an unskilled worker. I had no advantage. The white supremacy Americans had never seen dark hair and eyed Europeans. They made it a point to separate us, therefore we separated ourselves. I was also thought of as a job stealer. I came to America to seek the prosperity of the west, only to find that it was nearly impossible for me to get out of poverty.
The land I once sought so dear and full of hope, left me, a poor, Jewish woman, hopeless. I once thought of America as the land of the free. I came to witness unequal pay for the same job, a culture that was completely against the individual, completely for the rich. The government feed the rich and deprived the poor. We were forced to stick together in a close-knit community by sticking to the only thing we’ve ever known, our culture, our language, our religion.
I came to America to change my stars. I fled with hopes of seeking a better life than the political and religious persecution I received as a Jewish girl in Europe. America was portrayed to be a land with a boosting economy and industrial revolution, not to mention the freedom to be who you are. It was the land of the free. We were thrilled to come. It didn’t take long for me to see the true colors of America, beneath the natural resources and the boom of transportation, communication through scientific breakthroughs, such as electricity and railroads.
There were many jobs, but with harsh conditions. I experienced my first discrimination working as a girl in the textile mill industry. I was forced to work extreme hours, with less than half the pay of the men workers. I was unskilled, coming from Europe, to do the entrepreneur sorts of jobs that were making America explode. Because I was unskilled, I could be easily replaced. I had to work under my employers conditions, simply because I needed a job. Not to mention, some of the jobs a young woman such as myself were forced to do were monotonous. They were tedious. We had little respect and our employer had no relationship with me.
As a poor, Jewish woman I couldn’t rise to be anything else than the condition of an unskilled worker. I had no advantage. The white supremacy Americans had never seen dark hair and eyed Europeans. They made it a point to separate us, therefore we separated ourselves. I was also thought of as a job stealer. I came to America to seek the prosperity of the west, only to find that it was nearly impossible for me to get out of poverty.
The land I once sought so dear and full of hope, left me, a poor, Jewish woman, hopeless. I once thought of America as the land of the free. I came to witness unequal pay for the same job, a culture that was completely against the individual, completely for the rich. The government feed the rich and deprived the poor. We were forced to stick together in a close-knit community by sticking to the only thing we’ve ever known, our culture, our language, our religion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
