Dear Ms. Silko

Ms. Silko:

First of all, I would like to thank you for addressing a topic as controversial as border control. As your essay showed, this is an issue that is easily and often swept under the rug by citizens and even government officials. Learning about the condoned behavior and actions of the Border Patrol was upsetting, but the sentiment in your words provided emotional insight into the border culture.

Your account of the Border Patrolmen and the dog was particularly unsettling and interesting. The anger of the Patrolmen was especially notable for how quickly they shifted their vexation from you and Gus to the dog. You later mention how politicians and media use dehumanizing and demonizing terms, and this is a perfect example of those in action. The Patrolmen did not see you and Gus as fellow humans, but as animals that are under the reign of the government and border. You did an impeccable job of representing this through the leash on the dog and the dog’s desire to not serve its masters. The patrolmen used the leash to restrict the dog’s freedom and to use it as means of control over the dog, but this did not keep the dog from rebelling in the only way she could. In the same way, the government and Border Patrol were trying to keep you and Gus, and millions of other people on the road, under their control. They use the border as means of restraint and limitation of liberty, but that does not keep people from doing what they feel they need to do. You mentioned you and the dog “exchanging looks.” I believe that you and the dog had a connection and understanding that night. You both know what it feels like to be restrained when all you want to do is “break loose.”

Thank you again for your informative and stirring words

Sincerely,

Samantha Welch

The Things I Carry

Trudging over the hills and through the swamps, I am accompanied by the baggage that I left behind. The look of loss and despair on my parents’ faces weighs heavily in my pack. I left them my original dog tag. Lieutenant Cross believes that I lost the first one, but I only pretended to lose it. The “lost” dog tag I gave to my parents, in hopes that when they rest their eyes upon my name, they will know that I am still alive, with the other dog tag around my neck. There was an air of betrayal between us as we said our goodbyes, knowing that I might not return.

     With each step of my weighty combat boots, I can sense the locket my wife gave me, moving around in my pack. Each step seems heavier and harder than the last, knowing that I am moving farther and farther away from her and the promise she made with the locket. Right before I kissed her goodbye, she said, “This is not goodbye. A piece of me and your child are inside this locket, and as long as you have it, you will have us.” This is all I have learned of our unborn child, and this weight is carried at my core.

     These memories I carry also carry me. The recollections of the days before the war are more pressing than the jungle humidity, but they are a reminder of why I press on each day. All of this is bearable, except for one load: the bars and stars on my arm. To the unknowing eye, they represent courage and progress. But to me, each piece is the poundage of a body: the bodies of the lives I have taken, that will never return to their families. 

Journal #13

There are two variations of the American Dream: the first is the mere idea. This is the American Dream in its pure form, because the dreamer has not yet experienced it. The second form is the true American Dream. This is only brought about through an attempted experience of the first form. For most, their American Dream will not follow the ideal path of the first variation. This is the case for Zitkala-Sa when she writes about her “School Days of an Indian Girl.”

            Her story commences in the hopeful light of the pure American Dream. Though she is being separated from her home and family, the separation will be a prosperous one. She will gain knowledge and prestige not just for her, but also for her whole family. Naturally, events do not continue along this progressive path, as is clearly stated when Zitkala-Sa says “I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy, as I had thought I should be” (430). Every immigrant who has ever travelled to the United States in hopes of fulfilling their American Dream has felt this same angst as Zitkala-Sa. She had been fed the heavenly images of “rosy skies” and liberating bliss, but this is never encountered. She says that she was “not happy, as I had thought I should be.” All that she had been told about her new life was not true, and after having to be disjointed from the only life she had ever known, she felt that she deserved to have her Dream.

            Zitkala-Sa did achieve one form of the American Dream. In her later life, she continued to rise above expectations and reinvent the norms for her race and gender. Whether she herself believed to have achieved the American Dream or not is nebulous. The closing paragraph of the excerpt from “The School Days of an Indian Girl” reveals that even victory and triumph in the eyes of her peers could not satisfy the discontentment that events and choices in her life had caused her and her mother.

Journal 12: Queen of Tact

“IT has been suggested to me that the American general reader is not well informed regarding the social and political conditions which have come about in the Sandwich Islands, and that it would be well here to give some expression to my own observation of them.”

This singular sentence demonstrates the self-control and tact that Queen Liliuokalani possessed and carefully employed during her reign. Instead of ranting about the appallingly small awareness of the “American general reader,” she delicately accepts the suggestion to properly inform those who did not know the social and political conditions, and writes a visceral and factual appeal that would affect anyone who read her words.

Journal #11: response to Melissa Yuen

Though I probably lack the authority knowledge to say so, I greatly praise Melissa Yuen for the connections she has drawn between the short story and poems from our reading. The country and culture of her origin are radically different from America and its culture, but Melissa recognizes the similarities between all humans.

            Melissa questions the wrongful sense of entitlement that white people still possessed long after the Civil War. This sense of authority had its roots the initial capture and transportation of Africans to America. White people looked upon the indigenous Africans as uncivilized and in need of socialization to the European culture. The white people thus empowered themselves by believing that they were superior to the Africans and giving themselves the duty of refining the African peoples. So I stress that in the eyes of the English settlers, the tribal Africans really were inferior. Once this mindset had been distinguished, it continued for several centuries, as we well know, and still continues today in various pockets of society.

As Melissa said, the readings portrayed whites in a very negative light. To truly understand the actions of majorities, which in this case was the white people, we must examine the reasons and leaders behind the actions. The whites (condemning blacks) did not see themselves as doing anything wrong, and they probably had many reasons to justify their actions. Though those reasons have been deemed invalid (as they should be), the beliefs of white people were still their beliefs. People will always believe what they believe, especially when there is a charismatic leader telling them that this belief will enhance their life. This is sufficient incentive, more often than not, for people to commit heinous crimes against their fellow man, and truly believe that their acts are justified. 

Not Even a Day is Built in a Day

            There is a common phrase that reads, “Good things come to those who wait.” This expression is most likely rooted in the Bible, specifically in the book of Psalms.  After reading E.W. Harper’s “Learning to Read” and Charles Chestnutt’s “The Wife of his Youth,” I had to do some waiting before coming to a realization that was worthy of documentation.

            The woman named Chloe in Harper’s poem helped bring some specific Bible verses to mind. Psalm 27:14 says to “wait for the Lord; Be strong; and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” Chloe had to be patient and wait many years before she had the opportunity and freedom to learn to read. As Kaity Wegen said in her blog, there was not one specific “Aha!” moment, because gaining understanding of the poem was more of a “gradual process,” just as the process of literary freedom for slaves did not happen over night

            There is a female character in Chesnutt’s short story by the name of Liza Jane. She is very similar to Chloe in her patient waiting for what she knew to be true and worth waiting for. She had spent the last twenty-five years loyally searching for the husband of her youth after they had been separated during the war. Her faithfulness is comparable to Biblical faithfulness, especially in the book of Hebrews when Abraham’s faith and patience are tested. Liza Jane, just as Abraham, “after waiting patiently…received what was promised” (Hebrews 6:15).

            My final realization occurred when a parallel was drawn between the poem and the story. The lengthy struggle of patience and obedience that Chloe and Liza Jane endure embody the abolition movement. The cause of abolition did not appear overnight, and it took many years to bring awareness and support to the cause, but eventually they achieved their goal. The abolitionists faced innumerable obstacles, just as Liza Jane was doubted to “really…find her husband” (Chestnutt), and Chloe was told that she was “too late” (Harper) to waste her time attempting to learn to read at her old age.  The women’s unchanging devotion to their individual causes is the same devotion found among abolitionists to their cause. 

The Paradox of Constant Change

History is an odd thing. You begin learning the history of your home country at a young age, then the history of your state, continent, and the entire earth (or what we have come to know of it). While you are learning all of this, you are also creating your own history, and seeing how it connects to the histories of others. The most prominent aspect of history that I have made note of is its tendency towards being paradoxical. Societies and individuals, politics and technology, and intelligence and wisdom are in a constant flux and reinvention of themselves with the forthcoming generations.  

     Awareness of this common thread throughout the history of the world allows parallels to be made within the ever-turning wheel of history. During the Era of Reconstruction, Americans were struggling to find their place in the society that they had once known to be completely different. Caucasians were now alongside African Americans and former slaves, working on brand new inventions, such as barbed wire and the lightbulb. Also accompanying them or working below them were even more immigrants from Ireland, China, and various other foreign countries that had come through Ellis Island seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

     Modern Americans are still living among similar happenings. Americans are now competing for and collaborating on jobs with many more immigrants from Asia, and now the Middle East as well. They are now producing computers, iPhones, MRI machines, and a million other new technologies that arise every single day. And what is the inherent goal that all of these Americans have? To achieve a better life for themselves and their families. History will always be the same, because the wheel of change will always be turning.