Author: Amy Marie Bueno

An Alumni’s Story to Success

Sam Pollard being interviewed by Esther Allen in image above:

Honestly, although I am not interested in specifically a career in film or documentary making there is something that I took away from hearing Sam Pollard’s interview: motivation. It is so cool to know that he is a Baruch Alumni that has established a successful life and career for himself in the film industry, even being given respect by someone as highly regarded as Spike Lee. What initially gained my interest about the conversation is how they mentioned how they initially came to Baruch as a marketing major and how it was their advisor who opened the idea of film making to them. To think that a word of advice can change your entire life. I resonated with this deeply as although I make my own decisions, they are also influenced by an amalgamation of interactions along the way. For example, I have never regretted choosing to study English Literature, yet, it was through constant speaking of the subject with professors and fellow peers that really solidified how happy I truly feel on this path. Sam is proof that you can be a normal New York kid with a dream and succeed bigger than you expect. His talk made me realize that usually the main thing that is holding you back is fear, fear of taking a chance at a dream and failing, yet can you fail if you never try? You can’t, some things are worth risking being in pain over, especially when it’s your passion. 

 

Politics…? Or Maybe a Metaphor

Crumbs from the table of Joy Playbill with Keen Company insert, Entry ticket is ontop, the set of the play can be seen in the background in image above:


I genuinely enjoyed watching the performance. I feel like it began a bit slow but began to pick up with the introduction of the aunt. I was shocked at how much communism held a big role in the plot of the characters yet I chose to see it as a metaphor for different perspectives of life as I don’t care for politics. The element of father divine was comedic yet a bit sad as it was realistic at how religion can truly influence ideologies. Despite it sounding absurd to outsiders that the father believes that the man he calls father divine has a direct connection to God and as a result has the answers to all your struggles, he truly does believe that the man will eventually answer. His belief leads to a form of obsession as he interrupts conversation to jot down questions for Father Divine. It was honestly satisfying to watch the scene where his questions get thrown everywhere as he is barely present in his daughters lives and tends to sound a bit selfish throughout. When it comes to the metaphor of differing perspectives, I believe making the aunt this “radical” for being a communist is powerful when viewed through this lens as the daughter yearns to have the freedom she thinks her aunt has. There was something haunting at the end, as it ended with a sense of need and persistence to survive and thrive as the main character repeated herself until the lights went out. Overall, it was a great experience to see a story that could have been the reality for others back then, it reminds me that no matter how far away historical events may feel, the stories live on as long as we continue to tell them. 

 

The Power of Art at the Museum of the City of New York

painting of the 1911 Triangle factory fire on display at the museum of the city of New York in the image above:

Visiting the Museum of the City of New York was impactful because it reminded me how the power of art can create such strong reactions for me. Having actual historic items for display on its own is intense but what really transforms how you process the information that you are seeing is knowing the stories behind the art or object. To see real shackles can send shivers down anyone’s spine but there is a different sense of pain when it is said that a free woman kept her shackles so that the world can see how they were treated like animals. For me, what made the biggest impression on me is learning about the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire where a painting displays a semblance of the horrors of that day. Our tour guide taught us that workers would be locked inside the building in order to prevent them from taking breaks. Not only was this shocking, but it was also infuriating. It is a reminder of the common trend in history of workers slaving their lives away for corporations that will replace them the second they get sick. This reminded me a lot of Antanas’ death that could have been avoided if working conditions and hours were improved, yet he worked for hours in the cold in a room with chemicals so strong his boots melt. Overall, it was a fun experience and I am glad I was able to have this experience. 

Collective Writing as a Resource in Literature

Amy M. Bueno, Jasmina Drekovic, Ryan Chowdhury, Kevin Perolli

To what extent can we read or engage collective writing as literature? What are the benefits of such an exercise? The limitations?

There are many benefits to using forms of collective writing as literature. Variety in media continues to expand and grow in relevance. Collective writing such as a twitter thread during Black Lives Matter can be deemed as literature. Individuals may find it silly to classify a series of tweets as literature, however, one can gain personal insights on the outrage that took place that originated with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. This makes the tweets a vital part of history when speaking on civil rights. Using this definition one may classify media as literature when it creates importance and attention to a specific topic. The benefits go beyond personal anecdotes, the personal stories of how people were affected during a certain time amplify the trauma and heartbreaking reality that people have faced. Aside from factual evidence from textbooks and news outlets, having personal stories echoes the existing facts but also uses pathos in order to trigger emotions in their readers. However, the benefits do have limitations, as a collective may strongly feel a certain way about a topic. Although the feelings of every individual story are valid they can hold prejudices and biases that may feel like propaganda as personal anecdotes stray away from facts and focus more on how a certain event or topic made them feel. 

“I would say the larger part of the blood pulse and way of life of the community have been missed by the makers of this exhibit. Why should I go to the museum to reread the newspapers?” – David Rivera, Seek Matters Spring 1969 

With a powerful ending to their statement, how David Rivera feels is completely valid. When viewed individually from the collective however, it can be interpreted that they feel the newspapers lack credibility and authenticity in a way the museums exhibit that he visited was for him. Digital and physical news have become a vital source of information in the everyday lives of many people. If the general population were to grow distrust towards the news many will go about their lives without being aware of what is happening in the world beyond their own and how it could potentially impact them. 

 

Accepting Your Reality is Painful in John Okada’s No – No Boy

Imagine having two questions on a measly piece of paper have so much power over you and who you view yourself to be. This is a big aspect of the book being titled “ No-No Boy” because you have two questions that go hand and hand with each other that create a label of identity whether you are ready to receive it or not. To be asked to leave a part of you behind and only focus on the other part of you that destroys what you have suppressed. Your identity being tied to nations, not knowing if you’ll ever be American enough or Japanese enough. It is powerful to read about question 27 and 28 that fortified the isolation and alienation of Japanese people as they would either have to let go of a vital part of who they are or face extreme consequences and abuse as repayment for not making the “right decision.” Those two questions gave the illusion of choice when in reality what is stripping of identity, a twisted form of natural selection where the “weak” are punished for not making the “right choice of saying yes.” 

Lyon, Cherstin. “Questions 27 and 28.” Densho Encyclopedia. 24 Aug 2020, 14:47 PDT. 23 Mar 2023, 13:52 <https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Questions%2027%20and%2028>.

This reminds me of Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory which spoke about the sexual trauma many women growing up in Haiti may experience, it is the main plot of the story as the protagonist Sophie deals with generational trauma related to sexual assault that continues to harm and debilitate her from a child into adulthood. In a Journal Article written by Masoumeh Mehni in regard to the reception of Danticat’s raw depiction of what it is like growing up with sexual trauma and how culture and family can have a big part to play states, “ McAfee claims that in Kristeva’s point of view, “Literature offers a way to help work through what afflicts us. In addition to displaying the symptoms of some kind of malady of the soul, literature can be cathartic” (McAfee 50). This is certainly true for abjection. In her book Powers of Horror , Kristeva says of abjection and literature:

By suggesting that literature is [abjection’s] privileged signifier, I wish to point out that, far from being a minor, marginal activity in our culture, as a general consensus seems to have it, this kind of literature, or even literature as such, represents the ultimate coding of our crises, of our most intimate and most serious apocalypses. Hence its nocturnal power (Kristeva 208).” 

Mehni, Masoumeh. “Analyzing the Problematic Mother-Daughter Relationship in Edwidge Danticat’s ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory.’” Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 7, no. 1, 2011, pp. 77–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41939268. Accessed 23 Mar. 2023.

Danticat went on to publish a letter of apology as Haitian women felt they were being portrayed in a negative light and later had to state that not all women in Haiti will face this sort of trauma, however, it doesn’t erase the sexual oppression and control of women that Danticat witnessed growing up. Sometimes, audiences are not ready to have salt poured on their wounds because the truth of the pain may be too much to bear.

To read No- No Boy by John Okada in today’s society means to openly acknowledge the pain and suffering Asian Americans faced and were forced to relive during COVID. To openly read his book is to be vulnerable with your trauma and speak on it so that others feel understood but also supported. Minorities are not alone in their story, and they deserve to be recognized no matter how painful it may be to do so. We cannot erase that pain, but we can acknowledge its existence. 

 



Annotating Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1955)

“who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,” – Part 1

With the common theme of speaking on people who follow “the road not taken” by being different from what society deems as normal or acceptable. This quote is profound in the way it uses the labeling of ‘crazy’ to emphasize the divide from sane and insane and how easy it is for a society to physically alienate a person for having different views. Ginsberg alludes to the mind when they say windows in the skull.”

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! – Part 2 

This entire part in particular is very interesting as it uses the repetition of the name Moloch and according to the Britannica Encyclopedia, “ Moloch, also spelled Molech, a Canaanite deity associated in biblical sources with the practice of child sacrifice… In the Hebrew Bible, Moloch is presented as a foreign deity who was at times illegitimately given a place in Israel’s worship as a result of the syncretistic policies of certain apostate kings. The laws given to Moses by God expressly forbade the Jews to do what was done in Egypt or in Canaan.” The significance of this name after reading the different meanings of the name creates a sense of rage and pain as Ginsber continues on naming horrible things, “ Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!..” 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god#:~:text=Moloch%2C%20also%20spelled%20Molech%2C%20a,the%20practice%20of%20child%20sacrifice.

 “where we hug and kiss the United States under our bed sheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep” – Part 3 

This quote does an interesting use of personifying the United States by talking about a country as if it were a corporeal being that you can actually lay down next to. This is significant because in a way it can be interpreted as an allusion to the American dream as many glorify coming to live in the United States but only to suffer the consequences of facing the struggles of actually living in the United States. The US especially in this time of civil rights movement more than ever was far from being the “land of the free” where just your complexion was enough to determine your value in society.

 

Black Excellence as a Result of Resilience

“all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.” (Chapter 1)

This quote is much deeper than on the surface mainly because it speaks on the awareness Black people have in order to succeed in a society that was built against them, in a country filled with White people thinking they are superior simply because of difference in appearance. With this statement, Du Bois is saying that Black people had to learn how to find their own faith to survive. The topic of faith can be spoken on just by itself as many forms of song and religion came from slavery as a way to feel connected to the cultures that have been ripped from them as well as creating an outlet to let go of the trauma and pain they have experienced. When it comes to money and intelligence, those who grew up privileged may not give it a second thought as they just measly have it and only start to care about it when families face abrupt bankruptcy and such. Black people were deemed inferior without them having a say in the matter. Money and intelligence as a Black person is known to get you to be noticed in the United States, however, even then one must work under the White man.

Du Bois understands the reality of society for these Black workers as White people feel bothered or challenged when a Black person goes against what they believe in. Although he is directly referencing faith, money and intelligence, he is also referencing how hard Black people work to succeed in this society and how self aware of how others see them they must be to maintain success. There is a reason Black excellence is a term used in today’s society, because till this day many people don’t have the connotations of Black individuals being intelligent as even our government is dominantly White. As a Latina, there is this idea that I should have gotten pregnant young and dropped out of school but more and more of us understand Du Bois  and know that despite the system being designed for us to not succeed many people of color persevere past societal barriers and use their intelligence and financial literacy to create generational wealth.

Just the other day my professor told me her friend was one of the first Dominican women to become a Judge and my heart soared with joy because I can only imagine the hurdles she must have faced to gain a position in power. Every time a person of color succeeds that a big F YOU to the White supremacists whose skins crawls as they see us as animals but we finally make them acknowledge that there is nothing they can do that we cant.

Sometimes, All We Need Is A Reality Check To Take Action

“Were the packers to let the union stewards march into their places and bind them to a contract that would lose them several thousand dollars a day for a year? Not much!

All this was in June; and before long the question was submitted to a referendum in the unions, and the decision was for a strike. It was the same in all the packinghouse cities; and suddenly the newspapers and public woke up to face the gruesome spectacle of a meat famine.” Sinclair – Chapter 26 

 

This passage builds up suspense for the realities of what is to come after taking a stance against the horrors they have faced. Upton Sinclair created a public outcry of the horrible conditions in which workers slaved away their lives as civilians also trust the food they consumed is not contaminated. To be faced with the reality of your situation in the way this scene does as they break down their situation, one can’t help but be appalled and take action. These men see how unjust and inhumane their situation is so they chose to fight for themselves. 

An article written by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states, “In fact, the nauseating condition of the meat-packing industry that Upton Sinclair captured in The Jungle was the final precipitating force behind both a meat inspection law and a comprehensive food and drug law. Since 1879, nearly 100 bills had been introduced in Congress to regulate food and drugs; on 30 June 1906 President Roosevelt signed the Food and Drugs Act, known simply as the Wiley Act, a pillar of the Progressive era.”

It is incredible to know that such a large amount of bills were waiting 27 years. In those 27 years men like Antanas gave their lives to their work, meat was pumped with chemicals, and rooms flooded with blood  no matter the time of day. It could have been prevented, however, what is most appalling is the thought that if Upton Sinclair didn’t expose the meatpacking industry, then how many more years would it have taken the government to pass those bills? The people of the United States were faced with the bitter truth that their food was primarily poison and was packed in a place that many feel resembles hell. Upton Sinclair opened the people’s eyes and they chose to take a stance and fight for what is just. This quote affirms the idea that receiving a reality check can create visceral responses, reading in detail how the industry functioned was what the people needed so that now, in today’s society there are these acts in place that not only protect the workers but everyone as a whole.

FDA, 2019. https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/changes-science-law-and-regulatory-authorities/part-i-1906-food-and-drugs-act-and-its-enforcement