Author: Kenia Torres

Quarter Rican Trip Reflection

The play Quarter Rican dealt with the topic of identity and explored the different ways one can embrace identity even when it feels like something you’re struggling to hold onto. Throughout the play, we follow Danny who is half Puerto Rican, as he struggles to find a way to raise his son, who is a quarter Puerto Rican, in a way that will help him stay connected to his culture’s roots. While Danny is concerned that both he and his son are not “Puerto Rican enough,” in part because of how people perceive them due to their physical appearances (they are mixed and are more white passing,) the play reassures both Danny and us (the audience) that identity is not about how people perceive you, but about how you perceive yourself and about how much of your culture you choose to embrace and keep with you.

Upon reflection I think there are multiple ways to embrace and claim identity. Staying connected to your culture when living somewhere else that has totally different traditions, practices, and people can be a challenge as the play acknowledges, however finding spaces or people with whom you can connect to and bond over similar cultural experiences with, is often a good place to start. For example, one of the items on the “Puerto Rican toolkit” was having Puerto Rican Neighbors. I think that having the play set in NYC/ NJ was a great setting to choose because NYC is known as the melting pot of cultures, which paves the way for anyone to explore cultures that are unfamiliar to them or to feel connected to their own even if they are far away from home. Pride is also a big way to claim identity. The play concluded with pride being the last item in the took kit. I think having pride about your identity is such an important thing because pride is what unites people and keeps traditions and cultures alive for so long. Pride in our identities and our cultures, allows us to pass down traditions and share our experiences with excitement. It also allows us to think about our experience as something more than trauma, and instead allows us to think of them as a uniting force that was overcome by strength.

Reflection for play Crumbs from the Table of Joy

Overall I really enjoyed the play Crumbs from the Table of Joy. While I thought it was a little slow in the beginning it definitely picked up a few scenes in. One of the things I found really interesting about the play was the role communism played throughout and the father’s obsession with father divine. It was very interesting to think about how different characters found different things to cling to for hope during hard times. For Lilly, it was communism since she believed that communism would eventually resolve all the injustices that were occurring. She also thought that as an individual you are in charge of taking action and standing up for what you believe to be right. Through the play she constantly encourages her niece to stand up for herself, especially when white people try to tell her what to do and try to define her worth. The father, on the other hand, puts all his faith in religion to fix all his problems. He blindly believes in everything and anything father divine tells him and has a very different mind set from Lilly. He believes that you should try and avoid conflict and encourages his daughters to do the same. When his daughter writes an essay that upsets one of her white teachers, the father demands that he apologize for offending her because he doesn’t want them to be on her bad side.

Reflection of the Museum of the City of New York

Whenever I go to museums I usually tend to wander around by myself and have never really gone on a tour with a guide. However, I really enjoyed this tour and found it very informative. One part that stuck out to me was when the guide explained the story behind a pair of shackles they had on display. The shackles had been placed on an African American woman and when she was finally liberated from them, she kept them and gave them to an activist to hold up at rallies and use them as a symbol of strength and resistance. I found that very surprising but was also amazed at how the meaning of an object that caused so much pain could be flipped and used as a symbol of strength and empowerment. I also learned a lot about the tragic triangle shirtwaist factory incident. The tour guide explained that mostly women worked in this factory and the working conditions were extremely tough. Women would work for multiple hours straight without breaks and in order to ensure that they didn’t take any breaks, the factory owners would lock the doors so that they couldn’t escape unless they had the key. One day one of the managers was careless with the cigarette he was smoking and ended up starting a fire in the factory. Because the doors were locked and the women couldn’t find anyone with the key, many of them jumped to their deaths and a lot of them died in the fire. As the guide was telling us about this, I was reminded of the harsh working conditions depicted in the Jungle and how a lot of these tragedies could have been avoided had the factory owner been less greedy and more humane. It’s good to see that improvements have been made in workplaces however, although we still have a long way to go to completely eliminate labor injustice. 

Experience reading + what it means to publish No-No boy

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/books/no-no-boy-penguin.html
An article by the New York Times titled “Dispute Arises Over ‘No-No Boy,’ a Classic of Asian-American Literature With a Complex History” talks about the controversy that arose when Penguin Classics re-published the novel, raising questions about its ownership. The ONCE-OVERLOOKED novel was published by Penguin in May of 2019 and was the first ever Japanese- American novel and JAPANESE-AMERICAN author that penguin had published. I found this article interesting because it made me think about the risks or lack thereof that publishing houses are willing to take on books that don’t fit into the “American novel” ideal. No-No boy for example, was only published by penguin after it proved successful when published by a university press.
I think reading this novel in class was an interesting experience for me which I really enjoyed. For the most part I always feel like the things I read in my English classes are written by white men, or white women if I get lucky (which I guess makes sense since that is what most of the literary cannon is comprised of) but at the same time it’s always nice to hear new and diverse voices. I also think that the fact that we are still reading this novel today highlights the relevance that it has on our current society. A large part of what the novel No-No boy is concerned with is themes of not knowing where you fully fit in and feeling like an outsider. I think a lot of people today can still relate to that feeling especially immigrants and the children of immigrants.

Annotating “Howl” By Allen Ginsberg

“…who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts…”

The imagery of these lines is powerful. The part “leaving no broken hearts”  can be interpreted in two ways. One which suggests that they are leaving behind no one who loves them or who cares for them, and the other suggesting that their own hearts are not broken because they don’t care that they are leaving since they have no attachment for the place they are in.

“They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!” 

I found the reference to Moloch in this sentence interesting. Moloch was a Canaanite deity who was “associated in biblical sources with the practice of child sacrifice.” I think the having these people who Ginsberg considers to have “the best minds” metaphorically lifting this evil creature to success, highlights Ginsberg’s point of how society encourages the waste of their potential ultimately driving them to madness or to the loss of their abilities.

“I’m with you in Rockland

where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void”

These lines allude to the shock therapy that American writer Carol Solomon received as treatment for his depression. The imagery here as well is striking with Ginsberg describing death as the “pilgrimage of the soul to a cross in the void”

Defining Freedom Through Literary Devices

“Thus he grew in body and soul, and with him, his clothes seemed to grow and arrange themselves; coat sleeves got longer, cuffs appeared, and collars got less soiled…And we who saw daily a new thoughtfulness growing in his eyes began to expect something of this plodding boy. He had left his queer thought world and come back to a world of motion and of men…He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh.” (Chapter 13)

Through this passage Dubois uses imagery to highlight the eye opening experience that education can provide to those who are oppressed. He also shows that education can be used as a medium to combat oppression because it makes people aware of the gravity of the situation they’re in and allows them to think critically about how to resolve their issues. In this passage we are able to see the shift of John who was once described as carless and whom no one believed would get very far even while pursuing an education. John’s eventual success shows that education can be viewed as a means to freedom. While John wasn’t able to fully understand the oppression he was experiencing before he was educated, he began to notice the “oppression that had not seemed oppression before” once he got an education, and was able to begin working towards overcoming it. With this passage Dubois also seems to be describing a sort of transformation between the free person and the person who is not. The imagery of the shedding of the veil marks this distinction for when the “veil” has fallen a person has begun their path towards achieving freedom. In the section the follows this passage I also think that though Dubois does seem to view education as a step towards freedom he is also aware of the fact that regardless of how much education you get it will be really hard to escape your class since that seems to be something that is determined by race.

Blog Post on The Jungle using Cultural and Historical Resources

“She was a “settlement-worker, she explained to Elzbieta⁠—she lived around on Ashland Avenue…Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she told all their woes⁠—what had happened to Ona, and the jail, and the loss of their home, and Marija’s accident, and how Ona had died, and how Jurgis could get no work. As she listened the pretty young lady’s eyes filled with tears, and in the midst of it she burst into weeping and hid her face on Elzbieta’s shoulder, quite regardless of the fact that the woman had on a dirty old wrapper and that the garret was full of fleas,” (Sinclair, Chapter 21).

This quote shows the reaction that “outsiders” have to the lives of immigrants during this time. Upon hearing about the horrible working conditions and unfair treatment that the family has to face, the settlement worker can hardly handle the reality of it and breaks down crying. I believe that this is a response Sinclair would hope to get from the his readers. I originally thought Sinclair’s book was successfully able to expose the cruelty and inhumanness of the meat packing industry and the effects that it had on workers and immigrant communities, by making his characters very sympathetic. However according to the article Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle:
Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry, Sinclair was dismayed when the public reacted with outrage about the “filthy and falsely labeled meat but ignored the plight of the workers.” He states, “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” As discussed in class it seems like a lot of people were more concerned with how their food was being handled than they were concerned with the actual safety/health of the workers.

Links: https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html#:~:text=The%20Public%20Reaction&text=Sinclair%20was%20dismayed%2C%20however%2C%20when,hit%20it%20in%20the%20stomach.%22

 

Welcome to the Week: Focus on the Jungle chapters 21-22 & 26-31

Throughout the novel The Jungle, Sinclair presents multiple opposites that seem to be at constant battle with each other. The opposite between the lives of suffering and impoverishment that immigrants had to face in their home countries vs. the extravagant ideal of a promising new place known as the American dream. The opposite between socialism, which as Sinclair believed would provide justice for the working class vs. Capitalism which he believed to be an exploitation of the working class and economic equality. The opposite between the stockyard owners and the people in power vs the working men and women who were dominated by it. By presenting these opposites, Sinclair makes us think about the sacrifices made by those who wished to switch the side they were on. People like Jurgis and his family who left their home land to chase the American dream. Who were lured in by the promises of capitalism and then shaken back into reality by the introduction of socialism into their lives. Lower class individuals, attempting to fight the system through unions and strikes in an attempt to achieve justice.

The immigrant experience Vs. The American dream: How much are you willing to risk for the shot at a better life?

Throughout the novel Jurgis and his family are constantly giving up things in order to live out the American dream. They start by giving up the place they once called home, then before they realize it, they are forced to give up things like their dignity, their freedom, and eventually each other. While the novel seems to romanticize the American dream at the beginning of the novel by making it out to be something you can achieve with hard work (hence Jurgis’s line “I will work harder,” which he constantly repeats throughout, the end of the novel poses the question of whether or not their sacrifices were worth what they got. Starting with the death of Antanas in the beginning of the novel, the family encounters death time and time again. So often if fact that they become nearly numb to the pain. Jurgis for example, gives himself no time to mourn for the loss of his baby or to dwell upon the death of his wife. Instead, he is forced to repress their memories and move on in order to survive.

“Now and then, of course, he could not help but think of little Antanas, whom he should never see again, whose little voice he should never hear; and then he would have to battle with himself. Sometimes at night he would waken dreaming of Ona, and stretch out his arms to her, and wet the ground with his tears. But in the morning he would get up and shake himself, and stride away again to battle with the world” (Sinclair, Chapter 22).

Similarly, we see the same reaction from Marija upon recounting the death of Stanislova. She tells Jurgis about his death in a way where she’s able to recount the facts of the incident while detaching herself from the emotional aspects of it. She states, “he was working in an oil factory⁠—at least he was hired by the men to get their beer. He used to carry cans on a long pole; and he’d drink a little out of each can, and one day he drank too much, and fell asleep in a corner, and got locked up in the place all night. When they found him the rats had killed him and eaten him nearly all up. Jurgis sat, frozen with horror. Marija went on lacing up her shoes. There was a long silence” (Sinclair, Chapter 27).

The “goodness” of Socialism Vs. The “greed” of Capitalism: Based on the novel do you think Sinclair presents a convincing argument for Socialism? What do you think about his portrayal of socialism as the solution to the working man’s problems?  Do you think Sinclair would agree or disagree with the way capitalism functions in the U.S today and what aspects of it (if any) do you think he would change if he could?

Sinclair presents socialism as the one thing that will finally bring justice to the working class characters in this story. While some of the working-class people feared it, Jurgis finds comfort and hope in the idea of it, which motivates him to keep pushing forward instead of giving up.

“When Jurgis had made himself familiar with the Socialist literature, as he would very quickly, he would get glimpses of the Beef Trust from all sorts of aspects, and he would find it everywhere the same; it was the incarnation of blind and insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher⁠—it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh” (Sinclair, Chapter 24).

Upon the introduction of socialism into his life, Jurgis also began to see the American dream and capitalism in a new light. No longer was capitalism something that could provide opportunities for him by giving him the chance of earning higher wages than in his home country, but it was now a threat— something working against him that he would have to fight against.

The Jungle— A closer look at the title’s meaning and what it represents in terms of power: What other connections can you make between the title of the novel and the plot of the story? What are some other reasons why Sinclair might have chosen this title for his work and do you think it’s a good one, why or why not?

In The Jungle there are naturally many references to animals, both the consumption and the killing of animals like pigs, cows and sheep at the packing districts, but also the comparison of man and his treatment like an animal, which the title seems to allude to. In the broader sense, the jungle can be thought of as an ecosystem inhabited by animals of many sorts. Some of course, being more dominant than others, rule over the weaker ones and have the most control. As the rule of survival of the fittest dictates, if something were to malfunction in the ecosystem the strongest animals would survive and the weaker ones die out. This seems to capture the message of The jungle perfectly since it draws a parallel between the way Chicago’s packing districts are functioning at the time of the story, with those who prove to be weaker than the rest being quickly eliminated.

 

Casting of Ona and Jurgis

Saoirse Ronan as Ona
Jason Momoa as Jurgis

For my casting I tried to stay true to the depictions of the characters in the novel. For Ona, I think young Saoirse Ronan would have been a good actress to play her part since she fits the description of Ona’s age and probably her appearance. Though not too much information is given about her physically, I imagine her being small and frail especially compared to Jurgis. I also wanted there to be a significant age gap between the characters casted since there is a significant age gap between Ona and Jurgis which seems relevant to the time period in which the story takes place. For example, the text states that Ona’s father was concerned about letting Jurgis marry his daughter because “the girl was yet a child.” When talking about the people in Ona’s family, it is also stated that it consisted of there being “twelve in all the party, five adults and six children— and Ona who was a little of both.” Since the actors (Saoirse Ronan and Jason Momoa) have an age gap of 15 years I thought it would represent Ona and Jurgis well. As for Jason Momoa being casted as Jurgis, I think this works because both are tall and have a “manly” build. Jason is 6’4 and his role as Aquaman makes me think of him as this super strong, powerful guy who wants to be the hero just like Jurgis wants to be the hero in bringing his family to success. Physically speaking he is also very strong and muscular as suggested by the lines “Do you want me to believe that with these arms”⁠—and he would clench his fists and hold them up in the air, so that you might see the rolling muscles⁠— “that with these arms people will ever let me starve?” Overall I think sticking to a close adaptation of the novel is what I would lean towards since I always enjoy book adaptations best when they stay true to what the writing says and the way the characters are portrayed.