John Okada’s No-No Boy was a novel that unfortunately wasn’t fully appreciated at the time of its release. However today we see it for the powerful piece of American literature it is giving insight to a time in American history that Im sure many would like to gloss over. Today we have all sorts of works dedicated to showing love to this novel and its author, including a YouTube video I found titled John Okada:The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy.  

I gained a lot of insight into the life John Okada from watching this seeing how he developed as a writer along with his experiences in his own personal life. Hearing how he would escape arrest from the FBI after being separated from his family thus inspiring the main heart of No-No Boy. We also get some great photographs captured from the time further showing the cruel conditions, with one of Okada and other men being taken away by government officials as their wives and families reach out for them from behind iron bars saying goodbye really standing out to me. It gets you angry to see images such as these, however it’s also good that we have access to such images so we don’t forget and can really grasp the controversy in the situation. Reading the novel in class along with watching other videos and breakdowns of it do somewhat sadden me. It’s great that it gets all the love its due, however I can’t help but think about John Okada who unfortunately died pretty early in his life at the age of only 47,  never fully realizing the lasting impact and love for his work in his lifetime.

Silent Springs opening is that of a fairy tale. A utopian world filled with all sorts of in depth descriptions elaborating on its beauty, from its wild wife creatures to its beautiful plant life. It’s a pristine image of a perfect world, that Carson very purposely leaves unidentified as to fully immerse the readers. However this perfect world is short lived as we see a darkness cloud over, killing everything beautiful. Animals disappearing, the voices of birds being sucked away along with the color of this world by an almost cartoonish evil. This evil later reveled to be humans. See Carson goes to such “extremes” to show us to a certain extent what the world was and what it can possibly turn into, and how maybe those disturbing apocalyptic images aren’t as farfetched as you think. Carson honed in on pesticides being one of the main factors doing so much damage. She believes that we have entered into a new era in the history of the world, one in which man now has the power to change the environment on a scale never seen before. Arguing life has always been connected in even the slightest forms, and pesticides possibly having effects we haven’t fully realized yet, which pose a threat through ripple effects that could cause serious danger to the planet and by extension humans. Carson talks about chemicals being used on animals during World War 2 for experiments, further showing that man has been creating these substances of which at their very core are deadly chemicals that don’t just kill insects but to some degree kill everything they interact with. She also Argues that nature is a complex system that has developed and sustained throughout millions of years that shouldn’t be trifled with by man as we can’t create or enhance a better system than nature does itself.

Question 1, What role does selfishness play in the fight against climate change and other environmental issues?

A major factor in this fight is time.  Humans are very much creatures that dwell on the present. You see all these get Rich quick schemes and how to lose this much weight or get this big as fast as possible. Very few understand the signifinece of the long game, so imagine these same people caring about effects from climate change and other issues they won’t fully feel in their own lifetime. These same effects probably won’t even affect their kids or grandkids but best believe they will be felt eventually. You could say it’s selfish to put away these problems for another day or in this case generations but very few will find the selflessness inside themselves to look out for people and a world they will never experience.

Question 2, Considering all that humanity has done does the good outweigh the evil?

Looking at this question from the perseppctive of “Silent Spring” I see that humanity has the tendency to step on its toes somewhat. Whatever good we create very often has been manipulated either on purpose or by accident to bad. These cases range from all different topics in history but focusing specifically on silent springs Carson Brought up the great point that natures complex system was one that had been refined through years of evolution, and once again mankind has tried to tamper with this system with ground breaking science.

Question 3, What are some good tactics that can be used to raise awareness to such issues?

In class Amy brought up the Climate Clock which I had never heard of. I looked it up to see images of how it looks on buildings and found it a little intimidating and eerie. It gave me the feeling of impending doom that you would get when you see similar situations in films. So it’s safe to say they were successful in raising awareness to climate change and striking a cord with me. This leads me to wonder if there are any other tactics that can be as successful or maybe even more successful.

One of the pictures I took from the Museum of the City of New York is of a Young Lords party poster. I found the Young Lords very interesting as they were originally a Puerto Rican gang from Chicago before forming into a national political and civil rights movement group. There were three New York based branches which lead to a lot of Puerto Ricans using these branches to get involved in the movement. The goal being to educate and bring awareness of the history and struggle of Puerto Ricans.Being Puerto Rican myself and living in New York all my life it was surprising to me that I had never heard of them before. Although it was a Puerto Rican Based group there were still members of all sorts of races, as the main goal was to bring attention to the shared terrible living conditions and experiences of all groups of people. There were inspired by the Black Panther party and were also controversial as our tour guide explained to us giving an example of when the Young Lords staged an occupation of Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx as a protest for better health care and better service by the hospitals staff.

“Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius!”

Here we see the word “Moloch” being used to emphasize the corruption of the world. Talking about how society is what has caused these people to go insane. Moloch is made up of all the corruption, politics, capitalism and society’s frowned upon stance on homosexuality. He also says “whose poverty is the specter of genius” implying that he believes this is all done with intention, a system of genius meant to put down people.

“Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!”

Again he is talking about the system that is America, the fingers meaning how the country has its firm hold on the world through evil, death, and violence through war and other methods, which by extension implicants young innocent men who have orders and duty to complete this country’s machine like thinking not caring how affects those it commands.

“I saw the best Minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked”

You could say this really sums up one of the major themes of the poem at the very beginning, however the reason why it stuck out to me so much is because he talks about the people being affected being some of the smartest people he has ever known. Later on we see him talk about the pure genius system put in place to put people down, having its way with even the brightest there is, so imagine the toll it takes on those who aren’t.

Upton Sinclair describes Ona as small or petite especially in comparison to her husband but even in general she is small. She is smart and feminine. So no casting ideas automatically came to my mind at first. No actresses clicked so I went on google images and typed in petite Lithuanian women 1900s but nothing really caught my eye. I had typed in Lithuanian of course because that’s what Ona was but then I just searched up petite women 1900s and came across the photo the I would use. This photo just isn’t a random photo. The women’s name is Della Moore(also goes by Annie rogers and/or Maude Williams) and she was actually around during the old west and was the girlfriend of an outlaw named Harvey Logan. I picked her because she did look petite and also looked like she could pull that small side of Ona as described. For Jurgis unlike with Ona a name did actually come up to mind. Upton Sinclair describes him as big and strong, just like how Ona was the more traditional women Jurgis was the more traditional man. In my head I imagined someone I could see working hard physical labor jobs, someone who was physically big but not huge in like a body builder or wrestler type of way. Pedro Pascal came to mind as he is in a show I’ve been watching called The Last Of Us and in that show I think he fits the Jurgis role perfectly  since it looks like he bulked up especially compared to his other roles in other works.