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Model Midterm2 answers 2018 Web Highlights Index to Midterm2 Web Highlights |
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Bradley Cannon
We Are the Human Race
After reading several of the model
assignments, final essays, and research projects, it became clear that most of
your students, especially the ones that I will use here, have the same open
minded thought I believe that I have and wish that everyone shared alike. If we
all had a more open mind and took the time to examine other people, places, and
cultures, we might realize we are all more alike than we are different. To
highlight many ideas within my paper as well as within “The Round House” and
“The Distance Between Us: A Memoir,” I have selected a few readings: A research
Project from 2003 (Chris Ornelas),
A 2018 Midterm (Greg Bellomy), and a 2016 Model Assignment from American
Immigrant Literature class by Ashley Cofer.
Ashley Cofer’s 2016 Model Assignment
perfectly illustrates an idea I have held deeply for a long time. That is, we
are all immigrants. Ashley says that it is important to realize that we are all
immigrants, and that we should look deeper into ourselves before we judge other
people. Any American, if they go back enough generations, is technically an
immigrant – so, no one, especially the dominant white culture (like myself)
should claim that the land has always been theirs or that it is their God given
right. One thing that popped out to me was that Ashley had the same intentions
as I for her final paper it looks like. She says “I
have also become curious to dive deeper in to my ancestry to find out just how
white I really am. After all, we all came from immigrants.” This is very similar
to what I am trying to accomplish in my final paper.
Next, I looked at
Chris Ornelas Research Project from 2003. When I read through Chris Ornelas’
paper, I got a great understanding and rich historical information regarding
Mexicans and Mexican Americans. His in depth knowledge and recount of how
Mexicans have been treated during their time in America – showing
chronologically many of the problems that the Mexican people integrating into a
nation that they already lived. Or, how the ones in Mexico longed for better
peace and prosperity and the only thing that came close to that was America –
The Land of the Free and where opportunity was still possible. He shows that the
closeness between the two people has brought an integrated lifestyle for many of
the peoples. Without knowing it, many people are becoming less Mexican and more
American, but on the other side, more people are being exposed to Mexican
culture and so the Mexican culture is still prevailing.
One of the main
products of this integration is literature. Chris shows how the Mexican and even
Tejano culture thrive and continue through literature and that literature of his
ancestors and their ancestors, the Mayans and Aztecs, also had rich literature
available as well. It was an important read to me to see how inspired these
Mexican writers are and to know that their writings can continue and be
dispersed. The only thing holding back literature of the Mexicans is often their
struggle for life itself. Many of the Mexicans, as Chris dictates, have a rich
agricultural history. Unfortunately, not many people who work in the fields all
day have the time or resources to read and write, let alone get some sort of
formal education to be able to write novels. However, not all is lost as we are
seeing an increase in Latino and Mexican Literature.
The last I reviewed
was a Model Assignment by Greg Bellomy of this year. I like getting perspectives
from the different years of your class because it seems to give me a better view
as a whole of ideas and thoughts that people have. Luckily, over the fifteen
year span on these, it does not look like much ideological has changed, and to
me, that is a good thing. Greg, in his Model Assignment “The Mirror From the
Outside,” he reflects on “the experiences of immigrants and minorities [to
provide] a useful lens for examining the norms, rules, and assumptions that
dominate American culture.” I believe this is an excellent Model Assignment and
does a great job of distinguishing many of the immigrant characteristics from
the immigrant characteristics, yet at the same time, many of them overlap. The
distinguishing characteristics of immigrants, is that they voluntarily came here
and mostly try and assimilate. On the other hand, many minorities feel this same
struggle and so it is incorrect to say that minorities do not try to assimilate.
The amount of resistance to assimilation is often what causes the difference
between an immigrant and a minority. Minorities appear to have assimilated, at
least enough, whereas immigrants are generally viewed as not having assimilated
and thus, they feel at an arm’s reach and not really grounded. Reyna Grande is
certainly an immigrant as well as a minority, and as Greg Bellomy says, “it
seems important that we find ways of reestablishing commonality among American
people, and literature can play a key role in that process.” I could not agree
more that if we find the bond, that we are all humans first and foremost, we
will be better people to ourselves and to others.
