Daniel Robison

19 June 2006

Mid-Term Web Review

            The first mid-term I looked at is Complete Essay Sample 1 from the 5733 class of 2004.  The writer sets up a great beginning image of the United States as a city on a hill, creating the driving image of the American Dream.  Then the writer decides to take a different tack and write about the similarities rather than the differences between the stories.  The take on “Soap and Water” is interesting in discussing how it is not education or hard work that propels the protagonist into the American Dream but a connection with another person.  I think the argument is mostly sound, but this other person (Miss Van Ness) is only met because the protagonist had gone to school, and so otherwise, it probably would not have happened.  Next, the writer tackles “Children of the Sea,” but there are several problems.  The writer does continue to point out similarities, basically that the American Dream is either non-existent or too difficult to attain.  But there is a problem with this section, and that is suggesting that the narrator’s time at sea means “that there is no American Dream.”  I very much disagree with the idea that not making it to America signifies the American Nightmare.  It signifies the dangers and failures of Haiti, not America.  The writer does do a nice job of wrapping up the essay at the end (though not nearly as clearly as it should have been), by tying the pieces to “El Patrón” and the relationship that education has to all three types of narratives.  The writer admits that “[e]ducation can be a bridge, or a rung on a ladder,” but then makes connections between the pieces to show that education is not everything that it is purported to be.  I might disagree with the writer, but he/she ably points out the similarities in the struggle as seen in all of the selected texts.

            Next, I studied Keri Duggan’s Text-Objective Discussion from 4333 Spring 2006.  This discussion focused on Jen’s “In the American Society.”  In the first part, Duggan takes a look at how the Chang family adapts quickly to America, thus allowing them to run a successful business.  Next, she takes a look at the role of gender in the assimilation process and concludes that women have an easier time.  She gives several strong examples to back up her assertion, first discussing the father’s difficulty at work by running it in a Chinese model rather than American, then Mrs. Chang’s interest in joining the country club, and finally contrasting the experiences that Mr. And Mrs. Chang have at Mrs. Lardner’s party.  I strongly agree with her in looking at this gender dichotomy and its effect on a group.  She also nicely points out that through all of the experiences, both Mr. and Mrs. Chang are able to look back to their Chinese roots as a way of supporting themselves psychologically in difficult times.  I think that it would have been nice to point out that this is only done by the first-generation parents but not the second-generation daughters.  Still, she makes a clear and understandable argument.

            Finally, I have to say that I was very impressed with Peggy Johnson’s poetry presentation of Villanueva’s “Haciendo Apenas La Recoleccion.”  In her analysis, she writes about the conflict between assimilating into America and the racism that the narrator faces in America, thus creating an identity somewhere in between.  This can be seen in the subject matter of the poem.  Johnson says that the narrator of the poem is unlike the assimilated immigrant, whose “early struggles [are] long forgotten as he resides instead in the shadow of his future, not of his past.”  The narrator is, instead, tied to his past.  She has a wonderful last line to her analysis where she talks about how Villanueva is able to cling to his past, but does so in a way that he is not captive to it.  Not only is Johnson’s analysis impressive, but I also loved how she wrote Villanueva himself and actually got back responses!  That is just too cool!  His discussion of the title is very enlightening and not something that I ever would have seen.

            Overall, the pieces showed interesting takes on the different texts studied in class with good understanding and insight from both undergraduate and graduate students.  The variety of texts allowed the students to look at a limited set of ideas in a wide range of points of view.