Assignment # 3

David Fernandez

Professor. Polish

English 102

12/8/17

 

There is a reason why some people like helping others. It could be because they were never helped themselves or it could be because they get a satisfaction from helping other people out. Sometimes it can be because they are influenced by someone that they look up to. In the “Ms. Marvel” comics Kamala who is Ms. Marvel and is the main character and hero of this series appears to be quiet and shy at first. Then eventually becomes the brave and fearless superhero that everyone knows especially when she notices others are in trouble.

From the beginning it is clear that Kamala has a strong relationship with her family especially with her dad. You can see that she also sees him as a role model since she quotes him sometimes and there are also times when her father comes to mind before she reacts to something. We can first see this when she saves her classmate Zoe from drowning because she was trying to avoid her drunk boyfriend Josh. Before she saves Zoe Kamala mentions that according to her father whoever saves another person is blessed. What her father said motivated her to save Zoe from drowning.

Another time that we can see this is after the first time Kamala tries to save Bruno’s brother Vick. She was caught eating all the food after she got back home from trying to save Vick and feel asleep. When her parents noticed she got back they woke her up and expressed their concern about her behavior. After having a conversation with her father that told her that

her name means perfection in Arabic she decided to go back and save Vick. She remembered that Vick was still in trouble and went back to save him.  

We can see that there are times when people become brave when they see that others need help. This is very true for Kamala who cares about the safety about other people even when it means she has to go through risky challenges to save them. What is also true is that she has a strong bond with her family. Who makes her the person she is.

 

Artist Statement

Before writing the essay I  thought about what I was going to focus on. I thought about how Kamala and her family bonds with each other and what examples I could use to make my point in the essay. I noticed that Kamala has a strong relationship with her father and that there were times before she saved someone that she will think about her dad.  So I thought about how her family influences her to be a hero.  What I learned is there can be many factors that make people a hero. Also they could have got their inspiration from someone else or they could have got it from their  experiences and what they went through.

I also learned in comics a hero sometimes work better when  they have something to fight for. When there is a purpose is when the hero is able to get the power to fight back. The purpose motivates them to do what is right for their family, friends or anyone else that they happen to meet. This book did a great job in showing that but it is not only the ones who have powers who can be a hero. Kamala’s mother, father and friend Nakia could be heroes too. The people who helps her realize to make right decisions.

Edited and Revised Assignment # 3

David Fernandez

English 102

J.Polish

November- 10- 2017

Dealing With Trauma

 

In life some of our feelings are influenced by our experience. When we remember a experience that we view as positive it brings us joy. Memories like winning a contest or finishing first in a race are seen as good events in your life. When you think about a positive experience   that you had it usually makes you more happy than if you didn’t. Sometimes there are events in our lives that we view as negative and it can be so severe  that it sticks with us. You can usually see this in war veterans and refugees who lived in war zones. They have seen horrible things happen to people and also have to cope with the death of their friends. Sometimes the result of this can be trauma. In the play “Anonymous” you can see that Anon (the protagonist) and his mother Nemasani show that they have some symptoms of trauma such as flashbacks, social isolation and lost of interest.

Throughout the play Nemasani was trying to cope with her lost son by making shroud because she thought he was dead. Even though Anon ended up being alive he was still nowhere to be found and she had no idea what could have happened to him. So part of her still wanted to hold on to the fact that he was still alive because there was still no proof of his death. “The mourning and burial ceremonies can help people accept reality in a short period and return to order” (chen). There was no body found yet so there could not have been a burial ceremony. This burial ceremony could have helped Nemasani realize that her Anon was did but since there was no ceremony she did not entirely give up on him still being alive.

At times when Anon is interacting with people he starts to isolate himself from that person if he doesn’t feel a connection with them. He kept avoiding Calista when she tried to bond with him. Calista attempt to befriend failed because they come from different worlds. Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng believes this “The theories that explain patterns of racial segregation within a diverse setting identify homophily (the tendency to form relationships with individuals that share similar qualities), propinquity (the tendency to form relationships with individuals that share similar social situations), status, and reciprocity, as particularly important qualities of friendship formation (Hallinan and Williams 1989; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook 2001; Moody 2001)”. (Cherng p. 510)  Anon who comes from a place that is a war zone cannot relate with Calista who is very high class and whose family has the money to afford a beach. While he had to escape war and got traumatized because of his experience of the war

When Anon meets Ali he wanted to leave right away. He first meets Ali’s daughter Narseen and mentions that he likes the song she was singing. They talk briefly until Ali arrives and calls Anon a roach. After a while he insists on making Anon his guest and offers him food. Anon rejects this offer and informed him that he had to leave. As a refugee with trauma it is not easy to trust new people especially when you are being insulted by them when you first meet them.

Anon sometimes talks about his homeland and tells people what he remembers about it. Since he had to escape his country and become a refuge in another it is probably because his life was in danger. He has memories of war and what he remembers seeing. “ Where I come from is far away from here. Where I come from there was a war that lasted so long people forgot what they were lighting for. Where I come from bombs rained down from the sky night after night and boys wandered the streets with M16s. Where I come from mines are planted in the roads like deadly flowers, and the air smells like death, rank and sticky sweet. Where I come from you go to sleep at night and dream about the faces of the people you love”(Iizuka,65). These flashbacks that he has are caused because of trauma because of what he went through in the past. This can be seen in all sorts of groups fleeing war . “Vietnamese refugees who were rescued and brought to refugee camps in different countries experienced varying encampment traumas and stressors. Their experiences were comprised of assaults by border guards upon entering neighboring countries (Boehnlein & Kinzie, 1997), overcrowding, starvation or poor nutrition, unsanitary conditions, and personal danger”(Dao Tam, Julia M. P. Poritz, Rachel P. Moody, and Kim Szeto 440). Anon has a very vivid picture of what was going on in his homeland he recalls having to leave after that.

In the play “Anonymous” you can see that both Anon and Nemasani go through trauma. It is is because of the experiences that they had in their lives that caused them to have it. Throughout the play you can see signs of this Even though the experience might be different what they both have in common is that it was a negative one and it gave them trauma.   

Works Cited

Dao Tam, Julia, M. P. Poritz, Rachel, P. Moody, and Kim, Szeto,. Development, Reliability, and Validity of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Interview for Vietnamese Refugees: A Diagnostic Instrument for Vietnamese Refugees,. Houston: International Society For Traumatic Stress Studies, 2012

 

Chen, Biao. Coping With Death and Loss: Confucian Perspectives and the Use of Rituals. Springer Science+Business Media, 2012

 

Cherng, Hua-Yu Sebastian, Social Isolation Among Racial/Ethnic Minority Immigrant Youth. New York: 2015

 

Iizuka Naomi, Anonymous. American Theatre

 

Reflective Statement

 

When I started writing this paper I thought of what topics from the book I can use to write about. There were many topics I could have used like Immigration, culture shock and imagination vs reality. After thinking about for a while I thought that it would be best to pick Trauma. I made this decision after realizing that this is something more than one of the characters have. Both Anon and Nemasani share this. Trauma can be caused by witnessing war or being abused and there are many symptoms like isolation, mistrust and anxiety. Awareness of this topic should be spread around. Just like how physical health has a lot of awareness like exercising and eating healthy mental health should be something that people should learn more about.

 

Having peers who had similar topics and ideas to research helped out a lot  while working on the paper. When we shared our papers we saw that we had a lot of ideas in common. There was many suggestions that we were able to give each other since our topics were similar. This helped create the paper since  there was some feedback. When you have a research topic to focus on you  get to have the opportunity to view the play differently and notice things that you have not noticed before.

 

Rough Draft for Assignment # 2

David Fernandez

English 102

Polish

November, 3, 2017

 

There are certain events in life that cause us to have emotions that we don’t like to experience.  These events could happen to us or someone we know but if it’s something we view as negative then we definitely don’t want us or our loved ones go through it. Since some things happen unexpectedly it can benefit us learn how to control our actions when we are experiencing these unpleasurable feelings. This can come from leaving your homeland and coming to a different environment, Coping with the loss of someone close to you , or just dealing with the stress of your life. All of this is mentioned in the play “Anon(ymous)” by Naomi Iizuka. We can see that some of the characters in this play have some issues that they have to deal with.

Throughout the play Nemasani was trying to cope with her lost son by making shroud because she thought he was dead. Even though Anon ended up being alive he was still nowhere to be found and she had no idea what could have happened to him. So part of her still wanted to hold on to the fact that he was still alive because there was still no proof of his death. “The mourning and burial ceremonies can help people accept reality in a short period and return to order” (chen). There was no body found yet so there could not have been a burial ceremony. This burial ceremony could have helped Nemasani realize that her Anon was did but since there was no ceremony she did not entirely give up on him still being alive.

Having to adapt into a new culture is something that Anon had to deal with at times in this play. Right from the start of the play it is clear that Anon does not see the United States as his home and wishes to go back to his.

Assignment # 2 pre draft

Naomi Iizuka probably had to research  how people from different social class and culture behave when they have to live together in the same world. I see the actors having to learn how to react to certain situations and also do some studying on similar events and see how others reacted. I like how this play has all these characters that we get to know with their own unique personality, I also like how Naja can communicate with Anon, and its interesting how we don’t know where Anon is from but when he talks about his homeland we can find things in common with other places.  I might have to research human nature and how can their environment influence their personality. This will help me understand people.

Assignment # 1 With Artist Statement

David Fernandez

Professor J. Polish

English 102

October 13, 2017

 

Everything has a reason, some of these reasons come from events that happened in the past that still have an impact on the world today. In the spoken word poem “3 Ways to Speak English” by Jamila Lyiscott, there is a feeling of pride because of the multiple ways the author states that she can communicate in the English language, instead of sticking with that one way of speaking, Jamila decides to branch out and show that there are other ways  that you can communicate, and there is also a story behind this. The use of the word articulate is brought up a number of times in this poem to emphasis that Jamila’s knowledge on speaking alternative versions of English is what makes her eloquent.

 

Lyiscott teaches us that there are many reasons why some people including herself sometimes choose to use their own English when talking  instead of using the Eurocentric ideals of speaking “But you can’t expect me to speak your history wholly while mines is broken These words are spoken By someone who is simply fed up with the Eurocentric ideals of this season”(Lyiscott). When she said this quote her voice changed and it got noticeably louder, especially when she used the word broken. If Lyiscott is describing this situation as broken then what someone might ask is how has her history become broken? In order to know what happened in history we would have to go back and time and find out why. We have to pay attention to the incidents that made Jamila feel this way.

 

Understanding why Lyiscott speaks numerous forms of English comes from her explanation of the the history of her people. “And the reason I speak a composite version of your language is because mines was raped away with my history I speak broken English so the profusing gashes can remind us That our current state is not a mystery I’m so tired of the negative images that are driving my people mad”(Lyiscott). These ways of speaking English is so we don’t forget what happened in the past. The author wants us to remember previous affairs that occurred. These other manners to communicate is what reminds us of those struggles. Lyiscott wants us to know that her ancestors went through tough times. So when she speaks in her composite version of English it’s to let the listeners know that she speaks this way because her original history and language was snatched away from her. When your language is taken away from you a part of your identity is gone. You might have to create your own version of their language that is unique and at the same time your own.

 

Making your own style of English requires a lot of creativity and you really have to put a great deal of effort into it, this can even make you a better speaker “That’s why I put “tri-lingual” on my last job application I can help diversify your consumer market is all I wanted them to know And when they call me for the interview I’ll be more than happy to show that I can say “What’s good”, “Whatagwan” and of course …“Hello” Because I’m “articulate”(Lyiscott). Having this ability lets you know that nobody is limited to one way of speaking and that you have the choice to be articulate and speak in English however you want while adding your own rules to make your own English language.

 

In Lyiscott’s poem she wants to let the readers know she speaks in her own form of English because of how history have impacted her and had a long lasting effect on her even to this day. A different way of verbal communication had to be invented because another language  was removed. Having all these ways to speak can make someone more expressive and it can remind others about the history of a group of people.

Artist Statement

Before writing this essay about Jamila Lyiscott’s poem “3 Ways to Speak English” I first had to read the poem carefully to try to get in the author’s thoughts as much as I can. I wanted to know why this poem was created and what is the message that the reader is supposed to receive after finishing the poem. At the same time after writing my analysis I wanted the reader to know how I felt about the spoken word piece and what I thought was important. I learned a lot from this poem ,history can have a huge affect on us and it can influence how we see the world and other people. History can also teach us a lesson and impact the way we think, what this poem teached me can be used anywhere in life. Especially in other classes just like when I found quotes to get explain what I learned, I need something that I can go back to to remember what I learned. I also learned that there is more than one right way Jamila mentions that she has three ways of speaking English for home, school, and friends so there are really many ways you can answer a question.

 

When performing there are multiple ways you can show the audience how you are feeling I never really paid attention to this part until this assignment because I thought that poetry only had to do with words but I learned that volume and body language is also a big part of it. The way Jamila’s voice changed when she used the word Broken to describe her history really shows how important this writing was to her and how very much she wanted us to know about it. Now that I did this assignment I can also use my critical thinking in other places and if I can’t get the answer one way I will try another method until I find what I was looking for.

 

Rough Draft Assignment # 1 Revised With Questions

David Fernandez

Professor J. Polish

English 102

October 2, 2017

 

 Everything has a reason, some of these reasons come from events that happened in the past that still have an impact on the world today. In the spoken word poem “3 Ways to Speak English” by Jamila Lyiscott, there is a feeling of pride because of the multiple ways the author states that she can communicate in the English language, instead of sticking with that one way of speaking, Jamila decides to branch out and show that there are other ways  that you can communicate, and there is also a story behind this. The use of the word articulate is brought up a number of times in this poem to emphasis that Jamila’s knowledge on speaking alternative versions of English is what makes her eloquent.

 

Lyiscott teaches us that there are many reasons why some people including herself sometimes choose to use their own English when talking  instead of using the Eurocentric ideals of speaking “But you can’t expect me to speak your history wholly while mines is broken These words are spoken By someone who is simply fed up with the Eurocentric ideals of this season”(Lyiscott). When she said this quote her voice changed and it got noticeably louder, especially when she used the word broken. If Lyiscott is describing this situation as broken then what someone might ask is how has her history become broken? In order to know what happened in history we would have to go back and time and find out why. We have to pay attention to the incidents that made Jamila feel this way.

 

Understanding why Lyiscott speaks numerous forms of English comes from her explanation of the the history of her people. “And the reason I speak a composite version of your language is because mines was raped away with my history I speak broken English so the profusing gashes can remind us That our current state is not a mystery I’m so tired of the negative images that are driving my people mad”(Lyiscott). These ways of speaking English is so we don’t forget what happened in the past. The author wants us to remember previous affairs that occurred. These other manners to communicate is what reminds us of those struggles. Lyiscott wants us to know that her ancestors went through tough times. So when she speaks in her composite version of English it’s to let the listeners know that she speaks this way because her original history and language was snatched away from her. When your language is taken away from you a part of your identity is gone. You might have to create your own version of their language that is unique and at the same time your own.

 

Making your own style of English requires a lot of creativity and you really have to put a great deal of effort into it, this can even make you a better speaker “That’s why I put “tri-lingual” on my last job application I can help diversify your consumer market is all I wanted them to know And when they call me for the interview I’ll be more than happy to show that I can say “What’s good”, “Whatagwan” and of course …“Hello” Because I’m “articulate”(Lyiscott). Having this ability lets you know that nobody is limited to one way of speaking and that you have the choice to be articulate and speak in English however you want while adding your own rules to make your own English language.

 

In Lyiscott’s poem she wants to let the readers know she speaks in her own form of English because of how history have impacted her and had a long lasting effect on her even to this day. A different way of verbal communication had to be invented because another language  was removed. Having all these ways to speak can make someone more expressive and it can remind others about the history of a group of people.

 

  1. What effective rhetorical strategies did the author use?
  2. Was their analysis doing more than pointing out what the poem means?
  3. What’s one sentence/idea you wish the author would expand on?

Assignment # 1 Rough Draft

David Fernandez

Professor J. Polish

English 102

October 2, 2017

 

After reading the spoken word poem “3 Ways to Speak English” by Jamila Lyiscott,  I started thinking if there even is a correct way  to talk at all, I feel like the poem is trying to let the readers know that it does not matter how you decide to talk because it doesn’t represent your intelligence. At the start of the performance Jamila mentions a time when a woman calls her articulate “Today a baffled lady observed the shell where my soul dwells And announced that I’m “articulate”(Lyiscott). The reason why this stands out a lot is because at that time Jamila was probably using “proper” words and following the rules for “correct English” when she was speaking. However instead of sticking with that one way of speaking Jamila decides to branch out and show that there are other ways  that you can communicate, and no one way is greater than the other. The use of the word articulate is brought up multiple times in this poem to emphasis that nobody has to go by the standards of society to prove that they are good enough.

Lyiscott teaches us that there are many reasons why some people including herself sometimes choose to use their own English when talking  instead of using the Eurocentric ideals of speaking “But you can’t expect me to speak your history wholly while mines is broken These words are spoken By someone who is simply fed up with the Eurocentric ideals of this season”(Lyiscott). “Broken English” can also be used as reminder to explain why the people who use it are in the situation they are experiencing “I speak broken English so the profusing gashes can remind us That our current state is not a mystery I’m so tired of the negative images that are driving my people mad”(Lyiscott). As stated earlier speaking a certain way does not make you better than anyone and Jamila tells us that she feels that way “Let there be no confusion Let there be no hesitation This is not a promotion of ignorance this is a linguistic celebration”(Lyiscott). In this spoken word piece Jamila Lyiscott shows us no matter how you decide to communicate  with others you are not less intelligent for doing so.