Intersectionality & Perspectives Project
StereoTypes & lenses
The Identity Web and Unfair Project was focused on stereotypes, and how people perceive others based on what they look like, their sexuality, gender, race, etc. We mapped out our personality and who we were by writing out aspects of our identity, whether they be stereotypes or traits that we consider to be, on printed pictures of our face to make our "Identity Web". For me I chose to write more things that I would consider myself, traits that are a part of me: both positive and negative. We made these to disprove the stereotypes that have been forced onto us, to show that we aren't always what people expect us to be.
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I learned a lot about myself in this portion of our project. It's hard for me to tell someone else what my faults are and what words I would use to describe myself because I've never been a sharer and I don't really like to reveal things about me, especially character traits. In the end I think it's good I was forced into this project because it pushed me out of my shell a little, and if nothing else I learned I can talk about myself when my grade is dependent on it.
We learned a lot about different lenses during this project. These lenses help us look at things with different perspectives, especially literature. There were six lenses we learned: Critical Race Theory (CRT), Psychoanalysis, Postcolonialism, Queer Theory, Feminism and Reader Response. We were tasked to choose one lens, and try and understand our book through that lens.
I learned a lot about how I should read things. Learning about the lenses was interesting because it helps me understand things in different peoples perspectives, and now that I know what all of them are I can switch between them and look at things in multiple ways. I think these lenses were most helpful for honors readings, just looking at those thought-provoking articles in multiple ways is actually fun, and educational.
Socratic Seminars have always been something that I dreaded. I think this class has somewhat helped, but I still am not a huge fan of them. For the most part I don't like sharing my opinions just because I hate argument, call me weak willed, even if it is in the educational sense.
For me however, the easiest Socratic Seminar was the one about James Baldwin. We discussed about the James Baldwin movie we watched recently, I Am Not Your Negro, and one of his writing pieces, Letter to My Son. I think it was easier for me to participate in those discussions because I really admire Baldwin and what he has done. His story amazes me, everything he went through, all the friends he lost to racism and he still found the will to continue standing up for his rights. Not to mention that is literary style is intoxicating, and easy for me to read just because of how interesting it is. All in all what I learned from this years Seminars is that when the topic is something I'm very passionate or interested in, it is easier for me to participate.
Unfair Project
Theories
Seminars
Serial the podcast: Season 1
To begin, I want to say whether or not Adnan is guilty I think that his trial wasn't very fair. I think the Prosecution was using very circumstantial and inconclusive evidence that wasn't enough to convict him. I also think that lawyers defending Adnan didn't represent him well enough, and they didn't push back enough against the weak evidence. I wouldn't necessarily contribute this to a corrupt criminal justice system (although I do believe the justice system has its problems), more of a a prosecution that is good, and a defense that was bad. I think if reverse was true, and Adnan had a better lawyer, he might not be in prison.
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The podcast has mentions many people who play key roles in this story but I believe that this is fundamentally Adnan's story, not Jay's, not Hae's, not Sarah's. After all, Sarah's whole goal is to see if Adnan is guilty or not, the rest of the people are merely means of finding the answer. I can see how an argument can be made that the story is Sarah's, she researched, investigated, and told it for the audience. However, if she hadn't done all those things, the events wouldn't have changed. Anyone could have done what she did (maybe not as well, or poetically, or interestingly), but it could have been done. That's why my conclusion is that it is Adnan's story.
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Finally, my verdict. In the beginning I thought Adnan was guilty. There was motivation, an eye-witness willing to testify, he had no solid alibi or story to explain the events. Everything made sense. However, as Sarah went on to reveal more and more my thoughts began to waiver. I wanted to believe that he was guilty, and that someone was paying for Hae's murder. But by the 5th episode I was convinced he was at least partially innocent. Maybe he had a role in the murder, but I believe he isn't fully guilty. Like Sarah said, he just doesn't seem like the kind of person who could do it. In conclusion, I think the evidence presented wasn't enough to convict Adnan, and I think that he is innocent.
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Book Club: No-no boy
No-No Boy by John Okada is the story of Ichiro Yamada, a Japanese-American living in America after WWII after refusing to fight. He deals with racism, discrimination, and degradation from Americans, but also young Japanese-Americans who did fight for the US. He also has to deal with the criticism of how "American" he is by his mother, and how "Japanese" he is by his brother. During the book he overcomes many challenges and learns how to accept his decisions and heritage from multiple like Kenji and Emi.
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I think that the book, while not very poetically written, uses a lot of metaphors. These metaphors have a literal meaning, but also a deeper hidden on. For example, his mother is literally trying to make him more Japanese, but also she represents the Japanese side of him. The part of him that is his mother is what said "No-No". And then you have Kenji, he is Ichiro's friend who teaches him how to accept his decisions, but he also is everything Ichiro wishes he was. Ichiro wanted to be the good American citizen and fight so that he could come home as a hero, he wanted to be able to come home and be accepted by everyone, even if it meant slowly and painfully losing his life. I think if you look deep enough, each character has a metaphorical meaning or representation in Ichiro's life.
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I think that because of the large amount of metaphors used in this book, I learned how to spot them easier. After I first realized that a large portion of the characters represented something in Ichiro's life, I started to try and pinpoint them. Each time a new character was introduced, using only the first few paragraphs that described them I would try and find out what they represented. Doing this helped me hone this skill, so now when I read other books, I can look at something a know that his has another meaning.
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I read this book through the Postcolonial lens. While I think the other lenses could work ind different ways, Postcolonial intrigued me the most. I did like how the other lenses could be applied, particularly the Queer, Feminist and Reader Response, but when it came down to it, I thought that Postcolonial most aligned with what I thought of the book, which was even though it wasn't a time of colonialism in the US, Japanese and Japanese-Americans experience similar things that a person who was going through a time of colonialism would. For example, the Japanese were segregated, villianized, and degraded much Native-Americans were during the colonization of the US. Overall this really hooked me, which is why I ultimately chose this lens to read the book through.