http://idiommag.com/2010/02/art-and-culture-in-haiti-after-the-quake/

Site for Hong-An Truong article  Art & Culture in Haiti after the quake.

Gina Ulysse's Article

Why Haiti Needs New Narratives Now More Than Ever speaks volumes about how the world views Haitians and Haiti.  The stereotypes about Haitians that are brought up in this article are sadly very true.  I don't want to say that I ever viewed Haitians to quite the extent that this article says that people view them around the world, but I will admit that before taking this class, I had a very skewed view that all Haitians lived in poverty and all Haitians were dark-skinned, which is obviously not true and a very ignorant perspective on my part.  Though now I feel much more educated talking about Haiti and it's native people, I still feel there's a lot left that I could learn. 

The fact that reporters went over to Haiti after the disastrous earthquake and then had the nerve to portray them as "indifferent" to the dead bodies laying in the streets just shocks me.  You go into someone else's home territory just to get your news story and take it back to where ever you came from without even thinking twice about making these innocent people look heartless and apathetic to the devastation they have just witnessed.  The example where the reporter asked the woman if she had a chance to bury her children and the only word he could understand was "jete" so he just assumed that she "threw them in the trash".  That made me so mad.  How could you write a story about a woman throwing her kids in the trash when you aren't even sure that's what happened?!?  And then to find out in reality that she actually never got a chance to bury her two children because they were thrown into a mass grave.  That breaks my heart for that woman.  Then a totally separate example where the reporter asks someone "Why don't you Haitians cry?".... That is the most racist, ignorant question I've ever heard.  No matter what race you are, we all cry and we all hurt.  Maybe he never stopped to think that the person was in shock and couldn't even fathom what had happened.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans ?

As another natural disaster hits with a Typhoon in the Philippines I can’t help but wonder how the US will plan on stepping in. In class we discussed the delayed help that was received in Katrina and how it changed our perceptions on the US. The ulterior   motive it brings to the surface, why was the US so slow in getting the fellow aid to its own state of Louisiana. Once again we can look at this issue through the spectrum of race, class, and gender.

I encourage everyone to read this article; I was extremely impressed with it written in The New Yorker entitled “ Do You Know.” This is in regards to “ Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/neworleansjournal

My favorite quote from the article,  

“It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment.

As Americans we always want what we can’t have in the sense of ownership of land and bodies of people. While it is a great way to think in becoming successful and being powerful, the bulldozer effect doesn’t always work in regards to creating equal classes of people.  The line about the immigrants reminds me of the movie we watched in class, taking about how the immigrants were painted in the light that the US was the best thing for them and there family because America gave them so much opportunity to work hard and make money. However the reality of it was that they suffered in regards to equality that is the core of what this nation was founded on. 

Power is Powerful

This course has been the most eye opening experience since I have been in college. From learning about the Sugar Production to Tourism in Jamaica to the ongoing hatred of the DR/Haiti and finally to the Earthquake in Haiti, every lesson contributed to my growth. I’m definitely taking something away from college this semester. The movement the course took throughout the semester taught me one thing, the importance of power. Having power is POWERFUL. Everything we read in class related back to who had control and power over the situations. Katz’s novel, The Big Truck Went By, sums of the course on power and its importance. Many privileged nations that “helped” Haiti after the earthquake did it for political reasons. They contributed to the relief post-earthquake because that is what a powerful nation is supposed to do. They did not contribute enough in order for Haiti’s nation and economy to prevail. The importance of Power is to have one person or nation at the top and have a few remain on the bottom. Power is about money and control.

Picture Haiti

also, i thought it would be interesting to illustrate my point about misconceptions about Haiti being a blackhole of suffering. i image googled "Haiti" and came up with a number of images. interestingly (or rather, not so interestingly or surprising), most of the images are of vast amounts of trash, mass graves, dead bodies strewn on the ground, children surrounded by trash, children in casts, tent cities, and foreign aid workers helping Haitians. it just further highlights how powerful images are and how we are impacted by them before we even fully realize (or acknowledge) it.

federal aid in foreign countries

So this week we are reading The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Gatz.
As we discussed in class, countries have good intentions to help countries in need, such as Haiti after the eartquake disaster in 2010. But to better tell of the relief efforts made, the author, Jonathan Katz, gives a speech about his book and relief efforts.

http://www.viddler.com/v/faaa1004

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/11/three_years_after_the_quake_how

It wont let me insert the videos but go check them out!
Theyre full of information!

Presuppositions on Haiti and Fathoming Suffering

The situation detailed in The Big Truck That Went By makes me think about the ways in which I thought about Haiti prior to situations like this (more so, for me personally, it was prior to living in a majority Haitian/Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn). prior to those experiences and the people I came to know as friends and close co-workers, was that of all-around devastation; a black hole of suffering. every time Haiti was on the news, it was in reference to some horrible situation and the only time it was spoken of in school was in reference to the Haitian revolution. I didn't even know about the U.S. occupation there until maybe 3 or 4 years ago, reading it in a course here at the university. The more i learned about Haiti, largely through my friends and co-workers, was one of much more....relevance; familiarity. now i could put faces and names onto people and imagine that those i saw on television were my coworkers in their younger years, were their cousins, children, and parents. around the time that i was living there, i also began to learn much more about Haitian Vodun. a Black feminist organization i was a member of had co-founders from Haiti and for one of the events we hosted, it was a Haitian day festival in honor of its independence say (i believe). the spirituality that she invoked and incorporated (visually, verbally, etc.) in my dealings with her really showed me how beautiful and complex of a spirituality it is. all that changes how i viewed Haiti.

i can recall (maybe around this time) hearing someone say that Haiti was the first independent Black nation in the Americas, and that it has been paying for it ever since; meaning that for such a defeat for Black people comes with it unimaginable suffering because of global racism, colonialism, and exploitative business practices. and it certainly seems to be the case. on a spiritual level, i've heard some say that (as Elizabeth mentioned in class) that the improper burials that have been forced to happen (mass graves, no funeral, mutilation and dismemberment of bodies, spiritual ceremonies and rites that don't take place, etc.) due to corruption (large numbers of murders, assassinations, mass shootings) or natural disasters has made Haiti a place that is spiritually unbalanced. i'm learning more, at the present time, about the concept of the Vodun god known as Damballah Hwedo, which is a serpent god that represents ancestors whom are not known by name. it is also symbolic in the US and throughout the diaspora as representation of those lost during the middle passage and the general trauma of enslavement. i think (for Haitians) it's important to look into those types of healing spiritual cosmologies and beliefs to help restore Haiti and Haitians and their well-being - be that spiritual or other. it may even be argued that this concept was elevated to a high level of importance (coming from African traditions) after enslavement and such traumatic experiences.

This is also related to the article: "Suffering and Structural Violence". the article makes me think about the ways in which suffering, for long durations of time (for Haitians, it's scarcely been a calm and stable time since Africans were brought to the island) and how it's difficult to even fathom, really. in this video (around 6:10), J. Lorand Matory, a professor at Duke who studies African diaspora religions/spirituality makes sense of the idea that Haitians are untrustworthy or, by some accounts, even paranoid (in reference to political bodies, the west, governmental structures, and society in general, even their own and in reference to Haitian Vodun). suffering produces emotional scars that are sometimes irreparable. when there's atrocity after atrocity after atrocity, how does one even live? and if someone who lives through such an ordeal, how do they come to terms when their life becomes stable and healthy and more than just survival? it's difficult to even think about.

Typhoon Haiyan and Reporting

It is topical that we consider “Big Truck That Went By” in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. There are significant similarities that we can draw between the Typhoon Haiyan and the Haiti earthquake in terms of the deliverance of promises of aid, and expectations of what can be anticipated after disasters. I will look at how the press coverage has responded to the disaster, and how their coverage explicitly links to Katz's argument in “Big Truck That Went By.”

After reading Big Truck, I became aware of some of the fears that come in the wake of disaster, and how these fears are realized internationally. In Big Truck, there existed a need within the aid effort to “protect women and girls from sexual violence.” (Katz, p.114) The Press Association wrote that Ms Greening, International Development Secretary said “past emergencies in the Philippines have led to a sharp rise in violence against girls and women, and in trafficking in particular.” Violence against women post disaster is a concern in the Philippines, as it was in Haiti in 2010.

Another concern that is reflected in the two disasters is the uncertainty over the death toll. The Press Association reported that in the Philippines: “typhoon death toll closer to 2,000 or 2,500, not 10,000, Aquino says.” This was the same precariousness of the number of dead in Haiti, as Katz explains “Preval told my colleagues and me that the figure was 170,000. His communications director corrected him “No, no the official number is 210,000.”” Reporting the figures of how many have died is difficult to calculate post-disaster, as the figure continually rises.

The way that Katz argues that much of aid deliveries comes too late, and that preparation for disaster needs to have further organisation in advance is seen in the fact that the Press Association covered that “The UK's first flight delivering urgently needed humanitarian aid to the typhoon-struck Philippines has arrived, the Government has said” today. Even though £13 million was raised in 24 hours, time is of the essence, but so is well-thought out, and considered actions that will not risk lives, or have negative long term consequences. As Katz argues long term projects are required to keep attention and focus kept on disaster stricken areas so that they are not forgotten, and lessons can be learnt from them.

Since we touched on how children were impacted by the earthquakes devastation, I posted a few images by children in Haiti.

The big truck that went by:  how the world came to save Haiti and left behind a disaster, By Jonathan Katz. 

What an emotionally charged subject and area.  I like and see the culmination of everything we’ve been studying in class and how it seems bundled up and headed towards this work. This works U.S. intention issues relates to what we’ve been looking at in another class as well, in that there are many scales that need to be looked at, and equally many policies that have to be addressed from both sides, not just the ones that are going to benefit the United States the most.  America has to turn on (as the teachers say in elementary school) our LISTENING EARS!  I think that it is ironic that we consider ourselves the paternalistic one, when many outside our country view us like a spoiled child.  Not that we are not giving, because we are, and generously.  We can reassess our approach, and ask ourselves are we going to help or hinder? The question we can ask is, how can we help?

Just a note on misguided intentions, the women arrested for trying to take Haitian children over the border into the DR were dealing with and taking legal advise from a man who is “identified as Jorge Torres-Puello, is linked to a network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children and is wanted in the United States, El Salvador and Costa Rica, the National Drug Control Agency said.” http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/19/haiti.baptists.adviser/

Foreign Aid

http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=456cd64a-8b2a-4698-af02-b6cb666302fb%40sessionmgr14&vid=3&hid=16

Its kind of funny we are reading this book now because this is the type of conversation I am learning about in 3 of my other classes. What is foreign aid, what is the purpose, who is it “helping”, and is it effective are just a couple of questions that complicates the simplistic idea of foreign or humanitarian aid and intervention. Madison Bell is no stranger to Haiti. In her book review of The Big Truck Went By , she commends Katz for staying and recording the evidence from an objective standpoint. She praises his devotion to Haiti, even if it means calling out the mistakes and contradictions of not only one of the most powerful country in the world but his home.

However, I found it most interesting the parallels Bell and Katz drew, connecting US occupation during the 1930s to the Duvalier dictatorship and back to foreign aid (mainly US aid). Katz says, “the Americans knew it would be easier to control the country from a single locus of power.” This illusion expresses how detrimental foreign and humanitarian aid is effecting Haiti and other countries alike, even with the best intentions. Similar to how occupations forced Haitians into one central area and how Duvalier tried to centralize the country, foreign aid (water, money, food) was distributed in the cities rather than the rural areas that many people left to after the earthquake. Despite various recommendations to have various supply distribution sites in the rural areas around Port-au-Prince, US aid agencies felt it was more effective to have one major distribution site, in the city. This forced many people to migrate back to their destroyed homes in the cities or if they didn’t live in the city previous to the earthquake, they were forced to find a home among the debris.Like we stated in class as well as in Katz, most aid isn’t direct but rather used to supplement logistics of these aids.

So, after learning and being enlightened about the real issues with foreign and humanitarian aid, what is the most effective way to provide help? What do you all think we think the most practical way to help countries in need? I know I can answer directly, because I’m not an expert, but hopefully we (and I mean us Americans) can find a way to implement balanced foreign aid; providing short-term care but also helping countries accomplish self-sustainability.

Aaron Matthews- Director of My American Girls

" Living with the Ortizes — a family I knew long before filming ever began — underscored for me how much you never really know people until you have to walk in their shoes. I've made documentary films before, but never had I followed subjects with the intensity and duration that I did in making My American Girls. You learn so much about people just by sitting around, being patient and waiting for scenes to unfold. And when Aida says "our house is like a hotel for the Dominican Republic," she's not kidding."

This quote was said by Aaron Matthews, director of My American Girls. Even though the video did not work in class I still wanted to do some research into behind the scenes of the movie and the background of the family. Matthews conducted an interview  with POV http://www.pbs.org/pov/myamericangirls/interview.php which I encourage everyone to read. 

My American Girls: A Dominican Story  captures the joys and struggles over a year in the lives of the Ortiz family. They are  first generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic, showing how the others from the outside are trying to fit into the American dream. 

In class we are always discussing breaking down the barriers of "whiteness" this speaks to both Oscar and the movie. The down played struggles that immigrants must face to fit in, how the crime or action of one person associated with that race can define and catergorize race, class, and gender. 

I think to truly accept the hardships that immigrants go through you need to realize where they are coming from. When we think of jobs that Latinos occupy in the US.  They are hardworking and do the jobs that us lazy Americans don't want to do. They know how to provide and hustle for their family. Family is very important in the Latin American culture.

I am curious to know if the American-born children of Latino families know and appreciate the strive their ancestors have made or are they unaware of the history before them. I feel as though they themselves are a class of their own. 

My American Girls and Oscar Wao

I have a noticed a trend of Dominican Immigrants after Reading Oscar Woa and “My American Girls Documentary” (I remember watching it in WS 470). When Dominican families immigrate to the US, they are search of better living and to provide a better life for their children as well. Although they come searching for a better life, they never leave the island mentally. They always want to keep the DR close to their hearts. Another trend I have noticed is many Dominican immigrants look forward to going back to the DR to make a better life there after retirement. A lot of Dominican families struggle economically and socially after migrating, but that does not stop main purpose of migration.

Fuku!

I've been reading more about fuku. Truthfully, I couldn't find that much about it online. Everything I found was a reference to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But the definition that most critics and readers all seem to agree with is that fuku is a "curse of bad consequences." That got me thinking how everyone in the book, Beli, Lola, Oscar, and others, were able to surpass the fuku curse in some way. In one chapter, Beli miraculously survives a brutal assault by Trujillo's henchmen: "Cursed people, after all, tend not to drag themselves out of cane fields with a frightening roster of injuries and then happen to be picked up by a van of sympathetic musicians in the middle of the night." Lola bounces back from her debilitating rebellious stage and Oscar finds love before his demise. I think that's why Diaz opened with the background of fuku; to show the persistence of the Cabral family in context of the dreaded fuku curse. I wold stretch to say that fuku is the presiding theme in the book. I just find it so fascinating that Trujillo became more than a man- his existence manifested into a curse. A curse that spanned countries, from the Dominican Republic to the United States. Trujillo's terrifying power is undeniable. But what I took from the book is that fuku may be a death sentence in the end (but what isn't?) but it doesn't have reign over the little victories that we must seek out in our own lives.

The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao

In this book I found many interesting dynamics. Among those that most interested me were the gender dynamics. Surprisingly I had never had any conversation of gender inequalities or constructions in my academic career so  I actually never thought much into gender until here recently. In this book there are many interesting inferences of gender roles in Latino communities. It seems as though men are taught to be hyper masculine. And manhood is thought of something that is to be attained by asserting certain characteristics. You are not a man because you were born a male. No you have to walk this way, talk this way, be this way to be a "real man." Manhood can be taken away if you do not exhibit the hyper masculine characteristics forced on you as a child. This idea of attainable manhood for masculinity can be problematic in many ways. It can cause men to feel the need to over emphasize or become over protective of their "manhood." Which can result in the prevalence of abuse that is also discussed in Wao. Sexual and domestic abuse, as well as homophobia can all be easily reproduced as a response to hyper masculinity. This hyper masculinity also has an affect on the construction of femininity. If males must be dominate in order to be men, then that means women must be subordinate. Seen and not heard. Women's traumas are see as unimportant as the community focus and attention is predominately concerned with males. This is seen in the "hushing" of sexual abuse within the story. Abuse is often shrugged off as typical male behavior that women should just deal with and put out of their minds. Womanhood takes a backseat to manhood. And with the hyper masculinity comes hypo femininity. The importance of men's manhood is emphasized and women's woman hood is given little to no consideration. No one is concerned for the dignity of the women, only the pride of the men. The woman is merely ornamental not functional. She should stick to being a good mother and wife in the house, while shying away from anything that may make her visible or vocal to the world. She should suffer in silence her invisibility as the man should also suffer in silence his hyper visibility.

Reception

 After I had read The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, I thought it would be interesting to look at the reception that the book had and the criticism that Diaz received from it. The reaction it caused says a great deal about reactions towards Caribbean immigrants literary inputs into the American canon. In 2008, the book won the National Book Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. These are prestigious, competitive and highly valued awards.

From this review in the New York Times,

 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Scott-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 )

A. O. Scott stresses the importance of the DR in Diaz's portrait of Dominican-American Oscar. The means by which Oscar is able to bring together his heritage and his present place. This relationship between the two countries within his own identity is a question that plays a role in Oscar's representation of himself, “how to take account of his ancestral homeland — its folklore, its politics, the diaspora that brought so many of its inhabitants to North Jersey and Upper Manhattan.” The way that the DR is presented asks us to view the country as “a breeding ground for outsize destinies and monstrous passions...a small country that suffers from a surfeit of history.” A common theme within books across the course that we have studied - the amount and importance of past within ideas of place, and its position within present consciousness.

The book was criticized by some for this view. Some see Oscar as only satisfied when he manages to have sex, fulfilling an idea of masculinity that Diaz himself criticizes within the novel. Some also argue against the many portrayals of violence as an almost standard, everyday occurrence (mostly against women) – some even branding it a book of horrors. But I disagree; whilst the novel deals with tragedies and violence, it gives them a voice and does not blame victims. Oscar Wao, in my opinion, deserves its high acclaim.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I just finished the book recently and I LOVED it.  I obviously was a little behind on finishing it but I'm so glad I took time to read the rest over the break.  It was truly a tear-jerker and such an eye opener for me.  We live in such a sheltered world here in the United States, so oblivious to the terrible things going on all around the rest of the world.  I cannot believe that people were treated so terribly (and still probably are today) and there's nothing that anyone could really do about it without having the same exact thing done to them.  From Beli's father to Beli herself to Oscar, the times were so far apart in years, yet nothing really changed over time.  They were each personally attacked by Dominican government officials and brutally beaten almost until death, or actually killed, and nobody even got punished for it!  The Dominican was a place where people had to fear for their lives constantly every single day.  That would be a miserable life to live.  I can't imagine having to watch my every word and movement just to avoid being kidnapped, killed, or imprisoned for the rest of my life.  This book really opened my eyes to the fact that we take our freedom here in the U.S., especially the first amendment, for granted every day.  We can say almost anything we want to and do anything we desire (within the law) and never even think twice about it but these helpless Dominicans, for example the characters in the book, live their lives stepping on egg shells.

I also wanted to say that Beli is in my opinion the strongest woman in the whole book.  She might be portrayed as this terrible mother and like she doesn't love her children, but that just obviously isn't true.  After all that woman went through, it's a wonder she can even still get up in the mornings.  Anyone else who went through something that traumatic and heart-breaking would be just a bitter as she is as well.  I think she is a great mother with her own special way of showing her love.  All she ever did was try to protect her kids and make sure they had what was best for them and earn a living to give them the things they needed.  She worked two jobs, even through a battle with cancer, and still took care of Oscar and his many problems and loved both her children through it all, even if she had a funny way of showing it sometimes.  Tough love is the best kind from time to time.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

This is an interesting read to say the least. 

I honestly dont know where to begin. I cant write about the film "My American Girls" in coversation with this book. The VCR kept messing up the VHS tape. #90sproblems

But the book is a good read, it is about a guy, Oscar, who is pretty much an outcast, for lack of a better word, and has weight problems growing up. While growing up he has issues with his personal life in forms of romance and even tries to commit suicide. 

At the beginning, Diaz, writes about fukú americanus, which is a 

curse of doom on the new world. You can believe that all the bad things that happens in this book are because of this fukú. there is a word to ward off this curse which is "zafa" but it doesnt exactly seem like it helps. 

This brings me to curses in general, sorcery like voodoo, hoodoo, witch craft, indian curses, eypytian curses. Now I do believe in ghosts, dont get me wrong, but it seems like some of these things are a little too out of whack to make any sense, and to have a curse called "Fuku americanus" just seems a little over the top, but thats just my personal opinion. 

                                Caribbean Tainos cultural and religious artifacts called zemis

Just when you think you couldn’t stand Trujillo anymore, Diaz introduces us to Poor Abelard in Five ’44-‘46.  Granted he did come from a privileged background and ran in the unsavory circles of Trujillo and company, though he tried to avoid it. Trujillo’s punishment of him was pretty sad to say the least, I'd never heard of the wet towel around the head & then left him in the sun to fry his brains (sick)! The moral to that story is, don’t wait to see what the Failed Cattle Thief has in store for you when you don’t do as he asks!

The Fuku cycle never seems to end and touches everyone.   I say pobrecita Beli too! Abelard’s third daughter, what a hell of a beginning to lose her father in prison, her mother being ran over, both sisters- one in a pool, and the other by a bullet to the head, not nice.  Beli’s life remains in the toilet, and had it not been for Inca, I wonder if real compassion would have ever found its way to her.

“If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge.”

This quote is applicable any type of judgement, everything from judgment based on race, ethnicity, social class, nationality, clothing, and so much more. What I love about this book ( besides the relaxed language) is the fact that it expresses how judgements are a crucial and acknowledged part of how we construct our identities and our feelings associated with these identities.I know, this might be weird to say this because judgements are so... Judgmental. But to clarify, I mean preconceived notions of people (unfortunately, our society is based on these preconceived notions and is often times socialized into society whether we want to admit it or not). But if you think about, everyone's identity is constructed in reaction to something or someone else, whether it is from rejection or as a reflection of another group. These interactions allow us to notice differences between people and allow one to associate themselves with a group.  Now these identities aren’t always defined by us, rather projected by others who have the power to do so. In Oscar’s case, he was being judged as a man of color by not only mainstream society, but his fellow Dominicans. He lived life in a sort of limbo, not fitting completely into any category. If one is constantly being judge for what they are and what they aren’t, this causes major emotional and psychological problems (attempting suicide twice). As a society, we judge people on their differences, then tell people it's bad to judge and if it happens then ignore it, but then we don’t allow spaces for people to just be themselves, always insinuating that one identity always has to be associated with another.

Reading Oppurtunities in the Caribbean

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/watch-junot-diaz-on-myths_b_2365810.html

In some of the texts we have been looking at, the role of reading and public facilities that facilitate it have affected characters and the ways they see themselves.

In “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Oscar “adored Tolkien” and other authors and was “always hiding at the library.” (p.23) Diaz makes another comparison between life in the DR - where the only book most people have access to and own is the bible - and in America, reading is shown as an opportunity open to everyone, so long as they promise to toe the line and look after the books. All books are available to every immigrant.

In a “Small Place“, the library in Antigua used to be “one of those splendid old buildings of colonial times.”(p.9) But tourists do not rely on library books, they have money to buy their own books and do not have to visit the 1974 earthquake stricken library. All that Antigua’s people have to hold on to is the promise “REPAIRS ARE PENDING” from the original sign in 1974. The differences in facilities of being able to read and learn are unable to be granted to citizens because of the problems left by colonizing governments since independence.

“No Telephone to Heaven” also discusses libraries as a place to learn about the past and education.

From these novels, their novelists are able to discuss the connotations of a life where learning and the joys are reading are not free and accessible to everyone. From the interview, we can see Diaz's enjoyment in discovering that all theses shelves were open to his perusal. Libraries and books offer new and exciting opportunities to the lives of children and adults.

Race and Gender intersections in Argentina

I just found an interesting article that shows the intersections of race and gender in travel for Black women. Check the link here from an African-American woman studying abroad in Argentina and being mistaken as a prostitute. I thought it was interesting...

Diaz & Danticat interview

Here is a link to the interview/conversation between Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat. 

The Use of Language (Diaz's)

I haven't gotten that far into Diaz's book, but i definitely am in love with it.
For one, I have a lot of appreciation for writers of color that write in the ways that they and their communities actually speak. There's Spanglish, Black English, and probably some Dominican slang all in his book and it all comes together in a very natural way. I get the feeling that it's actually the way he speaks, and not just writes. The long footnotes, the use grammatically incorrect sentences, and his use of cuss words show a much more real writer who isn't writing a book to win an award, he's just writing a book to tell a story for a community.
Secondly, i found a quote from him a while back before I read the book in reference to some linguistic criticisms he receives about the book: "Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.” I suppose he's received criticism in reference to his use of Spanish in the book without translations. That, I think he does in order to connect with the audience he truly wants to connect with. And that so happens to be people of color, Latin@s, Spanish-speakers, etc. I think it's highly problematic that all books have to mold themselves around the typical middle-class white western English-speaking individual, and all others must conform to those standards. He goes against that and i have nothing but the utmost respect for that. 

Also, the idea of the Dominican male/masculinity and how it is constructed (as we can see through the relationship between Oscar and his mom, and really Oscar and his society/societies) is quite interesting. It brings to mind a clip from some old Star Jones television show I saw recently. She was interviewing the lawyer of a woman who was accused of molesting a 13 year old boy. The woman was white and the young boy was Latino. Star asks him (i suppose he inferred or actually said this at some point, maybe it was his defense) how a 13 year old child can consent to sexual activities. The lawyers responds that he resents the term "child" and that, given that he's Latino and has Latino machismo, they aren't really dealing with a child. "Who has a higher sex drive than Latino men?" said the lawyer. It further highlights the ways in which gender constructs are problematic, damaging, and unhealthy in a number of ways. Men of color, especially, feel the need to live up to certain extremes of masculinity and women of color, in a number of instances (for equally problematic and unhealthy reasons), are the main ones encouraging such hypermasculinity (as in the case of Oscar's mother).

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Although I don't talk very much in class, I really agreed with everything that was said in class on Tuesday.  Like the fact that being deprived of masculinity and power was a key concept of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  It was so interesting to me to find out about the Dominican culture and what the women and men see as attractive and powerful compared to my own opinions of how I see these same things.  In this book, Diaz really places emphasis on gender and how it's such an important part of being from the Dominican and being a male and how being all maucho man is so important in their culture.  It's very clear in the book that Oscar lacks many qualities that one "should" have to be considered a strong, successful Dominican man.  For example, he is not very violent and would never fight anyone and is kind of a nerdy outcast because of these reasons.  I can kind of relate to Oscar on that nerdy, outcast level and sympathize with him and because of this I found his character to be my favorite of all the characters in the book.  I really enjoyed reading this book and saw characteristics in Oscar, even though he is a man, which are a lot like myself so it was cool to find out more about his character's strengths and weaknesses as I read on.  I was very happy to see that Oscar finally found that special love that made him feel more like a man at the end of the novel.  I found Oscar's desire to find that one special woman very admirable and more respectable than sleeping with a different woman all the time until he found the right one.  I think we could all agree that we would find a man like Oscar more "masculine" in real life than we would find a man like Yunior for example, or at least I know I would.

Steve Colbert and Oprah with Junot Diaz

“Want to talk about stubborn? I kept at it for five straight years. Five damn years. Every day failing for five years? I'm a pretty stubborn, pretty hard-hearted character, but those five years of fail did a number on my psyche. On me. Five years, 60 months? It just about wiped me out. By the end of that fifth year, perhaps in an attempt to save myself, to escape my despair, I started becoming convinced that I had written all I had to write, that I was a minor league Ralph Ellison, a Pop Warner Edward Rivera, that maybe it was time, for the sake of my mental health, for me to move on to another profession, and if the inspiration struck again some time in the future...well, great.”

This is a quote taken from an interview Oprah had with writer Junot Diaz in the November Issue of O magazine. I encourage everyone to read this magazine article. His story is inspiring and he reminds me a lot of the character Oscar Woa. Both felt out of place, one in society and the other in writing.

Diaz’s journey was not an easy one he himself “was not a natural born writer” but he knew he had a passion for it, much like Oscar did not fit in with the typical Latino stereotype he was overweight with a curly afro, Diaz was not the typical writer. He goes on to talk about how his writing was a passion but couldn’t get his thoughts together for more than 75 pages, Oscar Woa was a break through for he had almost given up.

Once again I am reminded of the journey that some most overcome to succeed. He represents the population of Latinos who still have to struggle to succeed in terms of class and gender.

In class watching that interview with Steve Colbert who is a reporter watched by many cracked so many jokes and racial slurs, I was blown away. Whether he was calling Diaz “amigo or brown friend” there was no denying that Colbert was trying to undermine his credibility. Here is an author, writer, and professor trying to promote a writing program at UGA and I felt racial tension and that Colbert didn’t take it seriously, but then again Diaz knew what he was signing up for when he said yes to interview.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Junot-Diaz-Talks-About-What-Made-Him-Become-a-Writer#ixzz2jFkdpsN5