Where is hope?

Hello everybody, so in this entry I will talk about some things that called my attention of the book “The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian”.


It's interesting because, it could be like a cliché story, it’s the kind of literature that sometimes we are tired of reading, but this one is narrated in a very funny and ironic way that makes it so different and it feels so real and near to us. The story is told by the main carácter, Junior, he suffered all kinds of struggles in his life, being born with “water on the brain”, being bullied because of the physical consequences he suffered from his brain damage, social and economic problems, and the most important thing he was Indian. So what’s the deal here, being poor for being Indian?  Being set apart from society for being INDIAN?
There is this special character at the beginning of the story, Mr. P, whose speech and talking with Junior after he hits him, is very interesting, which makes the kid take a big decision.


“You have to leave this reservation"
"I’m going to Spokane with my dad later”
“No I mean you have to leave the rez forever (…) All these kids had given up,” he said. “All your friends.  All the bullies and everybody here have given up. We’re all defeated”
“But not you,” Mr. P said. “You can’t give up. You won’t give up. You threw that book in my face because somewhere inside you refuse to give up.”(…) “You kept your hope. And now, you have totake your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.”  


                             

So this speech is full of things you can reflect on, is very deep and it makes us think sometimes where is hope? Do we really have to go somewhere to find it? The thing is that we live in a society where things like this happen everyday, discrimination, racism and so on.
Hope keeps us up, but where is it really?

A very good example

Rosa Parks

Hi everyone! Last time I posted about Elizabeth I and how she overcame the problems in her country  without a man's help.

This time I will write about another woman that I think is a very brave one.

When I read what Rosa Parks did in the bus while returning home, I said to myself, wow, that’s brave! Would I have been able to do the same if I had been in that situation? Maybe I would have cowed by the possible consequences that my actions had brought. Or maybe I had acted in a way that does not benefit the fight I was defending; rather, it had been a setback and a bad example using violence.

There’s no need to be in situations of this magnitude. Think about you, we all have aspects of our personality that don’t please everyone. For example: musical taste, point of view on controversial issues, like abortion, gay marriage, free education and many other things.

Many people would say that if you have something to defend, you must do it at all costs. And this is related with what I wrote in the Reaction Paper. I think it may be true, if you think something is right, defend it, but always appropriately. What do I mean by this? We don’t need to be aggressive to defend our point of view. If we use uncivilized methods like violence to do it, means that we have no valid arguments to support what we want or, despite them, we don’t have the ability to expose them properly.

Furthermore, we have to take into account that most of the time, peace is overshadowed with just one violent act.

Rosa Parks is a good example of how to do things in a way that shows what you think, but without trampling on the rights of others and not harm anyone or anything in between. She didn’t use the force or inappropriate words to defend her position

This also shows me that if I want to present my opinion about something and know that it will not please the majority, must be aware that there will be who come and criticize me, and think that I am a strange.

However, there is a weapon that we can use to solve problems. As King said: “Nonviolence is the most powerful weapon.”

What do you think? Don’t you believe that using violent methods is detrimental rather than beneficial? Do you think that instead of speeding things, violence delay things even more?

~~Comment below~~

This video tell us about the story of the bus where she refused to stand up and go to the bus's back.

I hope you like it!

Hybridity and Hope

In this entry I'm going to talk a little bit about two  points that called my attention in the book "The absolut true diary of a part-time indian."

Just as the title of this book reveals, "a part-time" indian. That's what the protagonist of the story is. 

"The people at home, a lot of them call me an apple. They call me an apple because they think I'm red on the outside and white on the inside."

Junior is a person who has a "hybrid identity" because of his "part-time" life between school and home. 
School in Reardan, a little high school consisting only of white people and Willpinit, the indian reservation. 

So you could say that Junior is sort of an indian in Raerdar and in Willprint he's sort of white. But I have the impression that it is actually difficult for him to define who he is. It appears to me that in the entire story is Junior in the search of identity.

Also Gordy, Junior's best friend in Reardan, says something important about his divided identity:

"Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community." 

And he's right. There is a sort of conflict between being part of Willpint's community and wanting to "improve" as a person, as an individual, by going out of the res, by going out of the community.

The second thing that I want to talk about, is the way how the protagonist (Junior) tells his story and therefore, reveals a lot of his personality.

I focused on how the story is being narrated. There are a few elements, as irony, sarcasm, a lot of "joking around" about his life. Nevertheless I noticed how resigned he seems to be, regarding to his life, his reality and situation.

He appears to me pretty mature as a teenager, because he knows how to handle bad situations pretty well and face most adversities in his life, like the fact that most of his people are alcoholics, the big number of deaths in his life, the big decision he made by his own by going to Reardan.

Apparently he is someone who wont give up. Junior pulled through all the bad things in his life with the aim of improving his life. 

Just as Mr. P said to him, he is on his way trying to find something better. Junior is in the pursuif of hope.

I also read a bit about the authors biography. In that way I could understand better the context in which the book was written and the thoughts of Alexie.

I leave some links underneath, so you can take a look at it if you want to. 

http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/authors/p/alexie.htm

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sherman-alexie

http://www.pshares.org/read/article-detail.cfm?intArticleID=5027

A mixture of wild and spirit

In contrast with any other aboriginal people of America, Oceania and Africa that were mostly massacred and forced to follow the rules that colonizers imposed, the Mäori people kept a high resistence to the attempts of colonization by the British, so it wasn’t exist a real colonization. In fact, many colonizers – who were named as pakeha – had to run away. In this way, instead of a colonization, they created a treaty, the Waitgangi Treaty, in wich the Mäori people and the British were benefited.

But we have to admit that to achieve this, there were many bloody battles, that in my opinion, almost every battle were won by the Mäori because they used some armament really prepared such as wood knives sharped with shark’s teeth, spears with stingray’s tail, and they used every kind of venom that they had in New Zeland.

Also, they had tattoos in their faces, and this tattoos meant a social and military hierarchy, so they intimidated the british.

But, until now I just have wrote about a wild Mäori, and after all de military preparation that they received, exist a really spiritual culture. The legend to the world origin that the oral tradition tell, talk that the parents of the world were Papa (Heaven) and Rangi (Earth) who were embraced to avoid the creation of the world. However, their divine children tried to broke this embrace, but they didn't get it, until Tane – forest God – accomplished separate them, decoring the sky with stars and creating the Sun and the Moon. Still, Tawhiri – Wind God – didn’t want to separate him parents so he created the hurricanes.They explain the rain as tears of the couple after their separation.

With this, I would like to make a reflection about how we always get focus in just one side of the things, that ussually tende to be the negative or bad side and we overvalue this side, taking off all kind of credits to the positive or good side.

Stolen Life

“I took the journey back to my land at Jigalong in Western Australia,' she wrote. 'I took my children to walk on my hot, dusty land. It was then that I was reunited with my mother”

With this words ,I would love to share with you dear bloggers, the life behind the author of the famous book “Rabbit Proof Fence”. Doris Pilkington was the protagonist´s daughter of the story told,and she wrote the famous book based on stories of her aunty Daisy. She as her mother, had a very difficult life, but she was capable to leave behind ,all the pain caused by the abandonment of her Mother and she dared to search her past.

Doris was denied being raised by her real family, for the same reason she always thought that Aborigines were inferior, that is why it was so difficult for her to find her past.

She was a great woman, and with the story of her mother, she contributed to create awareness of the damage caused to the stolen generation.

Is difficult to see, how so many people went through the same pain. It is inspiring how she was capable to use her history, as an living image of the damage that the government cause to the half caste children in all over the country.

According to me It’s very understandable her feelings about her past, She spent all her life believing that her mother abandoned her ,that must be very hard for a little girl ,that’s why I love her history even more. She was brave enough  to come back to the hot and dusty land as she called and create a change ,not only for her people, but for all the country that still hid this reality.

Dear Bloggers I would like to Know your comments about the history behind the book “Rabbit Proof Fence”

For more information, I found a really great page about the author’s Biography, Is very interesting and I learn a lot about her in there .See you next time 

http://rabbit-proof-fence.wikidot.com/the-author