A Forgotten Fruit?

My older brother, who is currently living in Washington, D.C. trying to make his way in the world of politics with a political science degree, sent me this article.  He knows I love fruit, so that's partly why he sent it, but also because it is a little piece of history that is actually really cool!


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/09/29/140894570/the-pawpaw-foraging-for-americas-forgotten-fruit?sc=fb&cc=fp




The PawPaw is a little fruit that "grows along the banks of the Potomac — a speckled and homely skin that hides a tasty treat."  It's a tropical fruit in the United States! What? Here's the history: "Thomas Jefferson had pawpaws at Monticello. And when he was minister to France in 1786, he had pawpaw seeds shipped over to friends there. He probably wanted to impress his friends with something exotic from America."  Furthermore, "Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals that they were quite fond of the pawpaw. At one point during their expedition in 1806, they relied on pawpaws when other provisions ran low. And from Michigan to West Virginia, people have even named towns and lakes after the pawpaw."


Who would have thought a little piece of fruit would have so much history attached?? I thought this was more than fitting to blog about -- so much American history!  And a side note -- pawpaws are apparently full of antioxidants, so eat up!

You Can't Escape Discrimination

"But the fairy also provoked a high degree of anxiety an scorn among middle-class men because he embodied the very things middle-class men most feared about their gender status. His effeminacy represented in extreme form the loss of manhood middle-class men most feared in themselves, and his style seemed to undermine their efforts to shore up their manly status.  His womanlike manner challenged the supposed immutability of gender differences by demonstrating that anatomical males did not inevitably become men and were not inevitably different from women.  The fairy's feminization of his body seemed to ridicule and highlight the artificiality of the efforts of other men to masculinize theirs.  Being called a fairy became  a serious threat to middle-class men precisely because the boundaries between the she-man and the middle-class man seemed so permeable, despite men's beset efforts to develop manly bodies and cultural styles" (115).

Discrimination seems to be the never-ending theme that I see so far this semester! It's everywhere! Also, the recurring theme that society doesn't like things that are new.  In this case it is the gay culture and the fairy.  I find myself having a hard time with this issue because I think of America as so free.  We are free to be who we want to be, say what we want to say, do what we want to do (within reason).  And yet this comes with an almost guaranteed attachment of society's disapproval.  A part of society will always disapprove of something someone does.  So we do not really have true freedom without disapproval from someone.  Does all freedom come along with an attached judgement by society?  Is it even possible to do something completely "right" according to society?  Is society made up of one view?  I would think not; rather, I think society is an overlapping and chunking of many different views on different issues.  Society's judgement and constructs seem inescapable, and it kind of freaks me out.  Our history texts and other texts that we have read thus far in AmCon seem to say that society's judgements are inescapable to.
Scary, I think.

Poetry and America

Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

This was by far my favorite one that I read by Langston Hughes.  I realize that a couple of his mentions of "black like me" and his last sentence makes it seem particular to only blacks, but I felt like I identified with the bulk of it. To me, this poem seems to be about freedom. And maybe the freedom he is talking about is different than the freedom that each person who reads this thinks about.  But when I read this poem, I hear him asking for the freedom to live, the freedom to relax, the freedom to be carefree or worry free;  I hear a desperation yet also a recognition like he believes he will never be able to be that free to "dance". 

The author's subtle mention of nature --  "sun" "tree"...recognizes how much peace can be found in nature. Can freedom be found in nature?  I would like to think so.  But even if this is true, then can this freedom be kept?  Or is it only short lived?  I know that it is in nature that I feel most free, but when I leave nature, I am no longer free.  This, of course, translates into the question:  Is all freedom short lived?  

Intro to Harlem Renaissance

From the article, Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North:


"[The Great Migration] had such an effect on almost every aspect of our lives — from the music that we listen to to the politics of our country to the ways the cities even look and feel, even today," says Isabel Wilkerson. "The suburbanization and the ghettos that were created as a result of the limits of where [African-Americans] could live in the North [still exist today.] And ... the South was forced to change, in part because they were losing such a large part of their workforce through the Great Migration."


The Harlem Renaissance is honestly something I am not too familiar with;  I never studied it that deeply or have read about it that closely.   Yet, the film we watched in class today and then these articles we have read have really caught my interest!
I LOVE the fact that The Great Migration had an effect on the "music we listen to and the the politics of our country..."  If you look at American culture today, we see that the music is different for different classes, races, gender, etc.   Music is something I can really identify with because I grew up singing, playing piano, and playing violin.  
I like to think that when music changes, it is always meaningful;  when music changes, it means something BIG is happening.  Think of a movie, for example -- when the musical score gets louder, perhaps a fight is happening.   Now translate this into the Harlem Renaissance -- the music was changing.  The traditions were changing.  Culture as a whole was changing.  America was changing.  If you pay attention to music in history, you can learn a lot about the events happening  at that time.
Some of the greatest hits of all time come out of the Harlem Renaissance -- Louis Armstrong, for example, was a big hit-music maker at that time.
I guess what I am trying to say is that music says a lot about a culture, a people, a race, a gender.  Music can tell a story; music tells the story of history.  And if we open our ears enough to listen, we will hear a story of change being sung or played.  The story of change in the Harlem Renaissance was that of African-Americans and other races finding their own identity in music and in America itself. 

Dissatisfaction Quote Analysis

"It was evident to him that the world was composed and recomposed in an endless process of dissatisfaction."

True or false?  Here is what I wrote in class today when DeAne told us to just "write!":

"True...? If human wants are unlimited, according to economic principles, then it has to be true.  Wanting focuses on what you don't have.  Satisfaction notices what you do have and allows that to be enough.  In America, it seems as though people don't stop to realize what they do have.   They look at what someone else has, realize they don't have it, and go after it.  There is always something that someone is going to want; there's always going to be dissatisfaction."
To continue on this subject...
Katie mentioned (over skype) that there is this idea of individual satisfaction versus satisfaction with the world.  And that we are not stuck in dissatisfaction.  Is life, then, what we make of it?  Can we decide that this composing and recomposing of dissatisfaction is just present, and continue on our lives? Or are we supposed to make it end?
I agree with Katie that the individual can be satisfied even though the world is not satisfied.  Ever since we got out of class today, I find myself looking around at others...and wondering if they are satisfied.  With themselves, with the world...even just here at Olaf.  Is it possible that our campus composes and recomposes itself in an endless process of dissatisfaction?  Is it inescapable?  (Wow these seem like depressing thoughts...).  So many questions...and I believe there's not really "one" right answer.

Ragtime Film vs. Book

Tonight we watched a good chunk of the film of Ragtime.   I actually really enjoyed it because it helped give me a visualization of the words I read!  However, I did have some things that really stuck out negatively to me about the film:
It seemed that Mother was depicted as downtrodden, inferior, almost stupid.  I didn't like that.
Father was depicted as more ignorant that I think he is...he was being rude and mean to Coalhouse Walker more-so than he was in the book.
I was really pleased with how they portrayed Coalhouse Walker, Tateh, Tateh's little girl, and Mother's Younger Brother.  I think Mother's Younger Brother did very well and he was actually exactly how I had pictured him.
One topic that the film helped clear up for me was the how political the upper-class world of Evelyn and Thaw and Standford White was.   The culture really left Evelyn with not very many choices, and I can imagine how trapped she felt.  It was also interesting how they cut out the part about Evelyn spending days and days and days with Tateh and his daughter.  I thought this was a crucial part in the book about how Evelyn wanted to make herself a part of the lower-class group.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the movie and found it very helpful to watch.  I would eventually like to see the end of it...but for now I am moving forward with my Ragtime paper!

Race and Ethnicity

From DeAne or Mary off of moodle: "So there were Negros and there were immigrants. What do the lenses of race and ethnicity help us to see in the book? What does the book help us to see about race and ethnicity, then and now?"

The most strong idea about race and ethnicity that I get from Ragtime, is that the two are still blended together and discriminated against.  And part of the reason they are discriminated against is because of American history; there is a history of discrimination.  There is a movement these days about embracing diversity, having humans live together in peace.  Just because our history is founded in shunning diversity does not mean that it should continue (though it does, and will always continue probably...). "But the general perception of human diversity - often with value judgement attached regarding mental, physical, and moral attributes - is as old as settled human existence."  (Constructing Social Identity: Race).   Yes, America's perception of diversity has always been around.  Yes, as humans we are naturally drawn to those who are similar to us because it's 'safe'.  But that doesn't constitute a need to shun those who are different, to discriminate against them, and to not embrace diversity.

"In order to understand ethnicity, we must divest it of all conscious or unconscious racial connotations.  Ethnicity may be defined as a collective, inherited, cultural identity, buttressed by social structures and social networks, and often formulated in opposition to competing social groups."  Ethnicity is not about race.  Ethnicity is about where an individual is from; their environment.  "Ethnicity is a collective phenomenon, a 'we feeling' that unites a number of people"(Constructing Social Identity: Ethnicity).   That being said, couldn't our AmCon class be an ethnicity?   We are a "we feeling"...we are united by the 2 years we spend together, the things we discuss, the material we read.  Ethnicity is about cultural and social identity.  It is important to redefine ethnicity vs. race, and to make sure that American (specifically student) understand the difference between the two.  It would be another step towards living peaceably among one another.