The American Dream - Angela M. Balcita

The structure of this essay is in chronological order. The first sentence at the beginning of each paragraph is bolded to represent importance. The story tells of a man who moves from the Philippines to America. He has a son and a wife. He starts out feeling misplaced and questions if he can be both Pilipino and American. After time while he son grows up and he has baseball as a passion throughout it, he learns to live in America as an American. He faces problems as everyone does and he learns things about American's that he didn't' know before. He moves and fits in more with those surrounding him. The structure of this essay is kind of like every paragraph is one part of his life. A story that he can remember clearly and that had an impact on him. Each story has a main focus and that's the bolded sentence at the beginning. Each paragraph makes him who he is whether it's American or Pilipino-American.

Little Store (seeing 2)

In this photograph by Welty of the Storekeeper taken in 1935 is of the Store owner in the town that Welty describes from her childhood. The store keeper is sitting on a ledge with the looks of two pumpkins His facial expression shows a solid face with a stern structure. He looks unhappy and serious. His hand lays on the pumpkin as if he wants to show that he owns the place. He is properly dressed in a tie, button down and long pants. He is crossing his legs showing proper gesture maybe to express his seriousness of owning this store. In the background there are bananas a picture and I think a telephone. The banana's are by the window that is shinning light through the glass. This gives the store keepers face some brightness and the other side shadows. The banana's are ripening in the sun and the telephone hangs on the wooden wall. This shows that maybe the store gets calls for the food he offers. Or maybe he gets shipments of food from other factories and uses the phone for business. Even though the photograph is in a small area and it's called the Little Store, i think it's got a big business.

Little Store (seeing 1)

The way Welty rights The Little Store is in chronological order. It starts off with her describing her mother and how she always gets asked to go to the Little Store and she willingly does it. She loves to walk a couple blocks away. She play with her jumping- rope and jumps hopscotch. She remembers her stories of going to the store and getting groceries. The songs she hears and the smells she smells, it's all part of her memory that she explains to the readers in order from what she remembers of her trips. THe ones she remembers most clearly are the memories that have the most affect on her, such as the lyrics of the song. The way she writes appeals to many senses including hearing, sight and smell. She makes it feel as if she's still there describing it. Her details in the writing make you feel like a child experiencing it also because they are so vivid and descriptive.

Diposesed Seeing 2

Deresiewicz focusses mainly on the upper and middle class. He tries to make the reader understand these classes so that they can see the similarities between each class besides regardless the money. He refers to documentaries and television capturing the idea that this used to not be an issue. There were shows that stared the "working class" but now shows like that don't exist. Why?

Disposed (seeing 1)

The working class to Deresiexicz is  a someone who receives an hourly wage. He then continues to say that this definition doesn't include professionals, managers etc. I think he makes it clear that he doesn't like the fact that people think of working class as people who work labor intensive jobs. Why do they have to be the only ones considered for working class? Why do they seem lower than the middle class? What is the middle class? It seems funny that even the working class could make more money than the middle class but they're still considered lower down.

Seeing 2 (page 178)

The tone os Sander's essay is wishful. I feel like he's trying to argue a point that no one will really listen to and take into consideration. As he states on page 175, "I think of my home ground as a series of nested rings, with house and family and marriage at the center, surrounded by the wider and wider hoops of neighborhood and community..." This sounds like a nice place to be and I think he's trying to get across the fact that when you make a home your home and build upon that it's the best there can be and why move? When people move it's usually because they have to due to a job, or can't afford the house, etc. Staying in one place could cause issues and problems for families and others. Everything he says is true, a home can't really be a home unless you live in it for a long period of time but I think you have to make the best of what you have and if you have to move, so be it. Make that house your new home as much as possible.
I find Richard Ford's voice more engaging and convincing. Although I've only had one home all my life, I believe that everyone may fall upon trouble or happiness and have to change where their home is. Sanders considers home as the place he lives, where he has built relationships and spent a majority of his lifetime. Home to Ford means where he lives at the moment, typically not that long considering he has lived all over America. But as he states he "never thought any of these places were home when I lived there". I feel he knows home as where he lives in the moment but his essay is intriguing. It relates to many and his tone is entertaining and also makes you think.

Seeing 1 (page 178)

One argument for staying put is how can you value other places if you do not have on of your own. Those who just move on to make a home somewhere else have not made one where they were before because they don't know what home is if they're moving place to place. He also argues the fact that many root themselves in ideas rather than places. The idea of moving to a "better" place intrigues people and causes them to move. These ideas follow us and make us feel as if where we are now isn't good enough. But if you're they're long enough you can make a home for yourselves and those around you.
At the beginning he mentions a story of the family that keeps rebuilding their home because of tornado's that take off with parts of their house. This family could save money and move to a safer locations but resists changing locations. They refuse because of their time and investment in their land. It's what they're familiar with. Who would want to start over when so much hard work has already been accomplished.
I think his arguments are affective but he mentions many examples of quotes or stories that refer to moving, like Rushdie's thoughts and Newton's law. I think it would be stronger if they're was only one point that argued against his essay instead of equal examples on each side of the arguement.

River of Names

I honestly am very confused by this excerpt from Dorothy Allsion. She starts by explaining an incident where I think a families car crashed with a collapsed bridge. She mentions many names and I can't figure out who her aunt is and then it shoots right to her sister, her baby and the problems she has with her baby boy. The baby was supposedly born during a bad year and apparently they have a "tradition of bastards". This means that the parents were not married, so the sister is a single parent. Dorothy as her sister, visits and helps take care of the baby. One time, she walks in on her sister screaming at the baby, throwing a punch at him as it lands on the bed next to his face. Dorothy takes the baby away and her sister gets upset saying things like "I wasn't going to be like that". She asks Dorothy why she can't have babies and this is where I get confused. Is she a lesbian, because at one point she says "I could not come home to see her, from the woman I could not admit I'd been with" or does she hate her sister from when she thinks, "I cannon go on loving you and hating you for your diary-tale life"? Everything seems so dramatic and I don't know why. I think there's more to this story than meets the eye and the first couple of paragraphs has something to do with the whole excerpt.

Seeing 1 (page 127)

Arguments:

Auction House (American collectibles): what objects are worth value and what aren't.
Exhibition: paintings (meaning in the objects in the painting) and objects.
New Generation: we value objects for their "symbolic value", a memory or important remembrance
Design: objects valued because of it's color, technology, and craft. Meaning as well as function
Domestic Life: and how it relates to who we are, for example a kid's backpack.
World Trade Center: using objects like piece of the plane or an American flag to document a time in history when others think it's "robbing graves"
Athen's Paintings and the Greeks: their paintings and way of life are simple "domestic objects" just like ours today (books, photographs, films, etc.) which all represent stories and values

I thought the Auction house argument was the most successful because it was right off the introduction and the meaning of The Uncommon Life of Common Objects. It is a supportive example of what people find valuable and worth money. It gave examples of different objects and how some might find it more valuable than others maybe based on their own stories regarding the object.

The argument that resonates most with my own experiences is the paragraph about "domestic life". I too have objects such as clothing, jewelry, paintings etc. that mean something to me because they either represent myself, take on the role of a memorable story or keep me from forgetting someone I care/cared about.

Thinking about it now that I've read The Uncommon Life of Common Objects, all the objects in my life play a roll in my life. Depending on the object it is either used, looked at, listened to, watched, admired, loved, hugged, cried over and I could go on.

Seeing 2 (page 145)

Edward Hirsch focuses the emptiness of the painting. He first explains that this house stands out as if it's someone being stared at. Something is fishy about this house and something makes you want to look at it longer. He goes on to explain details of the house, the rooftop, the porch and it's structure. He tries to give the reader an idea of what the painter was thinking when he painted this. He states, "he (Edward) is as brutal as sunlight, and believes the house must have done something horrible to the people who once lived here". Makes the reader questions what really happened and what the painter was thinning when he produced this painting.  Edward Hirsch continues to explain detail and the loneliness of the painting. He describes the house as human. As "someone being stared at". At the end he states, "someone who is about to be left alone again, and can no longer stand it." Here he is talking about the house. How this house is now empty and no one is living in it and over time with no care is will get too hold to stand and fall. I think the repetitions and structural elements enhances the painting. You read a sentence about a man being stared at and then the second time you read it you understand that  it's talking about the house. There's just enough detail and bits of confusion scattered across the poem to make the house looks so much more interesting. It's not just a house anymore, it's whatever your imagination wants to think it is.

Seeing 1 (page 145)

In House by the Railroad, Hopper directs my attention to the details of the house. I read his words and try to understand them by focusing on the architecture and the structure of the house. I look at color, the windows, the red room with the chimney, the porch with the long whitish blue columns and the shadows the house produces. It is right behind the railroad track. Just a plain track that lies in the foreground of the painting. The sky is the same color as the house but the house stands out among the sky. The sky looks empty, the house looks empty and the railroad track looks empty. Overall I think it's just an empty picture but makes the viewer think a lot about why. What's the story behind this painting?