Journal Entry "In the Land of the Free"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 26, 2011

Journal #8, Sui Sin Far

"The mission woman talked as she walked.  She told Lae Choo that little Kim, as he had been named by the school, was the pet of the place, and that his little tricks and was amused and delighted every one.  He had been rather difficult to manage at first and had cried much for his mother; 'but children soon forget, and after a month he seemed quite at home and played around as bright and happy as a bird'".(886)

"Her themes are of utmost importance: racial insensitivity, the human costs of bureaucratic and discriminatory laws, the humanity of the Chinese. The creation of rounded characters is a secondary concern. Lae Choo is little more than maternity personified, maternity victimized by racial prejudice. But the very portrayal of a Chinese woman in the maternal role--loving, anxious, frantic, self-sacrificing--was itself a novelty and a contribution, for the popular conception of the Chinese woman, whose numbers were few in nineteenth-century America, was that of a sing-song girl, prostitute, or inmate of an opium den. In Lae Choo, Eaton gives the reading public a naive, trusting woman whose entire life is devoted to the small child that the law of "this land of the free" manages to keep away from her for nearly one year".(Edith Maud Eaton, http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/eaton.html)

Lae Choo has just given up all of her jewelry, gold, and valuables, save one ring given to her by her husband to signify their child.  She traded them for a fleeting chance at getting her son back from the missionary that United States Customs had placed him in.  She has waited in sadness to finally have her son back, and she is granted her only wish by an all-important paper sent from Washington.  She is led through the group of other children by a woman at the Mission who explains what her son has been like for the last ten months.  When Lae Choo finally reunites with her son, he has forgotten her and, "'Go 'way, go 'way!' he bade his mother".(886)

The missionary's words, when speaking about little Kim, are astonishingly animalistic in their description of the young child.  The way she speaks could be understandable if to one of her friends. talking about the children at the mission, but to his own mother who has waited ten long months to see him?  Her words seem ignorantly evil and have a saddening slant to them in regards to their treatment of Lae Choo's young son.  She literally describes the little boy as a bird, the cage taking the form of the mission, the government, and this entire "Land of the Free".
She begins by saying that the boy was as a pet there, saddened to be taken from its mother at first, but soon trained and domesticated. Somewhat thankful of the fact that he was taken young enough for this to be the case, the woman then relays that he was soon happy to be there.  She speaks as if he were a bird in a cage who, once its mother and past are forgotten, is quite content to sing, and perform "little tricks" for its new owners.
Like a wild bird or animal trapped and raised in captivity, when released, the boy showed no sign of recognition of his mother.  He was domesticated in the animal sense and assimilated as related to people, a cleverly substituted word to hide the true effects of its nature.  As terrifying as the state of her son is, the woman's lack of sensitivity through seemingly innocent ignorance in her interactions with Lae Choo, is at least equally appalling. 

Journal Entry "The Imported Bridegroom"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 25, 2011

Journal #7, Abraham Cahan

"A nightmare of desolation and jealousy choked her-jealousy of the Scotchman's book, of the Little-Russian shirt, of the empty tea-glasses with the slices of lemon on their bottoms, of the whole excited crowd, and of Shaya's entire future, from which she seemed excluded".(806)

 

"Cahan arrived in New York City in June 1882. Cahan transferred his commitment to socialism to his new country, and he devoted all the time he could spare from work to the study and teaching of radical ideas to the Jewish working men of New York. Cahan joined the Socialist Labor Party of America writing articles on socialism and science, and translating literary works for the pages of its Yiddish language paper, the Arbeiter Zeitung ("Workers' News").^[1] Cahan saw himself as an educator and enlightener of the impoverished Jewish working class of the city, "meeting them on their own ground and in their own language".(Wikipedia, Abraham Cahan)

This passage describes Flora's feelings of jealousy as she watches her new husband, Shaya talk and read with a group of educated men, discussing philosophy.  She came over to tell him that her father, Asriel, had reluctantly agreed to let them marry despite the new-found interest in gentile learning in this former 'prodigy' in Jewish Law.  Flora initially wanted him to learn these things and in fact study to be a doctor, while Asriel's plan for him when he brought him from Pravy was to study religious writings and become his ticket to happiness in the next life. Flora dreamed of marrying a doctor, and so encouraged Shaya to disobey her father and pursue gentile education.  She now sat before her new husband and a ragged company of intellectuals, none fitting her image of hat and spectacles, driving through central park.

Many of the characters in this story seem to be subject to feelings of exclusion and motivated by strong forms of jealousy.  Flora's naive idea of what it must be like to marry a doctor was slowly falling apart in front of her.  She was jealous of her other schoolmates and wanted to upstage them by finding her picturesque husband.  His company was ragged though, a diverse group of disheveled looking educated men.  She never ought to learn herself or to go to college on her own, yet was expecting with an entitled attitude that she would marry into the life that she wanted to live.

Cahan draws a parallel in Asriel's life and in his procuring of his daughter's bridegroom.  Asriel, a self-admitted boor, did not himself learn the teachings of religious scripts or Jewish Law, but rather chased financial success and ended up with quite a large purse.  However, as he aged, he began to fear death and the next life and wanted to rectify himself with the higher power.  Like his daughter, instead of putting forward any effort to improve himself, he travels to his hometown and buys a bridegroom that will save his soul.

It is interesting that of the main characters, the only one who seems to be satisfied for any sustained amount of time is Shaya.  Freed or imprisoned by America, he seeks to quench his insatiable thirst for knowledge.  He is the only one that is putting forth effort to better himself and to reach his goals.  Cahan makes references to both Asriel choking, as he storms out of the synagogue declaring the rabbi himself a liar, and Flora as her jealousy for and exclusion from the educated world surface.  Cahan's successful character is Shaya who is seeking knowledge of all forms.  Asriel and Flora do not strive to improve, but rather rely on others' achievements to mark them with success, each ending in subjective failure.

Journal Entry "Life Among The Piutes"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 20, 2011

Journal #6, Sarah Winnemucca

“Oh, can anyone imagine my feelings buried alive, thinking every minute that I was to be unburied and eaten up by the people by the people that my grandfather loved so much? … Oh, how I cried and said: ‘Oh, father, have you forgotten me?  Are you never coming for me?’ I cried so I thought my very heartstrings would break”. (505)

"At the time of her birth her people had only very limited contact with Euro-Americans; however she spent much of her adult life in white society. Like many people of two worlds, she may be judged harshly in both contexts. Many Paiutes view her as a collaborator who helped the U.S. Army kill her people. Modern historians view her book as an important primary source, but one that is deliberately misleading in many instances. Despite this, Sarah has recently received much positive attention for her activism". (Wikipedia, Sarah Winnemucca, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Winnemucca)

            These are the thoughts racing through Sarah Winnemucca’s head as she lies still, buried in the earth.  Her people, the Piutes, had just come down from the mountains to fish in the Humboldt River.  They had received word that white men were coming and everyone ran.  She was stricken with fear and could not run, so her Mother and her Aunt buried their daughters.  They lay them in the earth, planted sage bushes over their heads to protect them from the sun, and instructed them to be quiet.  The two young girls had to silently wait in fear of the white man that they believed would eat them until their mothers could come unbury them.

            The image of Winnemucca being buried in the earth, fearing the arrival of the white man, can be translated as a metaphor for the terrible struggle that all of her people, the Piutes, and all Native Americans went through.  The whites had decided that the ‘savages’ had to be driven out or killed and, in a sense, bound by tradition, ties to the land, and lack of technology, her people were buried and waiting for them to come.  Of course, the whites that came did not eat them, but they did brutally and blindly kill thousands upon thousands of Native Americans and run the rest from their homelands.  They were a people very in touch with the land, living with it, not just on it.  In this way, Winnemucca being buried in the ground is a metaphor for her people’s situation.  They were at once in touch with the land and trapped by it.  They could not leave their hunting grounds or the rivers they knew because these were their sources of food.  They had no guns, no technology, and no knowledge of the white world.  They were stuck, silent as there was no one to hear their calls, waiting for the white man to come and unbury them, uproot them, and destroy their peaceful way of life. 

            In the words above, Sarah is crying to both her literal Father and to a higher power in desperation.  Her people were doing the same.  They cried to the whites, to anyone that could help them, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.  This led to silence and solemn patience, as they lay, buried in their earth waiting to be unburied and eaten up.

Journal Entry "The School Days of an Indian Girl"

Stephen Greene
English 48B
January , 2011
Journal #5  Zitkala

“I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one.   …The pony reached the top of the highest hill and began an even race on the level lands.  There was nothing moving within that great circular horizon of the Dakota prairies save the tall grasses, over which the wind blew and rolled off in long, shadowy waves”. (118, “Impressions of an Indian Childhood”)

“She has been described by one critic (Dexter Fischer) as "...always on the threshold of two worlds, but never fully entering either." It seems to me more that from a position in the white world that she created in the teeth of a world as hostile to intelligent women leaders as to Indians, she created changes and improvements in the Indian world to which she was born. Though she was a mixed-blood or half-breed, she did not have identity problems as to which world was hers”. (Native American Resources, http://www.kstrom.net/isk/mainmenu.html#mainmenutop)

            Zitkala is describing a time when she had returned to the plains that her Mother lived on.  She had gone east for schooling and was lamenting her isolation from both the whites and now the Indians.  Her brother then arrives on his pony from the East where he too has pursued a formal education.  He ties his pony to the post and Zitkala grabs it when he turns his back.  She ignores her brother’s calls and races it up into the hills onto a plateau and looks around at the plains below her.

            In Zitkala’s moments of feeling lost, she describes being between tall and short, between wild and tame.  This reminded me immediately of Du Bois’ idea of a double consciousness.  She feels like neither part of the Indian culture nor the white culture, although the truth is that she actually a part of both.  Born to her mother who raised her in the Native American way and formally educated by the whites to become an award-winning orator.  She seeks acceptance from both and a merging of the two rather than an abandonment of either side of her.  Du Bois describes rising above the veil of prejudice, not tearing it down.  Likewise, in a metaphorical sense, Zitkala does not run to either the East or the whites, or to her mother’s arms or her Native American heritage.  She races the pony upwards, alone, to a place not scrutinized, not judged, and insignificant in the vast expanse, above the plains.

            I think that her word choice is extremely fascinating, particularly in “… neither a wild Indian nor a tame one” and “…an even race on the level lands”.  I think that her use of wild and tame to describe herself and fellow Native Americans displays a terrible side affect of her schooling in the East.  When she speaks of an even race, she is speaking, of course, of her pony literally reaching the flats of a mesa or plateau as she races it into the distance and up the hills of the prairie.  Figuratively, this is an escape.  She is, at least for the moment, running away, running upwards, and fleeing the tangled sense of self she has from the conflicts between her Native American culture and her white education.  In this context, her word choice implies a longing or at least thought about the Indian race being even with others (namely the whites) and on level land.  I think that this image of her on the level plain looking down at only the shadows of the wind moving across the grass creates a strong metaphor for her people and their fading struggle to uphold their identities.

Journal Entry "The Souls of Black Folk"

Stephen Greene
English 48B
January , 2011
Journal #4 W. E. B. Du Bois

"A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems.  But alas! while sociologists gleefully count his bastards and his prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling, sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair.  Men call the shadow prejudice...". (898, "The Souls of Black Folks)

"Although Du Bois had originally believed that social science could provide the knowledge to solve the race problem, he gradually came to the conclusion that in a climate of virulent racism, expressed in such evils as lynching, peonage, disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation laws, and race riots, social change could be accomplished only through agitation and protest." (Biography.com, W. E. B. Du Bois) 

        W. E. B. Du Bois begins this quote with a sentiment that many of the newly freed African Americans of the time undoubtedly shared, including Booker T. Washington.  This was a common feeling of being unprepared for the immense and foreign challenges that they suddenly faced.  They felt that they needed time and effort in order to reach a social level competitive with the whites of that time.  Du Bois, however, points out the fundamental flaw in this idealistic view: that the African American's place in society was by no means static, and in most cases, dynamic in a way that was resulting in negative outcomes.  That is to say, that during this time that many wanted to use in order to improve socially, they were being judged and slipping farther from their long-terms goals of racial equality as they spoke.

        Du Bois criticizes an ideal that many held at the time, including Booker T. Washington, that African Americans would be able to slowly work their way up through society until on an even footing with whites.  They saw the accomplishment of this goal as possible by industrial means and by perseverance.  From their achieved competitiveness with whites, the black man would then be faced the task of proving themselves as equal to those of lighter skin.
        This required a great amount of time in which, argues Du Bois, the framework for a society legally separating blacks as unequal would be established and soon set in concrete.  He points out that these newly freed African American are immediately being judged by the rest of the Nation, and to argue for all responsibility of movement towards equality to rest solely on the black man's shoulders was lacking sanity and practicality.  The very notion that the black man must move up in order to compete on a level playing field with his white counterpart allows for social injustices which only succeed in worsening the condition.  Du Bois criticized Washington's essential request for the black man to be given time to pull himself up by his bootstraps as foolish, seeing instead that equality was only possible with the help of those in charge. 
   In addition to the task of raising one's self out of persecution appearing insurmountable without assistance, Du Bois argues that the African American community cannot afford the time that it would take.  As he points out, the critical, white sociologist of the time were quick to find fault in the black community.  They undoubtedly stressed the presence of "bastards and prostitutes", thieves and criminals, or negative members of the block society beyond reality and lessened the impression that they gave of the blacks advancements as a civilized people.  This degradation and harsh judgment of black society served to make the ideal of self-powered rise from racism seem increasingly impossible. It did this by darkening the shadow of prejudice that whites held over blacks and by enforcing a feeling of failure and daunting hopelessness in the mind of the common black man.
        With both time which could not be spared, and effort which could not be matched necessary for the idealistic plan for change that Washington set forth, it is no surprise that he was met with opposition.  Du Bois is merely pointing out that, while the relationship between prejudice and the current state of the African American was clear, the question to be raised was of which is the cause?  Du Bois states that, "relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than a result of the Negro's degradation". (907)

Jornal Entry on "Up From Slavery"

Stephen Greene
English 48B
January 11, 2011
Journal # 3 Booker T. Washington

"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. ... [O]ut of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, [the Negro boy] gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race". (679, American Literature)

"Washington valued the "industrial" education, as it provided critical skills for the jobs then available to the majority of African-Americans at the time. It would be these skills that would lay the foundation for the creation of stability that the African-American community required in order to move forward". (Wikipedia, "Booker T. Washington")

Washington defines what success means in his eyes, and how he believes it should be measured in others.  He imparts more value to the willpower and resolve necessary in an individual to overcome struggle than to the traditionally more sought after version measured by financial and social status. In addition, Washington says that mere presence of challenges strengthens one's character.

His position that success is determined by the obstacles which one overcomes, at once lends itself to the arguments for two of Washington's most emphasized points.  Firstly, Washington stressed, that in the time period in which he lived the newly free generations of African Americans should not be judged too harshly given their extremely debilitating beginnings.  Many of the former slaves, thrust into a competitive world, were unprepared for the new set of challenges that they faced once free.  They could not be expected, Washington argues, to perform on par with whites immediately.  His definition of success as a completion of challenges seeks to persuade the whites to judge these newly freed men on their effort and improvement.
        Secondly, Washington's definition of success accounts for both the higher level of difficulty of, and greater personal growth caused by a lifetime of overcoming obstacles.  The struggle of the African Americans, before freed, gave them the strength and determination that Washington believed was necessary for them to overcome the racial inequalities that they were presented with.
         Washington's proposed refinement of our interpretation of success is specifically applied to the situation of the post-civil war African American, but I believe that we can benefit, even to this day, from a more qualitative measure of success.  One could argue that our determinants of success have only gotten more quantitative and superficially based over time.  We currently label one's quantity of financial possessions as something severely close to that of success. 

        I personally believe that one's character is almost entirely shaped by their experiences, and in agreement with Washington's assessment, strengthened through challenge.  At a general level this applies to society as a whole and suggests that we should hold individuals who overcome obstacles in higher esteem than those who simply hold their high position of birth.  On a smaller scale, this concept can be aimed directly at the individual's character and impart a motivation to look past the obstacles he/she is faced with.  This translates into a cycle described by the psychological concept of self-efficacy or the idea that through success, one is not only more likely to attempt a future challenge, but more likely to succeed at it.  In short, I believe that Booker T. Washington's definition is beneficial to both the society and the individual.