Final Blog

This year in Humanities Core has been a journey. It has been really interesting learning all these new things about history, writing, and gaining so many skills that will be useful in the future. This class was enriched with culture, there was just so much to learn.

I am thankful to have had this opportunity to have such a comprehensive and interesting class to fulfill my general ed. I have gained more than just a quality education through my experience in this class. I have made good friends *cough* Sara and Penny *cough* that I hope to have for a long time and though it was a very stressful, we got to stress together, which always helps. I have had a very difficult year in my personal life, but I have been able to gain happiness and fun through talking to these friends, having in depth conversations about the material with fellow classmates, and I have gained a sense of accomplishment from getting through it all as a stronger writer and a more knowledgeable and cultured person in my opinion. I absolutely LOVED being with Dr. Morse all year, she made the class so much more enjoyable through being understanding and helping us to understand the material together as a group. I feel lucky to have been in her class all year.

I think that my favorite lecturer of the year was Professor Block. I thought it was so interesting to learn about a part of history I had learned about before in a completely different way. I really think that the history of sexuality should be included earlier on, around junior year, when students are slightly more mature and would be more able to understand and listen to this history.

Humanities Core has been the one thing that was extremely constant in my freshman year of college. As a stem major, writing analytical essays is not necessarily my favorite things, but the content that we have learned about is what really interested me about this class. I enjoyed learning a huge range of things about different empires around the world throughout history.

Sure, Humanities Core is A LOT of work, but I cannot believe that it is almost over. As the quarter comes to a close, I am filled with excitement. Excitement to be free for the summer and FINALLY SLEEP IN. And excited to feel the accomplishment of doing as well as I have in this course. I never even took AP English in high school, so this was a whole new challenge for me and I am proud of the work I have put in and am excited to see what comes next in my all STEM and teaching Sophomore year.

Thank you Dr. Morse, thank you Sara and Penny, and thank you to all the professors that put this course together. It has been a good year.

Have a good Summer everyone!

Mother’s Day

With today being Mother’s Day, I though it would be interesting to see if it is celebrated outside of the US. It turns out that it is widely celebrated around the world. Here in America we normally get together and have some sort of picnic, brunch, make our mother’s breakfast in bead, and so on. Children and Father’s get together to make the day special for mothers all around.

Personally, I made my mom a card with a promise to take her out to eat whenever she wants. My dad brought donuts home and we went to the park to meet the rest of the family. We all played horse shoes and botchy ball and had fun spending time with one another.

This got me wondering about how other countries celebrate it, so I thought I would look into the Philippines. “Mother’s day is extraordinarily revered and therefore it is celebrated throughout the country with utmost zeal”. Mother’s Day is a big deal in the Philippines. From my personal experiences with one of my best friend’s (who is from the Philippines) family, they value family above almost everything if not everything. They have a huge celebration in the Philippines where they celebrate their mother’s and grandmother’s.

They start the day by having mass. They then give their mother’s a day of relaxation and pampering in order to celebrate them as the ““ilaw ng tahanan“, which means the light of the house”

It is very interesting to me that other countries celebrate Mother’s Day on the same day that we do. It is an international holiday, we all think that it is important to celebrate the women that gave us life and raised us.

Mother’s Day is a day dedicated to celebrating women. This shows how important women are to us. There is also Father’s Day in a few month’s, but in my experience, there is always more emphasis around Mother’s Day. Women are incredibly influential in our lives, making us want to celebrate and pamper them.

I personally believe that we underappreciate our moms. We give them this one day where we pamper them, but they gave us life, changed our diapers, and raised us to be the people we are. I know that I have been greatly influenced by my mother, so even if they deserve so much more, I am glad that mothers are celebrated around the world.

Oral History

After just finishing my interview I can say that I learned some things that I did not know and really enjoyed talking to my Uncle about his calling people and reminding them to vote. He explained to me that he has probably called about 800-900 people in his time doing this and that about 10% of them he thinks are truly reminded by the phone calls. We talked about the fact that it is sad how few people vote in elections.

We talked about how important it is to vote, so many people think that their votes don’t really matter, but if all of those people that don’t vote went and voted for the same person, that person would WIN the election. We talked about how people should call all the people who don’t vote and ask why in order to be able to get more voters out there.

He talked about how he thinks that calling people is beginning to be obsolete because there are so many better ways to get to people, plus talking to an answering machine half the time is not very encouraging. As technology has advanced, so have the ways in which we get our information and communicate.

He thought it was interesting how it seems as though more and more people are becoming involved politically, but there are still so many people not voting.

We talked about how other forms of advertisement, such as signs in people’s lawns are useful as well, especially in local elections. You are more likely to vote for the person that you see all the signs for if you don’t know any of them. People want to be right, so when everyone else is voting for one person, they might want to vote for them as well.

We also talked about the wording of propositions and how a lot of times they are worded in strange ways, so no means yes and yes means no in some cases. This can be very confusing and lead to problems when voting, they should be better explained in the ballots so that the average person would be able to understand what is being asked of them.

I am planning on taking this paper in the direction of the importance of voting. It is incredible how many people abstain from voting, it is quite sad actually. Some think that the electoral college rigs the vote, but I think those people don’t understand that without it, the smaller states would get almost no representation compared to the larger states.

I am going to research the voting trends and how many people vote in different elections, federal, state, and local. I want to see how these have changed throughout recent years and talk about what can be done to possibly fix the lack of eligible voters who actually get out there and let their voices be heard.

Empire and Sex: Monica Lewinsky

In class we have been talking a lot about how sex influences basically everything in history, but this doesn’t just apply to the colonial times. In the 1990s there was a HUGE sex scandal centered around the President of the United States that caused his impeached, this means that the second impeachment case ever of a United. States President happened because of sex.

A 22 year old intern, Monica Lewinsky, had sexual relations with President Bill Clinton 9 times from 1995 to 1997. During Clinton’s deposition for a case of sexual harassment (the Jones Case, a case against Clinton for sexual harassment…he was a pretty bad guy) Clinton claimed that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky. Later when it came to light that Clinton and Lewinsky had in fact had sexual relations, it was realized that Clinton lied under oath. This caused his impeachment trial to be conducted.

Monica Lewinsky

The Monica Lewinsky case created a lot of drama and was a huge deal in the scheme of things. Many people in the Democratic party believed that the case created a lack of excitement among the party and was a part of the reason that Gore lost the 2000 election. At the time of the impeachment trial there were more Republicans than Democrats in the Senate, so there was fear amongst the Democrats that he would be found guilty on the accusations of perjury and/or obstruction of justice. Ten Republicans acquitted him of perjury and five on the obstruction of justice, which was enough to acquit him of all charges and allow him to remain in office.

Clinton argued that he was not lying in court because they only ever participated in oral sex and he only ever received it, never gave it, which was not specified in the question of sexual relations. If you ask me, he just didn’t want to look bad for cheating on his wife, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and possibly end up divorced by the end of his presidency. Hillary never left him after the scandal.

If you think about it, one of the biggest scandals there has been in the past twenty five years, was completely based on sex. Why is it such a big deal that the President of the United States had oral sex with a woman he was not married to? Does this make him less fit to lead the nation? Does this change his policies? Or just his image?

If you ask me, the truth is that in politics your image is EVERYTHING, so if he was caught cheating on his wife, he would be seen as less wholesome and would not be seen in the same way by the world. And the crime he was impeached for was not cheating on his wife, which is wrong, but not illegal. The crime he was impeached for was lying under oath, by saying that he had not had sexual relations with Lewinsky, he created an opportunity for those who did not like the way in which he ran the nation to stop him. They took this opportunity and failed, but who knows, maybe this had some small form of influence on the recent election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

It is so strange how interested we are in our leaders’ sex lives and how it changes our views of them as a president.

Research Blog

4/9

I have been thinking a lot about what I am going to research for the big research paper this quarter. I am very interested in music and want to write and produce a song. I am thinking that it would be really fun to write a song in the style of those of the 1970s regarding empire or something happening at this time in America. I am going to sing, play the ukulele, and attempt to play the digeridoo, an African instrument, and the Native American flute as best I can. By incorporating these instruments into the song I will create a window to analyze the place of these marginalized people during this time period. It will be somewhat difficult to get this all produced and edited into a song, but I will do my best to make it sound pleasant and mean something in terms of empire. I absolutely love music and the stories you can tell with it. Music is so important to the cultures of different societies. Some music is religious. Some music is used to bring people together for a cause or in times of trouble. And some music is written to make the listeners feel what the writer felt when they wrote it. Music is one of the most beautiful and powerful things that this world has to offer. I think that music is a big part of what makes us human, and since this is a research project for Humanities Core I think that it is a very important and relevant point of research. I am looking forward to seeing where my research will take me and how my argument will develop throughout the quarter.

4/23

I have decided that I will do my research project on the Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial in New York. I chose this as my artifact because I visited it a few years back and it brought tears to my eyes to read the names of all the lives lost that day, especially those of women’s name with “and unborn child” written below.

9/11 was one of the most traumatic events in US history, thousands of people died and have died since as consequence. This memorial, it’s vastness, and all that has gone into it and its design shows just how important this event is to America’s history.

I am looking into Langer’s work about memorialization and am interested in implementing his work into my paper.

I am planning on connecting the memorial to empire in multiple ways. I will connect how memorialization influences empire and why we remember certain events more than others. I will also be looking at the impact of the actual events of 9/11 and how this memorial and the freedom tower are important to our conceptualization of the events and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

As time goes on and there are eventually very few or no people around who remember 9/11, they will be able to look back on footage and see the huge memorial and they will be able to better understand how important this event is in our history. It has led to the longest war in US history that is still not over. The memorial and it’s immense size conveys an accurate representation of the impact that 9/11 has had on our country.

I am excited about my topic because I have a personal connection to it and I believe it will be easy to stay interested throughout the duration of the quarter.

5/21

At this point in my research I am really starting to see the true significance of memorialization and how it is done. Memorials of the past are large and white and don’t really mean anything, they are biased and try to make you feel a certain way. The 9/11 memorial is similar to the Vietnam memorial in that it is an abstract memorial and allows people to really feel however they need to about the event, they are not guided into feeling one way or another.

The memorial is made up of 2 giant voids in the “footprints” of the twin towers symbolizing the great loss brought on by the events of 9/11. These are accompanied by many trees symbolizing rebirth and hope for the nation.

One thing that was not planned by the designer, but works out well is that the freedom tower that replaced the world trade center is located across the street, bringing an even greater sense of hope.

I am excited to see my research come together. Having just written a preliminary thesis I already know that my ideas will evolve throughout the rest of my research and drafting. This paper is a great culmination of the year, allowing us to study empire in whatever way we choose.  I’m not sure at this point where my paper will go or end up by the end of the process, but it will be interesting to find out.

9/11 is an extremely important moment in American History. We have been at war for more than a decade because of these events and will continue to lose American lives until who know when due to this controversial war.

This powerful catalyst brought American’s together to look inward and support one another in going through the loss of these lives and has changed the nation forever. It has created paranoia and grief. And this memorial is meant to bring those who have experienced this void created by 9/11 and show them that they are not alone and they are entitled to feel however they do about the events of that tragic day.

Winter Quarter in Review

It is amazing how quickly this quarter has flown by! It seems as though this session we got to look at empire through many different perspectives and on a more personal level. We started the quarter by looking at the Incan empire and seeing how their identity was stripped by the Spaniards, we looked on empire from a different perspective than we had last quarter, this time we were looking from the point of view of the colonized rather than the colonizer.

We then moved on to The Tempest and studied the importance of language and how it is a major tool of empire and could also be used against it. This was building on what we learned about the Incan empire, as they learned Spanish and were not allowed to speak Quechua. You cannot unlearn a language or the ways of empire, you can only learn new ways and new languages.

After our trip through the land of Shakespeare we landed in Oroonoko, a book about the life of a prince who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. From this text we learned that power does not lie in who you are in empire, but where you come from. Oroonoko was a prince when he was in Africa, but once he was taken to South America he had very little power. He was a slave, so basically the only people that would really listen to him and take his ideas into account were other slaves.

Lastly, we studied the British Empire in India. We learned from Professor Vinayak Chaturvedi how empire was seen by leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru, and Savarkar, but we also learned how it was seen by peasants through reading the Ranchod letter. He gave us several different ways of seeing the same empire and their various approaches at gaining their independence from the British. Though we looked at people from different backgrounds and with different ideals, they all wished to leave the British Empire.

Overall I believe that this quarter has led me to think a lot more about how different groups are affected differently by empire. I have learned that when it comes to research you must follow your interests, for you will get much farther that way. I am excited to see where the final quarter of Humanities Core will take me.

Defining a Name

Have you ever thought about your name? The word that gets your attention. The word that makes people think of you. The idea of choosing a name for a child is often a stressful one for parents-to-be, and for good reason. By choosing a name for your child you are inadvertently impacting them and how people may perceive them. For example, if someone walked up to you and said, “Hi, my name is Tom, short for Tomato” you may be weirded out and think of that person as strange though you have no idea about who they are as a person. On the other hand, if someone came up to you and said, “Hi, my name is Joseph” you would not think anything of it. Many people don’t know the actual definition of your name. (find yours here!)

In lecture we learned that Vanayak (Dr. Chaturvedi)  got his name from a doctor when he was 6 months old. He later found out that he was given this name because the doctor was a supporter of Vanayak Savarkar and later was a part of the assassination of Gandhi. Also, his name was seen as strange to many people in India, as it was from a different region than his last names and you can often locate where someone is from based on their name in India. He was not named until he was 6 months old because they do not name babies in India until they are sure they are going to survive infancy. This is a strange concept to people in America, many of whom were probably named before they were ever born and officially named on the day of their birth.

A couple years ago I planned a baby shower for my cousin. She was really interested in the meaning of names, she originally wanted to name her baby Lorelei, but found out that it meant temptress. She ended up naming her baby Leanna, meaning light. So, when I was planning the games I had the idea to take the names of everyone attending the shower and make a matching game to the meaning of their names. Everyone in attendance thought it was fun to learn what their name meant, many did not know prior and had to guess.

After learning the meanings something interesting happened, everyone started to see how the meaning of each person’s name could be seen as a part of who the person was. My Aunt Christine, who’s name means Christian is a very religious person and goes to church every Sunday that she is able. My name, Rebecca, means binding. My mom knew the meaning when naming me and thought it was a strong name, keeping people together, connecting to others, creating a lasting bond. I don’t want to say that I do all of those things, because let’s face it, that seems a little arrogant. However, that is something I aspire to do. I want to be a teacher one day and if I could bind my students to one another, or to math, or make any lasting positive impact on them, then I think I would feel more accomplished than if I won the Olympics.

Our names have a big influence on our lives outside of who we are. The Romans would say “nomen est omen” meaning “name is destiny”.  This is a really cool concept. Subconsciously we relate certain names to different occupations, backgrounds, ethnicities, and social class. These assumptions are often wrong, however it doesn’t matter when we have already made them. Names are almost a pre-first impression when it comes to jobs, social networks, or basically any format in which you see the persons name prior to meeting them face-to face. And sometimes when you see what someone looks like, you might say to yourself, “they seem like a Rachel” (something I get A LOT). But why do I look like a Rachel? Why does that old lady feeding the birds look like a Mildred? Why does anyone look like they should be named anything? Answer: we stereotype names in our heads based on those that we have seen/met with certain types of names.

Some people even change their names to better suit their personality or have stage names. Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, but that isn’t a very catchy name and wouldn’t be as easy to market as the iconic Lady Gaga. Just think, you can change the way that people view you just by changing your name. I feel like you define who you are throughout your life and either grow into your name as you have defined it to yourself, or you feel as though your name does not accurately describe you.

If you could change your name, what would it be? Or would you keep the name you have?

 

 

 

“Not My President” and Gandhi

In Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, he says that civilization is an idea created by the Western Europeans used to justify the mistreatment of the colonized. He also claims that the reason that the British controlled the Indian people was that they allowed them too, not because they are inherently better than them.

Today, American civilization is being questioned due to our new president. There have been countless protests about various policies that President Donald Trump has put in place. Members of these protests have coined the phrase “not my president”, but what does this mean?

In the United States of America, our government is lead by an elected president, Trump won the election, not by popular vote, but by electoral votes, he had 302 compared to Clinton’s 232, but had 62,979,879 votes, 2.9 million less than Clinton’s 65,844,954 votes. This is not the first time this has happened in American history and is not the most drastic case of it either. However, many of Clinton’s supporters are still rallying against Trump and his policies.

*a sign at an anti-Trump rally

On February 20, 2017, protestors got together to celebrate “Not My President’s Day”, during which they spoke out against President Trump’s executive orders, stopping immigrants from coming into the country, and his plans to defund Planned Parenthood. If these people are American citizens, how could the President of the United States of America not be their president? Well, if you look at what Gandhi said about how the Indian people were not controlled by the British, but allowed them to control them, you might see a parallel.

*a painting of M.K. Gandhi in jail

A leader cannot lead those who do not wish to be led. By that logic, the president cannot control those who don’t wish to be controlled…to an extent. If you do not obey the law, then you will be punished. Some do not mind this and will continue to speak and fight for what they believe in. Gandhi, a nonviolent man who spoke his mind and was very influential over the Indian people, was imprisoned several times, but he did not let this phase or stop him. He continued to write from his jail cell and was influential throughout that time as well.

Leaders of other movements have also gone to jail. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail and wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, continuing to make a difference while in jail, even though it was only for a short time.

Change is possible and can be attained through nonviolent means, however you must be willing to take risks. It will be interesting to see how the remainder of President Trumps term goes and if the protests make a difference. We know that his presidency will eventually end, but will the protesting end before or after? Will he listen or will he continue to do what he and his cabinet wishes and ignore the protesters? It will likely be the latter, but who knows? Maybe we’ll be surprised.

Oroonoko Related to Deportation

In Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, the main character, Oroonoko, is a nobleman in Coramantien, which is now Ghana, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Surinam, in South America. This is a tragic story of love and loss that can be used to look at today’s  problems with immigration and deportation policies that may be put in place soon in America.

Oroonoko was forced to leave his country against his own will. Given, the circumstances were  much different and his kidnapping was not punishment for being in the country illegally, but was done in order to make money for those selling him into slavery.

Nowadays there are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in America. President Trump is planning on putting in place a new policy on deportation of these immigrants. He is planning on making deportations faster, hiring more agents and judges, building new jails to house immigrants awaiting trial, sending undocumented immigrants back to Mexico (even those from other countries such as Guatemala or El Salvador), deputizing local police, and building a wall.

Faster deportations will take place, this means that there will be far more expedited removals than there were previously. Expedited removal used to only been done in cases within 100 miles of the border and two weeks of arrival. They will now be able to be removed in this fashion anywhere in the US and within two YEARS of arrival. This means that some undocumented immigrants that have already established themselves in society many be removed without getting to appear in front of a judge. So just as Oroonoko was kidnapped, these people will be removed without due process.

Figure 1: undocumented immigrants being arrested.

            The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will be hiring on about 10,000 additional agents and training local police officers, mainly in border states. This will create distrust between immigrants and their local officers. More judges will also be hired to be able to speed up the process for those who are able to have their cases seen. It is harder to have quality control when there are so many judges, so some might not have as fair of trials as others.

Undocumented immigrants used to be returned to their countries, but Trump has a different idea. He plans on sending them all to Mexico and is speaking to the Mexican government, trying to get them to agree with this policy and work with him. Some people trying to escape their crime ridden areas may be sent to an unfamiliar place without being helped, this would be terrifying for those involved. Like Oroonoko, they would be left in a place where they don’t know anyone.

Figure 2: America-Mexico Border fences

            Finally, Trump is planning on expanding the wall that was built under the Obama administration and is almost finished. There were 2,000 miles of walls and fences built along the Mexican-American border, this is going to be expanded upon and is expected to cost about $21.6 billion. All in all this seems like a lot of money to be spent on the removal of these people, who are probably terrified of the future.

 

 

Women Should Be In Control

In The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Prospero, the main character, is very controlling over his daughter Miranda. He wants to marry her off to Ferdinand, a prince, but once she falls for him, Prospero makes sure that this marriage will happen in the way he wants by forcing Ferdinand to do manual labor for him.

Historically, women tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to controlling their lives and bodies. In some places this is much worse than in others, some women are raped and killed with no punishment to the offender. In America, this is not the case, however, women lose control of their lives systematically.

On January 23, 2017 President Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund Planned Parenthood internationally, meaning that those overseas who are benefited by their services may have a hard time getting them in the future. Planned Parenthood claims that they will find funding elsewhere in order to be able to continue these services, but who knows how many jobs and services will be lost overseas if they can’t get the funding. He is also planning on defunding them in America as well…

Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides care for women, such as providing them with birth control, the morning after pill, detecting and helping them find care for cancer, such as breast cancer or cervical cancer, and they occasionally help women obtain abortions, (which are not funded by the government except for cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health). Trump claims that, though abortions take only 3% of their funding to his knowledge, he wants to stop funding them altogether because of this. He claims that the rest of their services are great and very helpful to women, but due to him being pro-life, he can’t ignore the abortions.

I personally have never been serviced by Planned Parenthood, but I have taken a friend. She wanted to get birth control, but was afraid to tell her parents or go alone. They helped her to get the medication to prevent pregnancy without her parents knowing even though she was not yet 18. They took their time with her and explained how it worked and what to do and expect when taking it. Services like these prevent teen pregnancy and reduces need for abortion, so by defunding them, would this cause a higher need for abortions? So, by defunding Planned Parenthood, abortions will likely be done by shady doctors and be very dangerous and there will be more unplanned births, which may cause even more government spending to support some of these children.

Women in the USA definitely have it better than most, but this action by the government would make things difficult for some to get preventative care and medical assistance and would be a step back for women in America. Women would systematically lose control over their own bodies because of the decisions made by mostly men in Washington DC. Men and women are definitely different biologically, the average male has more muscle than the average female and male blood is heavier and more oxygenated than female blood, women carry babies, men don’t. A woman should be able to choose whether or not she wants to go through with carrying, giving birth, and caring for the child for at least 18 years. I personally would not go through with an abortion, but I think women should have the option because some may choose to or need to for one reason or another.

Elective abortions are not funded by the government, so why stop funding an organization that helps millions of women because 3% of their total funding (not all of which comes from the government) goes to helping women obtain abortions?