1638

Tonight's the night, folks! This is the first full lunar eclipse to take place on the winter solstice since 1638! Be out between 12:30 and 1:40 for a cosmic cool experience that hasn't been enjoyed for 372 years :]

dig it!

I found this image online (from muslimmatters.org), here's a little hint at what the moon should look like throughout that midnight hour.

NYC

We'll miss you, Laurel! Be safe!

End of Semester Reflection, 2010

Well, I must say, this has been quite the fucking coyote crazy semester, my friends. I have enjoyed it but am also glad to get moving onto something a bit breezier (scary to think that my first overload semester may be easier than this one :p). I’ve been a bit more crazed than usual this semester due to a variety of factors – my boyfriend is graduating this semester (couldn’t be prouder of him), I’ve delved into many classes outside my academic comfort zone (i.e. Economics and Astronomy, no English), I’ve dealt with graduate applications and GRE work (that’s a lifetime I’ll never get back), normal class work stresses (pure enjoyment – no sarcasm, I mean it), got my book contract guaranteed and signed up (now I just have to finish writing the thing :p), I started an actual semi-extracurricular with the Paideia Conversations group, and then beyond this I have had quite a bit of family issue comin’ at me from the home front. But, overall, I cannot complain. After all, I was greeted with enthusiastic recommendation letter writers – shout out BIG thanks to ours truly, Dr. Giuliano, Dr. Gaines, Dr. Tahm, and Dr. Bednar – and my family is still alive and well and financially sound (though my grandpa did have a few run-ins with the hospital during this semester and my brother’s fiancé is now pregnant).

Basically, Paideia has helped keep me sane and moving this time around. Our conversations have given me a wonderful environment in which to ventilate, discuss project ideas, paper ideas (thank you, Michelle, by the way, as your presentation reading over bioethics has now become my major final paper topic for my Rhetorics of Resistance class – I can send you the final work if you want), and just general mental well-being. You all are a wonderful and joyous group to be surrounded by; getting the fresh air of new topics and lively conversation (which I am definitely not getting out of many of my new and younger classmates) left me feeling empowered after each class this semester. So, this Thanksgiving, I am particularly thankful for Paideia and you all in my cohort especially.

I again appreciated our system of dedicating one class to one person and their chosen topics/readings, though next semester I know I’d appreciate it if we could also use that time to perhaps faux-present our final project for Paideia and get feedback. I already presented on my thesis once in CA but, to be honest, presenting at the Student Works Symposium terrifies me much more than CA ever did. By n’ by, when and how do we go about getting a slot to present at the Student Works Symposium next semester?

I’ve still got a fair amount of work ahead of me – the last 35-40 pages of my thesis need to be edited by Friday, a Macro final exam, and then there’s a presentation and 12 page paper for Rhetorics of Resistance. But, overall, this is a blessing of a cool ending. Monday I have my next session with the Paideia Conversations group – I really should get crackin’ on the readings for that one :p – and then it’s just meetings and classes.

The thought of our Paideia group entering its final semester really does give me pause. It saddens me in a deep way I hadn’t anticipated. I really do love being a student at Southwestern; it’s such a safe and clean and encouraging environment, and you all have been a blessedly constant source of reassurance. It’s frightening and sad, the thought of losing our Tuesday meetings and our strange tangential conversations – but I suppose the good thing about a group so malleable as Paideia is that we don’t have to stop simply because we aren’t officially registered for the class. A prospective student’s parent asked me the other day if Paideia was simply a semester by semester type deal. And I told her, happily, no. Our blogs and Dr. G helped me so greatly while I was depressed out of my mind in New York City this past summer. I apologize for not being more involved in all of your blogs and summer activities – but I can’t thank you enough for being with me in New York even only in blog-ghost form.

You all have helped me greatly and widely. I am thankful for you and our time and times together.

See you Tuesday

Astronomy

Check out the photos I took in Dr. Bottorff's Astronomy course! If you look closely at the Jupiter photo, you can see two of its Galilean moons. I was so impressed with Dr. B's cameras that they could pick those up along with some of the belts and zones.

Job Market -- College Degrees to Sop Up Tears?

Well, I apologize for how depressing my chosen article was but I feel like it was an important piece to share with my fellow near-graduates.

"How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America" by Don Peck from the Atlantic

is one of the best articles I've come across (thank you, Dr. Roberts) describing the actual issues and possible latent consequences of our actions right now as college graduates, whether we're moving back home, going to graduate school (fingers crossed!), or marching bravely into the job market.

I cannot tell you how frightening it is to know that my joining the job market while the economy is weak is tantamount to beginning my career $100,000 in debt compared to those who entered the job market during a healthy economy -- but what interested me most about this article was the cultural psychology it dipped into. From discussing the differences between how men and women are responding to joblessness, considering that men are culturally the breadwinners -- breadwinners which amount to 3/4 of our newly unemployed population -- to discussing the problematic cocktail of apathy and entitlement supposedly poisoning our generation's chances.

I'd like to focus, here, on this apathy/entitlement issue (as it more directly pertains to me as a member of this accused generation). I was very glad we got to spend so much time examining this problem because, despite the microcosm of aggressive workers at Southwestern University, it is apparent to me (from others I've known through high school and through media) that this problem does actually permeate our generation. The fact that many of our generation do not even know generally what the Federal Reserve is or does is an issue worth addressing. One would think that being born into an "era of joblessness" would make those of us entering the shit work harder to be more aware and knowledgeable about the economy and how it works. This is all partly why I decided to take at least an introductory course into micro and macroeconomics -- it just seemed too important and far too relevant to pass up. But the fact that this economic crisis hasn't shaken many of our peers out of the wealth mirage and into the reality that is lifetime barista-hood, troubles me.

I would like to reiterate, however, the point which Dr. Giuliano helped me come to that this mixture of apathy and entitlement to wealth really didn't begin with us and our generation, but with our parents. After all, what else but apathy for the future and entitlement to the wealth of now could've convinced people it was wise or even ethical to "purchase" houses on 90-100% borrowed money? When did we decide it was cool to switch from 30% of our income to beyond the entirety of our annual incomes? Isn't buying beyond our means (and knowing that a bubble is forming -- lookin' at you Alan Greenspan) a particularly keen example of American entitlement? If our model generation is spending and spending beyond its means because they believe they deserve to do so, why should our generation feel any less entitled?

It was simply nice to know that we aren't entirely to blame for our cultural make-up -- everything comes from somewhere, I suppose.

At any rate, if this cocktail, article, and economic shit has taught us anything, I hope it's the necessity of aggressive learning and pursuit of opportunities. Persistence is the key to success and apathy is apparently not only the lock from success but the mote filled with sharks as well. We must not be discouraged or demoralized -- we must fight for those jobs out there and we must begin to fight for each other. If we could just improve our schools and our health care (whoop, whoop, universal health care!), then America truly would be the land of opportunity.


Thanks for bearing with me through this mammoth of blues, this dark harbinger -- but things are looking up. According to the Wall Street Journal, businesses are gaining confidence which could mean an increase in investment spending which could lend businesses the boost needed to begin hiring more people. Plus, Ben Bernanke's $600 billion stimulus package will definitely help out, devaluing the dollar this way will increase our exports beautifully and should be another good promoter of business investment spending. Also, this is probably a good time to start investing in the EFA ETF -- foreign economies are probably going to pick up quicker than ours will.

Anyway, I'll keep praying for President Obama and Chairman Bernanke, and we'll see where we go.

ciao for now

P.S. Here's a link to the article again, if anyone needs/wants it.

http://people.southwestern.edu/~earlyd/su_only/principles/How%20a%20New%20Jobless%20Era%20Will%20Transform%20America.pdf

Paideia Conversations Cohort with Dr. Brynes

Hello all! I thought I'd go ahead and write a blog about this even though it doesn't fully relate to our cohort because it does relate importantly to Paideia as a whole. I was recently invited to co-facilitate a freshman pre-Paideia cohort class called a Paideia Conversation Cohort. So I am co-facilitating with Dr. Melissa Brynes (from the history department) a course over her topic choice: "Demonization in our Public Discourse." It's pretty swanky and goes very well with what I am already learning in my Rhetorics of Resistance class with Professor Feyh as well as with the sort of things (protest rhetoric and literature) that I intend on studying further in graduate school. :]

So we had our first meeting last night with a group of 9 total, and everyone was just fantastic. It's very reassuring to be surrounded by such a wonderfully intelligent and energetic group as those 7 freshmen. We discussed everything from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear to Tea Party rhetoric to Andrew Jackson to Paideia in general. To be honest, it was very hard for me to keep quiet and let them do more of the talking but -- though I do participate a bunch because I just can't help myself -- they certainly didn't let their own voices become subsumed. And yet I don't know if I've ever seen a more polite group of people talking about politics and religion who all had opinions and all wanted to share them.

I'm pretty sure we're only meeting once more this semester (which is kind of a drag, I think, since I loved it) but we are meeting more frequently next semester. I am very jacked up about this -- I think this next generation of Paideia students is going to be just rockin'! I hope everyone from this Conversation group digs it enough to give full-blown Paideia a shot; this is a really promising, sassy, perceptive, and foxy bunch of students.

I can't wait to converse with them again -- November 29th!



ciao for now,
Katie

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear!

This is truly something special. Watching this rally reinvigorated my appreciation for America and has even satiated some of my anger toward opposing groups simply by reminding me of all these other Americans out there who feel the same way.

God bless these good people.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/live-blog-rally-to-restore-sanity-andor-fear/?hp


Of course, I must say, it is rather silly that Fox News has decided to focus on the fact that this rally was, in fact, political. Of course it was Foxy. This isn't news to anyone else.

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

I have a book contract, baby! October 11th, 2011, I'm comin' for yah!

Mid-Semester Updates

Well, hello again! Time for the mid-semester report card:
I just took the GRE this past weekend and scored a 640 on the Verbal (91st percentile, baby!) and a sad little 550 on the math (but who cares when you’re going into history?), so I’m a very happy camper on that front. I’ve also just been invited to co-facilitate one of the new freshman Paideia Conversation cohorts with Dr. Melissa Brynes in the history department, which is exciting for teaching-experience purposes as well as just sounding like great fun :]

I’ve also just been informed that my book contract with McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers is in the mail to me now so I should have it in my hands within the next day or so :D And while this news makes me ecstatic, it also scares me because that’s another 100 pages tacked onto my schedule of things-to-do. It’s a good thing I enjoy it, right? I do worry sometimes that I’ve really bitten off more than I can chew this semester, I’ve been much more stressed than I normally am, but I think a lot of that has to do with the giant question mark that is graduate school. I very much love plans and schedules, even if they are vague ones, so this not knowing is really putting me uncomfortably on the edge of my seat. Of course, the emails I’ve been getting back from professors at graduate schools have been nothing but positive, so I am on an upswing of confidence currently.

But the book contract is a big boon and branch of my Paideia research project/American Studies capstone/American Studies Honor Thesis. For the thesis-thesis itself, the Paideia project, I’m turning in thirty pages of edited material a month to Dr. Bednar for his feedback before deciding which sections to send to my other committee members. I’m currently preparing the second set of thirty pages, and it’s time consuming, but highly enjoyable. It’s relaxing to work on something I have so much control over. Other people have eating disorders, I write books. It makes sense to me :]

Anyhoo, I’ve also decided to use parts of this thesis for my graduate school writing sample – and you wouldn’t believe how often Paideia has come up in my Statements of Purpose for graduate schools! This really is a gold mine of education and confidence-building exercises, I think. So, thank you, Paideia!

Beyond this, I would like to also say just how much I’ve enjoyed the class readings and discussions so far. From Kandinsky to how our language forms our perspectives on the world (those articles are still blowing my mind) to introverts taking back the floor – it’s been an extremely diverse and yet well blended semester, I think, so far. Especially the language and introvert/extrovert discussions, I found, went exceptionally well together. I would like more discussion in class about our research projects though, just to see what exactly people are thinking about, what questions have most arrested their interests, etc. I’m very excited to introduce my reading material in November though I still haven’t decided between another article over the Beats or an article over Native American studies.

But these readings so far have really pleased me and appealed to my sense of liberal arts & what Paideia (I believe) is supposed to be about. These readings, though easily connected to each other, are coming from very different perspectives and have yielded some very interesting conversations. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of introverts giving thought to how they feel – honestly, that’s not a bad thing or a insult, it’s just that that’s amazing to me. I feel that my tolerance and excitement for the differences of our world has been greatly expanded already this semester, causing me to rethink certain relationships and ideas and how I read and understand the works and ideas of people from other hemispheres and personality types.

I think it could be cool to speak more about any connections between these readings though – I’d be interested to see what connections people see or thought about between these articles and the German Art article, for instance. But I think we’re doing some very good work so far; I’m proud of us.

Till we meet again

Off Campus Event: Healthcare Conferences -- Oh, November November

GO OBAMACARE! Or, as it's actually called, GO PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT! I still believe in you!



Well, stepping into the Austin Doubletree hotel for the Healthcare Conference was pretty intimidating. I had to skip Thursday and Friday classes to be there and while that was a disappointment, it was more than worth it. I’m in no way a healthcare buff and I’m just now breaking into the basics of Economics with my Principles class, but it was truly something. Especially Dr. Nancy Dickey – she’s the president of the Texas A&M Health Science Center and the vice chancellor for health affairs for The Texas A&M University System – and while I’m actually very against the creepiness that is A&M university, she was an amazing speaker.

Surrounded by well-dressed economists, teachers, chair people, CPPP people, healthcare professionals, Texas legislatures and the like, all their spoons tinkling in coffee cups and their lips all pursed in interest or boredom, I took notes over Dr. Dickey’s: “Who’s Got the Roadmap? Health Reform, TX Style.” I had my doubts about this as I’m not much of a “TX Style” person, but very quickly I became impressed. She stated the general September 23rd goals promised by Obama’s Healthcare as follows:

• Allow parents to keep children on insurance till age 26 (whoo-hoo!)
• Eliminate lifetime limits on coverage
• And, I can’t believe this hasn’t always been outright illegal, prohibit insurers from rescinding benefits if beneficiaries become ill

And I’m happy to report that these have been met. And this is a big step forward. Of course, my major question continues to be that we all already know TX is a shit-lined black hole of health care, but how are we supposed to fix any of it without first fixing the absolutely deplorable evil education system issues in TX? Of course, then a woman on the panel made the absolutely stunning comment that “We all know Texas has a great education system” … and that’s when I realized how much of this was already lost. Much of the wonderful and impressive proposals and hopes put forward at this conference intimidated me in their scope and filled me with hope for America’s future healthcare systems and reform – but it also depressed me to hear such a great denial of such a large problem in TX that could greatly help in the solution of these related issues. Healthcare is not an island-problem. It’s a problem interrelated with class conflicts, education issues, poverty, etc, etc, etc. Of course, it was reassuring to hear all the great murmurings at my table of “Great education system? WHAT education system?”

Anyhoo, another big problem facing us is the Craven Physician Paradox: where “the public” everyone kept referring to either absolutely listen to their physician instead of outside clinical expertise while still stand in their physician’s way as what spooks them out of prescribing anything themselves and referring said spooky patients to those same specialists … At some point, it has to be the physician’s responsibility to simply diagnose and treat their patients – if they won’t trust their own educations then why I am even making a pit stop in their offices to begin with?

There was a great listing over those two days of issues upon issues within America’s healthcare system, but, I’m pleased to report, I’ve rarely found so many hopeful people. We have the means to fix this staggering problem – we’re all just waiting on November at this point.

But why should anyone have to wait any longer for healthcare reform? When do we all finally say: now is the time? We’ve waited long enough.

Here's the Center for Public Policy Priorities (they're the Good Guys) website for more information over the conference:

http://cppp.org/events/event_details.php?eid=274


ciao for now neighborinos

On Campus Event: LaDonna Harris

I attended the September 7th Ballrooms lecture with LaDonna Harris on "Global Indigeneity and Indigenous Value-Based Leadership in the 21st Century." I was very pumped for this lecture given my interest in Indigenous studies as well as my great respect and appreciation for Dr. Tahmahkera’s work. However, I found myself actually coming away with more from Dr. Tahm’s introduction of Ms. Harris than from her actual lecture.

Her lecture was co-sponsored by nearly every department and its brother – apparently everyone wanted in on this rarer of the minorities action. Ms. Harris herself is a Comanche activist and stateswoman with the organization (she founded) called Americans for Indian Opportunity. She’s an older woman and beautiful, and she had a wonderful way of speaking and storytelling. However, it ended up being more story than informational substance within her lecture. There’s was a great deal of discussion about her family and personal experiences – which is cool, I have no problem with that, but I was expecting a much more detailed discussion about her activist organization’s history, it’s current work, and how we could potentially get involved.

She did discuss some of the issues with the “browning” of America and “how we have to change our literatures to be inclusive of others.” – a quote I actually found very cool given my thesis which also discusses the necessity of better including both Native American and Beat literatures within the general American literary canon (as it is taught within schools private and public) in order to improve general inclusiveness of both cultures. She had another good quote-moment: “I don’t have all the answers but I have some ideas.”

And while I greatly appreciated that sentiment, as I mentioned, I also found myself frustrated by the fact that she didn’t mention any ways for us – the bulk of “us,” her audience, being white and relatively wealthy – to get involved with helping bring those ideas into fruition. Also, I took a friend with me who posed some interesting questions about the lecture material and who discussed with me the issue facing most of us well-intentioned non-Natives:

How are we supposed to help without becoming a detrimental or assimilating force?

Some other poor kid managed to choke out something like this question before I could but even then her answer was less than satisfactory. I believe it had something to do with us finding and nurturing our medicine. And I do understand and appreciate the sentiment because if everyone continued to nurture their education throughout the entirety of their lives then perhaps we’d have a much more peaceful and tolerant world, but I just wanted wanted wanted something concrete.

I suppose, though, concrete is too easy – if there was a concrete answer or way, after all, I’m sure these sorts of prejudices and ignorance would no longer be such a plague and problem for our globalizing societies. But the problem of how to get further involved with the Indigenous cause without becoming a detrimental force or overstepping my boundaries continues to haunt me.

I just read this poem by Sherman Alexie (a Spokane author/screenwriter/filmmaker) from his collection “War Dances” entitled, “Go, Ghost, Go,” and though it’s probably illegal for me to post it up here I’ll just give a little snippit of the ending since it’s just so piquant and has spoken to me so cleanly:

(he’s discussing how strange it is for a white professor to speak so excitedly or agreeably about the Ghost Dance which is a dance that would, if performed properly, send all white men to hell and resurrect all Indians)

“I think that he thinks he’s the new Jesus.
He’s eager to get on that cross
And pay the ultimate cost
Because he’s addicted to the indigenous.”

As hard as it may have been (and continues to be) to think on the vagueness of Ms. Harris’s lecture and advice, perhaps it’s me who needs to reevaluate what exactly it is that I’m hoping to achieve or accomplish. Perhaps I simply need to narrow down my focus – that does seem to be the reoccurring issue within my statement of purpose for graduate school – I just want to do too many things and become a greater force than I am.

addenda!

What if we also were able to get a change made to the course evaluations asking students if professors or how professors connected to a larger liberal arts idea(l)?

Paideia 2010/2011 -- Senior Year

First of all... WELCOME BACK It's so wonderful to be back and learning with you all, my dear friends.


Well, I think I might like a weird goal for Paideia this semester to be to spur a social movement on campus – perhaps it’s a small one, a local one, but I’d like to try and brainstorm ways to make both Paideia and the campus as a whole a more efficient and true liberal arts environment. In all my years here, I’ve had count ‘em ONE professor ask me how their coursework interacted with what I was learning in my other classes. I believe this is fundamentally wrong for teachers at a professed liberal arts institution. People need to get out of the mindset that they are teaching in or majoring in a single department & remember that everything is interrelated and that by looking at this wider scope we may discover ways of truly and meaningfully changing social systems in the future.

I’m learning about a lot of this ahora in my Rhetorics of Resistance and Principles of Economics classes (Econ being the ONE class to try and reach out to my other classes) and I truly believe that this is something we as Paideia students should’ve been required to do from the beginning. I know this is a tres ambitious goal but I think it may also be a doable one – at least a Begin-able one – and one for which we are all uniquely apt candidates to strive for given that we are seniors and would (hopefully) be pissing off all the students and professors EXCEPT those writing our letters of recommendation :p I mean, what would it take? Some petitions, some advertising, a facebook group, a couple tables in the Commons, maybe a speech in the Cove instead of a concert series, some letters to the Admins up top, some rogue professor support, and all for professors to just ask the question:

“How does this tie in with what you’re learning in your other classes?”

And maybe even assign a short paper or two per semester about how the material is related or may be influenced or apt for some other coursework in another class – I haven’t had a single problem doing this on my own time with classes as putatively distant as Exploring the Universe and Shakespeare Topics to classes as already clearly linked as Principles of Economics and Urban History. This would force students to think more completely and liberally about what they’re learning and thus would help them better appreciate all fields and knowledge, AN APPRECIATION FOR LEARNING ITSELF, and would force professors to return to working and better communicating with each other – maybe even create interdisciplinary projects together one day – and thus break up this anti-liberal segmentation that’s so easy and become so popular.

What do you all think?

I think this could also double as our civic engagement project.

As to my Intercultural Experience – that’s what my previous five or six blogs has been about. I went this summer first to South Carolina for a family vacation/mini reunion, then to Monterey, CA in order to present my Honor Thesis (which is also my Creative Works Research Project for Paideia (as well as for my American Studies Capstone)) (and it went amazingly beautifully wonderfully, by the way), and then I flew directly from CA to NYC in order to study Comparative Ethnic Urbanisms with NYU. It was a terrifying and sobering experience which has led me to better narrow my goals for my graduate study which now reach to study history as a webbed entity using literary works as focal points and from their work both as a constant volunteer and author in social activism to aid in environmental causes as well as in aiding in the end of educational inequality. I was dropped in a class of 8 people from different cities and countries to study together the urban enclaves of Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Latinos (Salvadorian, Mexican, Dominican, etc), and Arab peoples – not to mention the variety of cultural parades I ended up walking into from the Gay Pride Parade to the Pakistan Independence Parade. It was a wild ride that has spurred in me a greater need to dedicate my wonderful education and career goals to social activism – it has also spurred in me a great dislike of NYC as a city of sad people in a wreaking environment that just happens to house some of the most magnificent museums on the planet.

As for my Creative Works Honor Thesis:
I am very proud to tell you all that by graduation this spring, I may have an official book deal/contract with McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. I turned in a proposal of my Honor Thesis to them & they really dig it & so now we’re have contractual discussions :D Of course, they want an expanded version of my (so far) 96page thesis, so my actual Paideia/Capstone project will remain focused upon specifically Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the influences of Native American trickster mythology within it but the separate expanded versions it will also discuss up to seven other poems as well as broader protest and social movement affects, implications, ect. I’ve already, as aforementioned, finished the rough draft so now I’m dedicating this semester and next semester to editorial work. I’ve also, as aforementioned, already presented on this project, but I’m hoping to also have the time to present it at next semester’s Student Works Symposium.

I’m so excited! :D

until Tuesday…

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Well, yesterday was très intéressant. Après la classe, I went to dinner with my Prof Ariana (she’s still working on her doctorate – doesn’t seem very excited about it though (or the class for that matter – I can’t wait to be excited about graduate studies; what a shame to put all that work into something that doesn’t remain joyful, but anyhoo) – and we took the subway out to where the tour was in Brooklyn to eat at this El Salvadorian restaurant called El Continental Restaurant: Sirviendo Comidas; Salvadoreñas & Hispana. It was excellent & exciting because I’ve never had El Salvadorian food before so she had me try the pupusas (which were excellent), these corn pastries layered with some pork, beans, and cheese & then I also tried some cebada to drink which is this pink drink (they served with milk) that’s made from pink flowers (very sweet but refreshing, like a cold tea, almost). It was interesting getting to spend those couple hours just with her and talking with her about her graduate experience and teaching and her work on immigration and Latino studies (though, like I said, she’s hardly the most jacked up sort, to which I have a difficult time understanding).

But after dinner the fun truly began – we caught the bus tour with a community development/environmental justice/revitalization group called UPROSE. It was founded in 1964 and “is Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization” (quoting their mission statement/history hand-out). Sunset Park is a community built up against one of Brooklyn’s piers with an astonishing panoramic view of Manhattan, Liberty Island, and Staten Island – but you’d never know about that because their pier might as well be condemned. It’s directly across from a brown field (a toxic/contaminated area unfit for recreation) and the pier area has been paved for a parking lot and disallows fishing, barbequing, and basically all other community recreational activities imaginable (especially since the police apparently have a troubling proclivity for stopping and randomly searching anyone who decides to indulge in some sort of public recreation whether it be walking or playing basketball). There are signs up which warn against fishing given the extreme contamination of the water but the community population is built of Arabs, Asians, and Latinos (many of which if not most cannot read English), so what good do warning signs in English do for them? This is a dangerous trend that runs through most of their community’s “safety precautions.”

Pier at Sunset Park:




Also, they are home to a Natural Gas plant which equals plenty of pollutants such as Particulate Matter 2.5 which you may breathe in but, unlike other pollutants, you do not breathe or sneeze out – it remains in your lungs and in your brain which causes all sorts of health issues. The majority of Sunset Park’s population, because of pollutants like this and like the exhaust from the above-ground expressway and from the waste hauling trucks and tractors (which tow the waste through neighborhoods since there is no other way to move onto the expressway (which goes directly over some of the neighborhoods anyway)), suffers from asthma. They actually just recently had a person die from an asthma attack there, which many people today, given modern medicine, consider nearly impossible – but most of these people either consider asthma normal or don’t have the money to medicate their condition and so either end up just trying to deal with it or spending thousands of dollars in hospital bills. The canal which runs through the neighborhood has been determined a “super-fund site,” which basically means that it’s so incredibly contaminated and hazardous that funds have been pulled from various major corporations to forcibly clean up some of the contamination (although how quickly or efficiently this is enacted is yet to be seen).

Of course, if you drive just a couple blocks outside of Sunset Park and into Bay Ridge, you’ll encounter a difference so stifling you’ll feel as though you stepped into a Michael Moore film – surely, it can’t be true; the drama is too much.

Just a couple blocks into Bay Ridge, a highly gentrified and much whiter neighborhood, is covered in trees. Everywhere you look is green, green, green. And a step onto their pier reveals crowds of children eating hotdogs and ice cream and middle aged men fishing together with a large sign advertising their water pollution control efforts. A complete shift from the deserted and deadened pier of Sunset Park or its treeless streets. And, I have to say, it beat up my heart to think about the actual systematic racism and environmental racism at hand here in these neighborhoods. We learned about the community charter efforts to create their own effective 197A Plans to revitalize Sunset Park which are continuously trumped and stopped by the greater regional City Planning group which allocates funds and has the general upper-hand in the planning and policy of many Brooklyn communities. This regional racism keeps the obviously minority and lower-income communities (such as Sunset Park) at a huge disadvantage environmentally and economically when compared to other whiter neighborhoods (such as Bay Ridge).

Pier at Bay Ridge (sorry for the poor quality -- these were taken on my cellphone :p):



One of the big campaigns UPROSE has been recently working on is planting trees in neighborhoods to help function as buffers against some of the pollution – the problem is that many people don’t want to sign the petitions to fight for trees because those trees, though they would raise the equity of their homes and help with pollution control, would also raise their rents beyond what they can afford; essentially, even the basic necessity and pleasure of a tree in the front yard is denied them because it would automatically displace the bulk of the community to simply another, possibly worse, treeless neighborhood.

And the more blatantly gentrifying forces are already moving into town with, albeit currently vacant, million dollar condos and the like.

It really does feel hopeless in many ways. However, as we drove through their streets and through their Chinatown (the second largest in NY), and we saw all the different languages and all the different peoples milling about together (everyone from Vietnamese to Malaysian to Salvadorian to Mandarin and so on), it occurred to me that what if all it took was an advertising campaign to run alongside the tree-planting campaign. There are plenty of ethnic restaurants and shops I’m excited to go and explore and which I know many of my friends (both here and at home) would also be excited to explore – so why not go ahead and improve neighborhoods, which would raise rents, but then push outside consumerism of these local businesses (and keep out major chains like Chili’s or Starbucks) and in this way also potentially raise wages to help match these increased costs? I know there are many market forces I’m not taking into account, but I’m just wondering if something like this has been implemented anywhere else and if it’s a viable possibility.

UPROSE Tour Bus (the large dude facing away was our tour guide):




I know many people are against this sort of thing because they view the commodification of culture as detrimental to those cultures – but I find that inherently backward because all things are subjective and affected by us simply by us being aware of them; in other words, these cultures are already commodified by the inherent nature of stores and shops and communities, so what’s wrong with outsiders coming in and enjoying them? – especially if it helps keep those businesses in business. It’s something I’m still thinking about, but wouldn’t it be amazing to get to be a part of a campaign like this one day? It’s expensive, obviously, which is probably why it hasn’t been done yet (along with a slew of other reasons) but I just can’t think of any other way to better these communities from within and without while simultaneously staving off displacement. After all, capitalism necessitates economic disparity, there’s no two ways around that – no matter how hard we work, there will be those richer and poorer always, but this is simply a matter of human decency. No one deserves to live in such a hazardous environment and especially not for reasons so evil as racism.

Last Few Days

Well, I was leaving my GRE practice test on Madison & 42nd street and walked straight out into the Pakistan Independence Day parade. It seemed wonderfully cyclical for this to happen in my last week given that the very first day I came to NYC when I got horribly lost and caught up in a Gay Rights parade. The interesting thing about NYC is that it functions as a highly stimulated microcosm of the intercultural nature of all of America. From Gay Rights to Pakistan Independence (and bless poor Pakistan for all the beatings they’ve taken this summer from floods to crashes to simply being in Pakistan), New York makes it impossible to not have an intercultural experience.



However, I truly feel, as someone who has already traveled abroad to Mexico and the UK with parents who’ve been even farther, as someone who can hardly call a night in a gay bar as an intercultural experience and who already enjoys exploring any new restaurant or food or neighborhood I can without qualms or shyness about striking up a conversation with the clerk or the waitress – just today, I tried out this new Indian spice shop called “Spice Corner & Halal Meat,” and just for asking the clerk how his day was going he kept giving me free Indian candies and cookies to try out (it was phenomenal!) – I find it problematic to simply say that my experiences here in NYC (outside of my class work) were somehow more or less intercultural than many of the experiences I’ve had in London or Edinburgh or Dallas or Austin or Monterey or San Antonio or Juarez, Mexico – simply the cultural differences between Texas and New York have been staggering and it has all made me realize just how intercultural America is as a whole and that just speaking with my classmates has taught me more about how to handle and humble myself in the face of other cultures and cultural norms than I ever anticipated. A person could rule this city simply by being polite. I can’t list you all the times I’ve had people thank me or ask where I was from or offer me free things simply for inquiring after their days or for thanking them, talking with them. Also, the pace change is absolutely monstrous. I know I typed a bit about this in a previous blog entry but it really was a relief to hear someone else say what I’d been hoping and wondering and suffering:

The Culture of Rush, of always having to be doing something, is a destructive cycle that is socially reproduced by all New Yorkers – a pressure that if you aren’t constantly moving or checking your watch or doing something or out and about then clearly you are wasting your time and should feel friendless and lonely and pitiable for so sadly pissing away your time.

And having always lived in the South, I suppose, and in the suburbs from the suburbs of Durham in North Carolina to Kentucky to Texas, and with my much more laid back parents and the casualness of SU – I was thoroughly unprepared for this change, even with all of my time spent in Austin or Dallas or London – it very much has struck home to me that urban culture is something that must be lived in order to be felt or understood. It has also struck home to me how and why urban environments seem (and usually are) inherently more intercultural than suburban areas. This is really what my entire course has been over, I suppose. Understanding why cultural enclaves exist within urban centers and why the suburbs remain largely white – and it’s all to do with entrapment, redlining, block busting, inherited wealth or inherited poverty, transportation issues, environmental racism, and – a term I actually came up with myself – ecological redlining (along with a whole score of other systematic prejudices). And in this way, I’ve learned, that my urban experience and my intercultural experiences are really inextricably interrelated.

Tomorrow after class I have a meeting with a literary agent (I can’t wait!!) and then we’re going on a class field trip through some parks and neighborhoods – the details aren’t clear yet, but I’ll absolutely be posting about what happens there – and I’m also planning, at some point, to visit a sex shop because, as Dr. G has pointed out to our Paideia cohort before as well as to her Human Sexuality classes, that can be an intercultural experience all on its own. And, to be honest, I’ve never been in one before because it makes me uncomfortable. So, we’ll see what happens.

Flushing, Queens

It was a very strange (and surprisingly comfortable) sensation to realize I was the only white person in our group. Five of us decided we’d journey out into Flushing, Queens (it took about an hour by subway to get there), instead of going to the thickly commercialized Chinatown for some Malaysian food. The Five: myself (white), Jasmine (Japanese), Sye Yuet (Singaporean), Rebecca (part Hawaiian, part Korean), and I Forgot Her Name Friend of Becca’s (Indian). So we all met at Astor Place and subwayed to Flushing – and I watched from stop to stop as slowly the white passengers filtered out (the last of them having only waded out so far into Queens in order to get to JFK airport) and Then There Was One. But I have to say, even though all the girls in my groups were of varying backgrounds, culturally we were all in sync so there was no discomfort or real change at all (besides them being very interested in all the differences between NY and TX).

It really didn’t strike home for me that I was a sincere minority until we got off the train and stepped into the world of Chinese billboards, Chinese crowds, people who could look at me in a restaurant and know I was different, know I didn’t live there, didn’t “belong” there – and I suppose that was the most troubling of the feelings (which I was able to deal with since being with friends) but knowing that people saw me come in and shrugged me away as someone who would be leaving shortly because clearly I didn’t belong with them, clearly I couldn’t be living there, and perhaps, clearly I shouldn’t be living there. I’m not saying I experienced racism or anything like that, simply that I experienced, I think for the first time, being considered Different or Out of Place.

The food was delicious! We went to a place Sye Yuet picked (because we all wanted something as “authentically” Chinese as possible) called Malay Restaurant Inc., and it was beyond fortunate that we had her because she’s the only one among us who can speak and understand Chinese (which is pretty much how you ordered food at all unless you just pointed about). But she knew how many of the foods were cooked and what tasted like truer Singaporean, Malaysian, etc., and so we decided to do a family-style try-all. We ordered (or Sye Yuet ordered for us in Chinese (I included a photo of some of the food)) a Buddhist Yam Pot (delicious but too rich for me, just a few bites and I felt dizzy), Barbecued Fish-Skate, Satay, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Sambal Squid, and what I believe was Spicy Thai Chicken. And I learned about (though sadly didn’t get to try this time around) Durian Red Bean Ice: durian is, apparently, a South Asian fruit that smells so strongly (and badly) that it can take a long time to get used to and even cause illness or fainting but if you just go ahead and taste it’s apparently delectably sweet and addictively good.



(The photo shows the yam pot, one of the remaining satays, some teacups, peanut sauce, and the sambal squid. (Oh, and I don’t think we ordered tea, it was simply brought out and served, sort of like water in other restaurants.))

But there wasn’t a single dish served that I’d ever tried before, which was exciting, and complimentary watermelon slices were served at the end (the same way mints usually are in the restaurants I’m accustomed to). And during the meal (which did take a while – it was five girls’ worth of conversation), we mostly (I’m proud and impressed to say) discussed our separate cultural backgrounds and the shifts between them, from the strangeness of “common sushi” in America versus the sushi-as-luxury food in Japan and what this switch means for American perceptions of Japan to discussing the pace difference (which I have absolutely been victimized by) between Texas and NYC and the cultural stress to rush and be busy that seems ubiquitous here to discussing the street culture and foods of Vietnam to, of course, discussing Singapore. But these are truly Women of the World – Friend of Rebecca had just gotten back from travels from London to Rome to Madrid and back, while Jasmine had been all over Asia (along with Rebecca and Sye Yeut), and Sye Yuet who is going to be going back to Singapore for a couple weeks before going back to school in London. In other words, the discussion was wonderfully colorful and intelligent and brave and now I’m excited and eager for the day when I get to curlicue my way through Asia and then into Italy and deeper into Europe – I have decided that this trip and these people have proven to me I do harbor a love for traveling and for learning by experience, but that I also need this tempered with company and a break at home. And perhaps the reason I have had a more difficult time assimilating into NYC is because I’ve spent most of the summer away from home and others from school to Carolina to California to NYC without much of any stoppage in between.

After dinner we journeyed through a sea of Asian characters and advertisements and neon signs to a tea café for dessert (I believe it was called Sago “Something”) and then to a little bakery for breakfast and/or gifts. This little place, just a slice dug out of the strip, was called Maxin Café. It was difficult making any decisions on what to buy there since only some of the food names were translated on their price stickers (fortunately, again, we had Sye Yuet). I ended up just grabbing a tin of coconut cookies for my Nana but they had all sorts of sweet flatbreads, fruit cakes, green tea cakes, sesame breads, red bean pastries, etc.

We acted particularly tourist-esque thanks to the bravery of Rebecca who took no qualms with asking anyone from waiters to people on the street to act as our photographer and, I have to say, this made me realize a strange sort of a preconception in myself as I found it to be an almost role-reversal to have Asian people taking tourist photographs of me instead of the other way around. And, while this seems to me as a relatively harmless race generalization, it bothered me just realizing that I’d had this generalization engrained within me in the first place. It was also strange to realize that I was, effectively, a cultural (and racial) tourist in my own country. What a new and oddly fitting feeling to realize that I wasn’t being a tourist by taking a photo of a mountain or statue but of myself in comparison with the culture and people around me – as if they were a mountain or a statue.

And I guess this is when I realized just how aware I’ve constantly been of my race in this state versus how little I think about it while I’m at home. Every time I’ve walked down the street, I’ve made notes to myself on whether or not I was the only white person walking down. Every time I’ve heard a different language buzz by on a cell phone, I’ve wondered about my own validity as an American and why whiteness should seem to qualify me so well (the Arizona fuck-up, knowing I wouldn’t be stopped and questioned simply because I’m white).

It’s…strange.

ciao for now!
katie

Week 3/4 of NYC

Howdy again from NYC – good and bad, delicious and bitter, my padre came by on his way to Vermont for a gallery ceremony where some of his photography was displayed, and then Evan came up for our 10 month anniversary with the surprise of Bernadette Peters in “A Little Night Music” (and we totally got to see her naked (I don’t think the mirror was supposed to be placed that way)) and all in all it made for a wonderful and much more adventurous past handful of days, but now I’m sadly in withdrawal again. I’ll cope, I know, but I’m still counting down the days until I get to be home and then at SU again.

I’ve now managed to navigate my way around through Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History (the Hall of Origins is breathtaking), and the Metropolitan Museum (Picasso is something…special). I’ve also been spending a good deal of time in Little India, tried some Turkish food, some Turkish coffee (stronger than espresso, thick and gritty, delicious but it made my hands shake), and tried generally to reconsider the neighborhood through the scope of my current coursework: cultural assimilation, residential segregation, environmental racism, etc. I haven’t noticed much thus far in Little India by way of environmental racism, but the first two issues are absolutely prevalent. The restaurants may be Indian, the owners and cooks may be American Indian, but the styles of things seem to be assimilating into the general “Americana” culture. I stepped out of my Turkish joint to find across the street a place literally called “Curry in a Hurry”. And while the Turkish place is called Ay Kitchen, which is also, arguably, by virtue of its English alone, culturally assimilated, it didn’t seem to advertise itself or its food to the stereotypical busy white New Yorker the same way that “Curry in a Hurry” seemed to do.

It was also interesting to notice that the places seeming most frequented by the neighborhood Indian population were basement restaurants that I barely realized were restaurants at first, so well tucked under as they were. This reminded me of, though not quite so blatantly, the Mexican restaurants back home with signs up in the windows that say: No English – apparently meaning that they don’t speak English, coded meaning that they don’t intend to serve white English speakers, coded meaning that they serve “actual” Mexican food.

I would also say that New York seems to be one of the most unashamed examples of rampant residential segregation since the very existence of a cultural enclave such as Little India (or Chinatown or Little Italy) functions as a form of residential segregation. Especially since, though there were other non-Indian people eating and passing through, it’s definitely apparent that they aren’t living in the neighborhood as the American Indians working there are. This begs the question of why – why is it that the capitalist class may commodify cultures (as well as their own) and in doing so force people into ghettos or slums or cultural enclaves in order to preserve traditions? It’s also interesting to see how parts of town become encoded as either good or bad, safe or dirty, because I was actually surprised to find Little India in the part of town (upper part of Gramercy and lower part of Murray Hill) I did. The quality of streets seems to change at random, moving from the “nice” and more predominantly Jewish part of town that I’m staying in (surrounded by Baruch College and Yeshiva University) to the less reputable (not necessarily a “bad” part of town, but definitely a shift) into the predominantly Indian and noticeably poorer neighborhood.

I’m now excited to go with Sye Yuet (my classmate from Singapore and university in London) to Chinatown seeing as she can speak Chinese and thus, I’m hoping, will be able to give us access to the figurative basement or “No English” type of experience. However, I have to say, that I’m really finding it easier to recognize and appreciate the diversity and intercultural aspects of my classmates than of my pioneering into these various enclaves. These enclaves seem to have cookie cut themselves out in order to cater to and mask their cultural origins from the typical white capitalist class patrons, whereas my classmates (Jasmine (Japanese): Tokyo, Sye Yuet (Singaporean): Singapore/London, Chris (white): Pittsburgh (I’m pretty sure), Palik (Indian): Chicago, Todd (white): NY, Rebecca (Hawaiian, I believe): Hawaii, Prof Ariana (Hispanic): NY (parents, I’m pretty sure, from the Dominican Republic), and Moi (white): NC/TX ) offer their intercultural perspectives openly and excitedly.

For instance, I’m constantly surprised by Sye Yuet’s perspective on capitalism and our freedoms (especially of speech – actually just the other day we were discussing the protesting in Brooklyn against the construction of a Mosque and she looked at me with mild confusion and said: They are protesting the Mosque? In Singapore they would be arrested for saying those things.) as well as Jasmine’s perspective. Jasmine openly admitted that her move to America has shocked her because growing up in Japan she’d believed that we were a land where people happily tolerated and accepted people of all colors, religions, and backgrounds, and so many things I take for granted as cultural givens, she has fascinating new insights on. Then even the rest of us state-side colleagues have a variety of cultural perspectives (for instance, I was rather laughed at in yesterday’s class after revealing that I’d never seen or met a black hipster before, which they simply dismissed as a “Texas thing” and hey, maybe it is – maybe I need to be more observant in Austin, but definitely back home, I’ve never seen anyone not pigment-free dressed as a hipster) from Todd’s urban environmental concerns versus Chris’s entertainment POV, etc etc etc.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say: Go See Tilda Swinton in “I Am Love” – yes, it is in Italian and Russian and yes, it is rather old school, but that’s part of what makes it so delicious. I have to say, this is one of the very best films I’ve seen in a very long time dealing with both homo and hetero-sexual tensions as well as with cultural tensions and assimilations and the identity crises that inevitably ensue from the tangle – which, I think, ties in beautifully with everything I’m learning and, less directly, with some of what I’m experiencing out here – the dramatic (and widening) gap between affluence and impoverishment, the assimilation of certain ethnicities versus the utter exclusion or fetishsizing of others, etc. In short, it’s romantic, it’s painful, it’s sumptuous, it’s intercultural, and it’s fantastic – definitely Tilda at her best.

Anyhoo, definitely keep an eye on Politico (http://www.politico.com/) – one of the best and most renown political newspapers online because they are keeping a very impressive eye on Obama’s progress as we approach the first noodlings of the 2012 election. (Plus I got to have lunch with Alice, the Editor – she’s just fantastic :))

Ciao for now, neighborinos

Oh! And P.S. – maybe send up a prayer or at least a kind vibe pour moi because it looks like I have some serious publisher interest in my honor thesis :] rock on, intellecticos!

NYC Week 2 Part II

So firstly, here's the Dr. Powell link I forgot to publish as promised:
http://urbanhabitat.org/20years/powell

Secondly, I just got out of class and absolutely felt the need to share this with you all. So, we're talking about the conceptions of space and how spaces are socially constructed and then how social practices and norms become constructed off of those spaces and I mentioned the article we'd discussed about how men's and women's brains have evolved over the years due possibly to our "original" roles where men were hunter-gatherers and women stayed closer to the campsite thus making men better navigators and women better multitaskers --

but my prof here informed me that this article was incorrect because -- Prof Camacho being an anthropologist -- archeological findings actually (generally) "prove" that this assumption is in itself incorrect and that in many cases it was the women who traveled farthest from camp and men who remained more reigned in. She said that this article sounded like an example of scientists working to reinforce social norms and practices by creating scientific theories to match these preexisting social practices and ideals (such as the adventurous working man with his house wife raising the children).

And this really grabbed my attention since we're usually so keen on these sorts of "normative" issues. And it reminded me of what I'd also been learning a couple semesters ago about Samuel Morton (the rotten bastard) who perverted Darwinism (as so many have) back in the dawning of the American Anthropology craze in order to reinforce his social belief that whites were biologically superior to blacks. He "proved" this theory by measuring skulls but he skewed his measurements to fit his theory rather than working to fit his theory to his "evidence" (of course, you must have evidence in order to fit theories to it, but c'est la vie).

But anyway, this notion surprised me and so I thought I'd share.

We're learning about, as I mentioned before, how social processes create spaces (such as these social norms regarding gender have affected the construction of buildings and cities -- why women have a harder time getting around walking urban areas thanks to social practices like the high heel, etc) and then how we in turn experience these spaces through social practice -- and all the while we're trying to focus on race and how race fits in with these theories. Because surprisingly most academics haven't been thinking of these problems in terms of race, but most commonly in terms of economic or gender studies.

For instance, these conversations come up a lot now when buildings aren't designed to meet the needs of those outside the "norm" such as not providing ramps for wheelchair users or third bathroom options. Progressive steps are, of course, being taken -- some of NYU's buildings are particularly impressive I think. Just take the bathroom example: many of NYU's public restrooms provide a third option bathroom that isn't even labeled "unisex" but simply "toilet" so as to not inflict systematic social violence against any one not considering themselves under either social labels of "Men" or "Women" while not trapping or isolating them under such "one size fits all" labels as "Unisex".

Another example of social practices creating space could be the current issues arising with Veteran Hospitals. Most of the VH's don't provide any OBGYN service at all and many don't even provide menstruation care products such as Tampons or Midol. A particularly violent example of these spaces not being made with women in mind is that one VH was actually discovered to have had one of the maternity chairs configured so that the stirrup end faced an open doorway -- completely violating all privacy of the female patient. But the argument in defense of these upsets is simply that VH's weren't built with women in mind -- but that shouldn't be a viable excuse anymore given how long women have been able to enlist; because of this, it becomes very clear that these spatial constructions are now encoded with social assumptions about where women are "meant" and "not meant" to be (i.e. the armed forces).

Anyway, we're trying to bring race more into this conversation (though the gender studies are obviously important) and try to figure out why no matter the economic moves or progression of time, racism continues rule how cities and suburbs are constructed. We just read a very stunning article by Setha Low called "Maintaining Whiteness: The Fear of Others and Niceness" in which she expounds the dangers of gentrification, gated communities, and the ideas of what constitute "nice" neighborhood versus a "bad" one. It's a fascinating and terrifying article that I highly recommend.

I feel that it's an important article also considering the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee case which gave corporations the same freedom of speech rights as individuals (going against years and years and years of precedent!!! the treachery is overwhelming) because Low gets into the problem of Home Owners Associations and the real-estate companies running these selective gated communities (i.e. residential segregated communities) being able to contractually strip individual of certain freedom of speech rights by barring them from everything from painting their house a different color to kissing their significant other in view of the neighbors (seriously, this happened, a woman was fined by her home owners association for kissing her boyfriend in her garage); and is it even constitutional that these corporations should be able to contract away peoples constitutional rights? I mean, I know freedom of speech isn't strictly one of the inalienable ones, but my goodness! This has extreme danger written all over it.

But basically these are all just giant systematic steps toward privatized segregation which will only promote fear of all those not in the neighborhood and thus exacerbate preexisting ethnic tensions and isolation.

If we're not going to rewrite our constitution to enable some sort of social progress such as is being experienced by the people of Singapore, why in the wide world of sports are we rewriting it for the benefit of corporations? Won't they now be dictating our presidential elections as well as who our neighbors are and what our houses look like?

I feel like Winston Smith's harbinger or something -- this is scary stuff, folks. But I'm glad we're on the forefront -- I think so long as people like you, the people I work with all the time at SU, are the ones coming out to grapple with all of this bullshit, then we'll have a real fighting chance.
It'll be expensive, but it'll be worth it.

ciao for now chicos

Week Deux of NYC

We’re learning right now about residential segregation and gentrification and how race plays into these things. We’re going through everything from heavy theorists like de Certeau and Lefebvre (still haven’t made sense of that dude) to more concrete (and better appreciated) writers and activists such as Dr. John A. Powell – and he actually had something magnificent to say in his speech Regionalism and Race that I’d like to highlight though I’ll just go ahead and attach the PDF:
He said that the problem isn’t that people are looking at history and trying to learn from it, the problem is with whose interpretation of those lessons we’re choosing to accept and follow.

And I just thought that was amazing! Because the clarity of that truth is just stunning. People are looking at the cyclical poverty of minority groups in cities and they look at the predatory lending that went on to systematically shaft them there – and instead of saying, it’s because of predatory lending practices they say it’s because of the people getting the loans! Then the solution becomes to simply stop lending to poor minorities rather than to cease and attack predatory lending(ers).

I earned an A on my presentation – which is kind of astonishing to me considering I think it’s one of the worst I’ve ever given. My information was fine and as exhaustive as one could expect out of a ten minute sound byte but I just let myself get so flustered and harried; you wouldn’t have recognized me, especially not after the victory that was Monterey.

And while I am perversely enjoying the weekly 2 page papers where we discuss a case study of our choice or personal urban experience to analyze under the scope of the week’s readings, I’m having trouble getting my head around the relevancy of a lot of this more involved theory. Many of these academics seem strictly concerned with defining terms like “space” and “time,” which I’m beginning to realize must be where Clinton got the idea for his “define ‘is’” argument.

However, I will say that this week’s presenter – Syeut, a sweet girl from Singapore who’s studying economics (I’m pretty sure) in London – presented on the forced residential and economic diversity integration practices of Singapore. And if these government practices weren’t completely unconstitutional, I’d vote for them immediately. Basically, since Singapore is essentially a migrant population and is so densely populated for such a small country, they have worked it so that (basically) everyone lives in these large, compact high rise apartment complexes. Within these complexes they have quotas requiring a certain percentage of each major and minority racial group of the nation. They also contain apartments of varying sizes scattered throughout in order to appropriately integrate people of varying economic statuses.

And while this has worked very well for them, keeping their schools nice and generally well funded, keeping riots and detrimental prejudices to a minimum, it has also made things difficult for people on the up-and-up who are interested in buying houses or larger flats because of how difficult it can be to resell their current abodes given the quotas. And while you (as I have done) may poo-poo on this setback as small potatoes compared to the apparent social advantages, it’s also completely anti-mainstream American way and our desperate love to our right of property. And while that word “property” can sound immoral in peculiar ways when compared with these other boons, it’s nothing to poo-poo on either. After all, wasn’t the right to property and economic prosperity just as strong a motive for our settler ancestors’ migration as religious freedom? (We won’t get into the torrent of feelings I harbor for their migration here.)

But anyway, I just thought it was a great conversation and case study that I’m glad to now be a part of. Who knew I’d become interested in the residential regulations of Singapore?

Anyhoo, it’s still lonely here but I’m slowly becoming hardened against it, writing a lot more letters than I normally do at school, and that helps (I like to fancy myself as something of a jumper into the letter-writing conversation stylings of the Beats though I’m, admittedly and obviously, nowhere near so cool). And I would still rather be at home just working on the GRE and my honor thesis at my leisure, but all learning is important, right? ... (right?)

I just had dinner with a cousin of mine who is big in the foreign affairs world – just got back from Israel and now he’s on his way to Pakistan – and he’s a wonderful, wonderful guy but it’s frustrating sitting there and having little to nothing to contribute as to the state of the American economy in connection with Pakistan politics given my miniscule knowledge about the complexities of both and then to be kind heartedly and well intentioned-ly grilled about why on earth I’d want to pursue studies in English and American studies when obviously math and science and politics make more sense and are expanding in academic arenas rather than downsizing or stagnating – it’s frustrating in that you can’t really argue that you hope to help get English and American studies programs expanding again because then you just get “the look”.

I tell you what, they wean you on the “you can do anything you want when you grow up” and then they slap you with unintended discouragements and reasons why you shouldn’t want to do that – even though you’ve already gotten to the business of growing up! Oy vey, I tell you… It’s just frustrating to be constantly followed by this specter of What If by people who’ve already made their place in the world. I’m working hard and doing the little extra’s and I’m interested in learning and contributing rather than in simple degree earning as a plus sign in the equation to a bigger paycheck. Of course, I have no delusions about getting rich off a History or American Studies PhD! Who would?

And then I ran into a professor from SU, believe it or not, right there on Broadway. I won’t name names because I wanted to cry after this run-in. It’s a professor I adore and respect very much, but who decided that that was the appropriate time to tell me that she didn’t think I should pursue American Studies over something like English because it just didn’t make any financial sense to enter into a field of study that’s currently downsizing. She essentially told me don’t follow this interest because no one will hire you.

What makes her think that professor-hood was the only thing in the world I was hoping to achieve? What makes her think that no one can get hired in a separate field with an American Studies degree? Look at our Communications department! Dr. Tahm and Dr. Bednar – both American Studies degrees. And what if I wanted to be a literary agent or a museum curator or a high school teacher or a flat-out writer or a critic or drop it all and open up my own dessert shop called Katie’s Confectionary? It’s just…why should I have to so constantly justify what I’m passionate about to all of these successful, well-educated people who all went about getting where they are by different, crazy routes that certainly their parents and teachers wouldn’t have recommended? I know things will be hard, I know we’re in a difficult economic time and that grad schools are filling up and jobs are blipping away – I’m not, and most of my colleagues at SU are not somehow blind to all of these things.

We’re trying and we want to be a part of the conversation.
And I understand wanting to help us into the safer options, take care of us and help us to take better care of ourselves, but there’s a point when that turns into flat discouragement.

Where’s the balance? How do we strike all the right balances? From helping each other versus hurting each other, from improving our neighborhoods to racist gentrification, how do we know where to go and when to stop?

Sorry to be so long winded and convoluted, but what can I say? I’ve been spending too much time with myself.

Ciao for now neighborinos

First Week in NYC for NYU

To be honest, I’m really despising NYC so far. I know that’s ungrateful because this is a great experience for my Intercultural Experience, getting to study Comparative Ethnic Urbanisms at NYU and live in the city for a while – but I just can’t stand it here. City city living isn’t for me – especially not all by myself. I’m living at my grandfather’s apartment off-campus, so I’m in an air conditioned place (thank goodness!) but I’m also a bit more isolated. But you know, it’s not even that I’m not people at the school, because I am, and my classmates are very cool & very diverse – there’s only a small group of us in the class, 8 or 10, but there are people there from everywhere: two or three native New Yorkers, a girl from Singapore (who’s studying now in London), a girl from Tokyo, and then a couple others from scattered America (such as myself) – so it’s wonderful getting all these fresh perspectives on American urban issues, but it’s also miserable in its own ways – I find myself not really wanting to meet other people, which I find strange for me since I had very little trouble integrating myself almost immediately in with my new environment at SU.

It’s been a very difficult transition (as well as a damned expensive one) and I find it very difficult to motivate myself to do anything. I don’t want to go out and see the sites (as you may here find proof as it’s July 4th in NYC and I’m sitting in the apartment writing this blog entry instead of marching down to the Hudson to see the fireworks – although, I will say, I’m hardly patriotic in the flags-and-apple pie sense; I’d say I’m more patriotic in the Harlan Howard sense of patriotism (thank you, Evan, for another wonderful introduction!))

Harlan Howard’s “Uncle Sam (I’m A Patriot)”

Uncle Sam, I work hard every day but there ain’t much left when I draw my pay
Then I hear you’re giving’ those millions away to somebody outside the USA
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, I’m a patriot; yes, I am

And even though you made me mad as Cane, if you need me, Uncle, just call my name

Now, the little dirt farmer works all of his life
And leaves eight dollars to his kids and his wife
While the big land owner is a millionaire, he made it by lettin’ his land stand bare
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam…

I get choked up every time I hear the national anthem loud and clear
And though I’ve got a complaint or two, you can write my name in red, white, and blue
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam…
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam…
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam…

I know, I know – the lyrics make it sounds corny, but to hear it sung is to understand it. It’s the Fourth of July and I can’t say I’m particularly proud of my country right now – yes, we have Obama – finally – but we’re still without Universal Healthcare, we’re still shackled to capitalism’s whims, we’re still watching communities and cities like Detroit just funnel away into poverty as opposed to asking Zukin’s q of: “Whose city?” and then working to help recreate these cities into safer & creative environments.

And that’s really a lot of what I’m studying right now in my coursework – though I will say, I’m frustrated by our continuous focus on theory and theory and theory as opposed to more case studies and Dr. John A. Powell (he’s a great academic and activist right now on these issues – I’ll have more on him and his work later on – it’s really progressive & solution-oriented work he’s doing) and applications of theories. I just don’t see much point in spending time on heavy theory during a summer course – how is theoretical argumentation over the natures of “Space” and “Time” really helps me think more critically about ghettoization, white flight, and cultural assimilation versus cultural preservation as determinants of American success and upward mobility. I’m keeping notes & I’m excited to get to share more of them with you both here and when we’re all back at school, because this really is the highlight of all of NYC for me right now.

It’s just miserably and paralyzingly lonely here. What’s the point of going to fireworks alone? What’s the point of going to the museums alone? It all just feels even more polarizing because there’s nobody to turn to and pontificate with, chuckle with, or keep you calm when you get horribly lost the very first day and end up walking around sizzling NYC for four hours while natives snicker behind their hands at you and your map.

Anyway, I don’t mean to be ungrateful or a drag – but I’m ready to be home or back at school with my friends and family. I know this is supposed to be a part of the purpose of this grand Paideia experience. But I’m not learning anything beyond this awful heaviness and my coursework, so far.

Hopefully things will begin looking up soon and I hope things are going better for all of you & your endeavors.

I did just present in class – I was the first presenter and presented a case study over the Kinzua Dam Controversy of the late 1950s and 1960s, revealing just how little Native Americans matter to the greater urban public even still, even today, and why these injustices should outrage all of us
…
I’m afraid this one didn’t go as well as the Monterey presentation though; since I volunteered to go first, I barely had any time to prepare (which, I’m sure my professor (in process of becoming a Dr., Ms. Ariana Camacho) is taking into account) but I just feel weird about it – my information was good but I let myself get so flustered, I went over my time limit and sounded just goofy as could be.
… hopefully things will get better. They certainly could be worse, and I do appreciate all of the perks and blessings of my current situation – but I’m ready for this to be over. I’m so tired of being here already.

I apologize for leaving this entry off on such a dreary, whiny note, but I’m being as honest as I can.

Ciao for now, cool kats

The Young Rhetoricians' Conference in Monterey, CA -- sunny but cold

It was amazing! Seeing as I’d never been to California before, I was excited for multiple reasons. But let me back up a second – my honor thesis: “A Fresh Look at “Howl”: The Trickster in Ginsberg” was accepted for presentation at The Young Rhetoricians’ Conference. It was a terrifying and dizzying experience, but, as I said, amazing. Thankfully I got to present first so that I could sit back and relax for the bulk of the conference. Unfortunately, the aspects that made the conference such a great fit for my more casual presentation also made it rather frustrating at times to get ahold of some concrete information on timing and length and formality, but it ended up breezing by beautifully – a wonderful first for what I hope to be only the beginning of an academic career 

The conference took place at the Monterey Resort Hotel right on the Pacific. So, given my family reunion in Pawley’s, South Carolina two days before, I went from walking on the Atlantic to walking on the Pacific in less than a week – the plane trek was exhausting, but I had my best friend there with me (luckily, blessedly) and so everything went by without too much stress. But, I simply tried to look at this as a sort of test-run for my Student Work Symposium presentation this spring.

It was terrifying. I will say though, few things have ever transformed me into such a great editor as crafting my paper into a presentation format. Granted, I only covered about ¼ of 1 chapter of the entire 100 page doowap, but it went over so well that one guy there, C. Dison (earning his MA and working as a professor – about to teach his first class), actually came up and told me after my presentation that my work had inspired him to write a thesis of his own instead of testing to finish his MA (he was not the only person impressed and surprised that this was an undergraduate thesis and not for an MA – sorry, but I have to brag, it’s so surreal).

Of course, I will concede that initially, though I was convinced I did immensely well for my first time, for going first, for standing up sans podium or table to cower behind – I worried afterward that I’d somehow done something horribly wrong or out-of-place because, strangely, no one asked me a single question once I’d finished. That had been the part I’d been most excited and nerve-wrecked over and it deeply affected me not being questioned. I fully anticipate questions at the SU symposium though (which actually terrifies me even more than this one around, knowing it’ll be my professors doing the questioning :p) but really, if it hadn’t been for Evan being there with me and supporting me, I’d have fallen to pieces.

I guess that’s the biggest advice I’d have to offer to presenters after this experience: bring a support group; they make all the difference in the whole world.

I did get the chance to meet some very cool people while I was there – though I will say, a big frustration I had while there was that I’d hang around a while after each presentation I went to, go to the lunches, and make sure I was extra talkative, but no matter what I did, no one would invite me to dinner with them until the next morning when they’d come up and say: Oh, I loved your presentation and we wanted to invite you to dinner but couldn’t find you!

Look dudes, neither I nor Evan had a car or money to just throw at cabbies so we ate dinner at the hotel (which was phenomenal, I must say), so how is it they couldn’t find us? And what about just approaching me after or before the presentations when I was just milling about admiring the book displays and downing all their free coffee?

But, oh well – it’s all good & we shall persevere; it was great fun & a beautiful experience, a good ego-boost.

If you get the chance – absolutely go for something like this, the school will give you $700.00 to go out and do it (which, I well know doesn’t cover all of it) but it’s absolutely worth it.

I hope your summers are going well – I really do miss getting to chat with you all.
Oh! And just in case you’re interested, there’s a John Stewart and John Yoo interview floating around thedailyshow.com right now discussing the legality and justifications of torture and presidential liberties during wartime – I know we spent a while discussing this sort of thing and the morality of torture a ways back, and just thought I’d mention it.

Anyhoo, till next semester – ciao for now, Paideia kats ;]

Paideia Reflection Pool – Junior Year & Beyond

I really enjoyed Paideia a great deal more this time around, I think, than the whole of sophomore year. Granted, this is probably due to the fact that I’m a better human being than I once was and that I’m more comfortable with the rest of you, more comfortable with what academics I enjoy and how to speak publicly about them, comfortable with debate and openly questioning people and being questioned – and for all of this, I’d like to extend my thanks, because you’ve all played a huge, huge hand in shaping me this way.

I very much enjoyed our brunches out and would love more of that – I know the scheduling is always crazy and I apologize for my own absences this time around both for the one off-campus outing to Dr. G’s place and for missing, I believe, Laurel’s presentation (sorry, Laurel!). This semester has been particularly rough on moi; I really did stretch myself and reach a limit this time. 14 hours is too few and 18 avec Capstone is too many. Oy vey – but Paideia classes, I have to say, without flattery or buttering, have really acted as a welcome reprieve from the madness of grades and pressure as a return to the joy of learning and thinking for the joy of learning and thinking. And I thank my lucky stars that it’s worked out so well with all of you in the group; I think we had a rocky beginning but that we’re coming together nicely as a unit. 

As I mentioned in my previous entry specifically about the student-led discussions, I found this use of class time as particularly useful – I’d just like to see a bit more engagement with the actual presentations from the presenters. But overall, I’m very fond of this method and readily vote for it again for next year. I feel like everyone was very participatory, generally, this time around and that, at least from where I was sitting, people seemed more comfortable about piping up on their own accord. I’m very proud of us for this cultivation of confidence and comfort; I think it shows real gusto and maturity in us as a group that we could come together as a smooth sailin’ ship where so many other groups have splintered apart or into apathy. Thank you for caring so heartily (or at least for acting like it in class  it’s made me feel very at home, very comforted and worthwhile).

However, back to the subject of student-led discussions, I would like to propose that since we’re all going to be doing a presentation of some kind at some point next year, why don’t we restrict our presentation topics/readings to things directly pertaining to the material we’re planning on or considering to use for these final projects – and then in the spring semester maybe we could, instead of readings & presentations, just give mock presentations to each other over what we’re planning to present. I know this is a risky business because some people work best under pressure of procrastination, but I think projects like these deserve a bit more forethought than the norm, plus it could really help to keep people from becoming overwhelmed with all the other pressures accompanying the final weeks of college.

Maybe we could all go as a group to some presentations next semester? I know they give them all the time at UT – why not take a day, chalk it up as an excused academic absence, have lunch in Austin and take notes at some professional and graduate presentations? I went to an American Studies graduate panel presentation at UT last semester and, I have to say, I think we could kick their asses with pride and ease.

Peace,
Katie

Paideia Reflection Pool – Student-Led Discussions

Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed all of the student-led discussions this time around. We had some particularly intriguing talks this time around. I enjoyed talking about vegetarianism, sexuality, science, education, Allen Ginsberg, the whole skidoo – I think we came through with some broad, important topics and accomplished the point of Paideia: to make them relevant to ourselves, each other, the program, the greater world, and the web that is liberal arts. So, for this I’d like to give everyone a big bravo!

I’d also like to extend extra thanks on behalf of my discussion and reading about Ginsberg because this very much helped with my research and thesis writing. And this thanks also branches into my deeper appreciation for this method of Paideia-ing because not only did it enable me to better acquaint myself with what’s important to all of you, my Paideia-mates, but it also helped me become a better speaker.

But on this point of what’s important to all of you, I have to say, this was my favorite aspect of our student-led discussions. If Paideia is supposed to be a safe-zone where I can get comfortable enough with myself to make goofy mistakes, show up half asleep, or be there for Brady’s coming out, I think this sort of sharing was the perfect way to cultivate this feeling of academic safety, creativity, and camaraderie. I honestly do feel as though I know each of you much better this time around than last year more because of this sort of arm-twisted sharing time than for any amount of pure extracurricular fun-time. This is my favorite part of school and a large part of why I want to continue on into graduate school. I love learning from people who are A) ferociously intelligent (such as you all) and B) passionate about what they’re learning. And these discussions enabled us to bring to the table those academic branches most important to us, why we go to class every day. It’s something special that I feel honored (honor program or not – huff and puff) to be privy to.

This is not to say, of course, that our discussions couldn’t be improved at all. I think the articles we’ve been coming up with have all been very cool, but I think the presentations should be a bit more involved than a “this is my reading; what did you think?” scenario. I think Steven did a particularly good job with his presentation, coming with notes prepared and a long introductory spiel to what the reading meant to him, how it could apply/be important to us as well before providing us with specific keynote questions and opening up the floor. I feel like there should be a bit more pressure on the draw with these presentations; not a mammoth’s load, I’m not in love with mountains of work either, but I think that’s the point of these presentations, right? – that they shouldn’t feel like too much work to begin with if we’re really addressing a topic that’s important and dear to us.

Appreciatively,
Katie

American Imperialism and the Brown Symposium

Well, for my Brown Symposium experience, I partook (like Michele) of Dr. Malamud’s presentation as well as in the final Panel presentation – I meant to go to the presentation incorporating Afghanistan and Iraq but found the Skype situation a bit much for my sorry attention span to handle. Of course, since the Panel ended up with a bit of the same, as well as immensely scattered just topically, I can’t say I enjoyed it near so much as I enjoyed Dr. Malamud’s discussion.

Now, under one hand, I found her as a presenter top notch, I appreciated not simply being read to, but on the other hand, I didn’t agree with exactly everything she had to say – yes, of course our architecture has been influenced by that of the Romans, but I don’t necessarily agree that this comes from a deep connection with the Romans, I think ours is more of a rip off of England’s rip off than anything else – Americans in general have always wanted to establish a new and yet old type of history for themselves, a bunch of “radicals” hunting for a history, a precedence to fall back on, and the Romans just happen to have a history that’s been smorgasborded by so many other countries already, why not us? Why can’t we be the best version of the same old same old – and she did touch on that a bit, but I think she could’ve done more with it (though granted, I know that’s what her book is for :p).

I did appreciate her discussion over how our concept of history is accentuated in this Roman connection, how it’s become a totally linear, “progressive” view, though I think the term “line segment view” is better. An event begins and ends, boom, history, versus the more complex, fuller idea of history as a never ending line SPIRALING forward, not a strict cyclical doowap and not an overly simplistic straight beam shooting onward and onward.

I did dig how she came about the notion of thinking on America in this way, via Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, good stuff, as Gaines said: a time traveler and border-crosser. I also really enjoyed the issue of American identity that she glanced over: America as the New Rome versus America as the New Jerusalem. I wish she’d gone further into that as well, but again, that’s why books are for.

Now, when she brought up the conquest of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Cuba as an example of our assuming Rome’s old banner of empire and wanting to be a better Rome than Britain, I had a few qualms. Fortunately, she addressed the big one but I still feel a bit restless about it. What grabbed me was the unfairness of this label because, especially with the Philippines and Chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifuba, there was this excuse created, the idea of being a protectorate force rather than a conquering one because so many Americans began to take issue with becoming an imperialist nation. A lot of propaganda started pumping out anti-imperialist, one of my favorite political cartoons being,






which depicts ol’ Will McKinley considering imperialistic moves on the Philippines while ignoring the obvious and terrible issues persisting at home.

Her answer to this was something to the effect that America wanted both the Republican Ideals and Imperialist Pleasures of the late, “great” Rome, and that was reflected more in our architectural homage to them rather in our collective agreement that we were/are the New Rome.


As for the Panel discussion, really, it just made me wish I’d made it to something more specific, since it felt like the entire presentation was more made up of bullet points that each speaker either had forgotten about before or wanted to make sure and reiterate, a sort of sum-up for the thinning audience. There was some interesting discussion on the extreme detachment of the very rich from the rest of society and how this shapes the Imperialist Ideal versus the extremely wealthy but philanthropic of the 19th century America versus the “God through Wealth”/divine right mentality that tends to go with our super-wealthy of today. There were also interesting questions raised about where the heck were our revolts against the Republican empires of the Bush, Nixon, Reagan messes, etc. etc. etc.? Basically, as I said, a lot of random intrigues but nothing fantastically gripping. I have to say, compared to the last couple Brown Symposiums, I felt rather let down by this one. That’s probably just because this topic didn’t particularly fascinate me, but the fact that I was still there and still hopeful and still itchily disappointed felt strange and a little sad.

I’d love to be intrigued and crazed by everything, but at least I can recognize the significance, relevance, and importance of it even if I don’t get ultra-jazzed up about it, right? Isn’t that a big Paideia life goal?

Ciao for now, amigos