Arts & Culture #2

Read a nonfiction or a fiction book

April 1, 2022

DOCUMENTATION

Summary (~200-400 words plus citation) of book in your own words.

“Becoming” describes Michelle Obama’s life. She does not only describe her life as the first African American that became the First Lady of the United States; but she also describes her childhood, her teenager years, and her adulthood. In chapter one, Michelle recalls how she grew up in the South Side of Chicago with her parents and brother while living on the second floor of her aunt and uncle’s bungalow. Michelle emphasizes on the memory of her learning piano at the age of four. She explains how her music teacher would always demand for perfection, so she was always practicing and improving. Michelle describes in chapter two her experience when starting school. She’s excited to begin and succeed, showing how driven she was as a child. Michelle then complains to her mom how boring her second-grade class, and her mom was able to advance her and other kids to the third grade. Michelle describes she was anti-social and kept to herself majority of the time. At one point she was being bullied, but she earned the respect by punching the girls that were bullying her. In chapter three, Michelle focus on how her father was useful to the community, although he was ill. She also recalls how her grandfather bought her a dog. In this chapter, she describes how her dad helped her get out of her shell and become more sociable. Michelle explains how everyone sees her great grandfather as intimidating, however, she is the only one willing to stand up against him to argue back. In this chapter, she also comments how her cousins would ask her why she would speak “like a white girl.” Her parents always taught her to speak proper English, but part of her family would make her feel bad about it.

REFLECTION

What did you learn? What feelings came up while reading it? How was the topic portrayed uniquely through writing compared to other mediums (audio, film, etc.)? How can literary arts and storytelling strengthen and enrich our communities?

Michelle Obama is a woman I wholeheartedly admire. I bought this book as soon as it came out in 2018. Reading her life story was truly inspiring. She has always been a driven and goal-oriented woman. I learned that she is successful now due to of all the hard work she has done. She admits that she is who she is due to her family for teaching her what she knows now. The feelings that I felt while reading was weird. It is sad to see how hard it was for certain ethnicities group to succeed in the past. However, I did feel a sense of proudness because her and her husband were able to overcome whatever challenges society tried to implement onto them. I do believe that Michelle writing about was the best option. There are so many details that would have probably not been covered if she would have made a documentary, or podcast about it. Storytelling enriches our communities by providing a different point of view among people’s lives. I also believe that emotions are felt more through reading than by listening.