How did this story make you think about storytelling and history?
When Nwamgba first sent her son to the catholic missionaries she did it to reclaim the property that Obierka's cousins took from her. It ended up turning into this interesting story about her son calling her traditions "sinful" and how she felt living in the "new strange world". It made me think about how during this time stories were either evolving or lost to the changes of the world. I also thought about the traditions that Anikwenwa(Michael) deemed bad and how many others were taught thinking that the religion their elders follow will send them to hell. Something that I noticed was that in this time period that men had to be perceived as perfect. Michael wanted to show the teachers at the convent how good he disciplines his daughter when she was acting up, and when Ayaju suggested Oberika was impotent Nwamgba immediately shot it down to not make her husband seem impotent. Its a glimpse into how different the dynamics were. This story made me think about how as it progressed in history we got farther from the "primitive" ways we first read about in the beginning of the story.,
For my open topic journal I am going to talk about how the transition to being 3 1/2 hours from home to only 30 minutes has been.
When I was looking for a school to transfer to after a unejoyable semester at my old school I chose Saint Marys because I wanted to be more present in my family's life.
I didn't think that I would struggle at all infact I thought that I would be 10x happier with my family close by. I started to find myself hating the fact the streets im driving on, the stores I go into, and a lot of other things were so familiar. I almost feel like I am back in highschool because of my environment.
At the same time though I am so happy that my family is close enough to support me vice versa. Just recently I was able to help them out by living at the house and taking care of our dog. Anytime I am feeling upset I can call my mom and have the option to go home and be surround with love and familiarity.
In conclusion its really just an ongoing transitional battle that is somewhat getting better as the weeks go on.
I enjoyed the lecture more than I expected to! The part that stuck out to me the most was when she said she wish she could go back and tell her younger self to embrace her identity instead of feeling forced to choose between assimilating into American culture, or choosing her own culture.
I related to this on a personal level. I was raised in a predominantly white town. I always felt out of place because I either felt too mexican for the white girls, or too white for the hispanic girls. I always had(and still do sometimes) an identity crisis because I looked white, but I had a obvious hispanic name. It made me feel like I had to assimilate into the "american girl". I dyed my hair blonde for the first time in middle school to fit in, slowly began taking spanish out of my daily vocabulary, etc. because I felt like I needed to choose the role of the majority around me.
When she said that that larger culture is not always welcoming to difference, and has systems that prefer conformity, in my mind it connected straight to my childhood.
What forces have shaped the "story" Shapiro tells of her own life, her selfhood? How have those changed?
Shapiro?
Shapiro's original sense of self was built on what she knew about her family, how she was raised, and the heritage she thought she belonged to. She was very connected to her Orthodox Jewish heritage through her father. Once she discovers that she is not his biological daughter she analyzes her life and realizes that this makes her sense of not belonging makes sense. She realizes that her sense of self is not just based on genetics is as she had believed, but instead based on love and connection to those around her.
I feel like the National Archives is a great source of information, but it also feels kind of limited to what you can view depending on your topic. I decided to go see if I could find the records of my maternal grandparents immigration to the US. I kept on being directed to different pages. Every page made me feel like I was getting closer, but I ended up stopping at a page that actually directed me to use other websites like ancestry.com, and familysearch.org. I then realized that the page they directed me to was cut off in 1955; my grandparents immigrated to California in 1972. It makes me wonder if archivists back then didn’t believe the certain eras of immigration to be important enough to document.
I did enjoy getting lost in the genealogy records. The amount of information is so overwhelming, but so interesting. I was going down a rabbit hole of clicking on different records and reading about what they contained.
Argument. How is the gender data gap at work here?
In this chapter the gender data gap puts the bame on women for feeling the lack of safety. The official statistics show that men are more likely to be victims of crime in public places which causes the fear of women being a victim not as serious. For example this conclusion transportation services didn't take the recommendations like adding more light in dark areas women frequent serious.
Example / Evidence. Select 1-2 examples from your chapter. How do they demonstrate her point? What do you find most interesting or important?
An example that illustrates her point of women not being taken serious was," the inevitable reaction from some quarters to such a complaints is to tell owman to stop being delicate flowers - or feminists to stop painting women as delicate flowers." I find this interesting and important because most of this chapter is about how women are just concerned for their own safety and comfortableness.
Another example that demonstrates her point is," ... in no small degree because of the shame surrounding the issue. Few women are willing to talk about something they may well be blamed for encouraging." I think this is important because the shame surrounding women having to defecate due to not having the necessary areas is a result of authorities not taking the demand for more women's toilets serious.
Critique: What remaining questions do you have? Is there something you’d like to know more about? Something you want to push back on? Anything you feel she is leaving out?
Somethingwish she would've done is used some data from women who go to women only gyms. I think it would add on to her argument towards co-ed gyms being a "male-baised public space masquerading as equal access." It would show the difference of how women feel entering a space like the free weights area.
Connection. In what ways do you hear echoes of other course readings? Consider: data mining / text analysis, earlier readings on storytelling, memory, archives & power, etc.
I feel like this connects to data mining. Her whole argument is based around the data and comparing it with eachother.
While reading the selections from this reading I was very suprised that black birthing people are more likely to die than white birthing people. The reoccuring statement that people of color didn't feel like their doctors' listened to them interested me especially. I feel like this could be connected to how women of all races feel when they complain about pain or other concerns. I agreed with her when she said hospital births have been indoctrinated as the norm and how its not even a thought to have an out of hospital birth nowadays. I also recently started having thoughts about how I would deliver my future child. Mostly because of how expensive it is to have a child. The role of Doula also interested me. I feel like having a person who is taking care of you and your wellbeing is very important for all women who are giving birth. The support they provide(or just in her case) after the birth also caught me by suprised. I always imagined a woman having a baby and having to figure it out by herself.
My strongest skill areas were communication, collaborating, computing numbers. I think these skills are a direct cause of me working as a front desk worker over the summer. I was in-charge of talking to clients on the phone and transferring them to the correct person who could help them. I was collaborating with my boss aswell when it came to helping schedule meetings for some of my co-workers. Finally a big part of what I did was input serial numbers into a spreadsheet for everyone to see. Some skill areas I would like to develop are creating/inventing, prioritizing things, and leading/directing others. I feel as if they are definitely my weaker skills. I would use all these in my desired profession(divorce lawyer) because I need to be able to effectively talk to clients, collaborating with them to reach their desired outcomes, and make sure that they are attended to.