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Class 16

Welcome to Day 1 of our book groups. Thanks to Kevin, Ashley, Luis, Yingrong, Spencer, and Zoe for posting your initial replies to the first section of our books. (Those named above posted by around 9:00, which is usually when I log on for class and prepare these posts for publishing.)

A few bits of business, about a) blog posts and book clubs, b) the impact of this work on your grading contracts, c) Essay 2 (which I’ve finished reading and commenting on), and d) where we’re going with Essay 3.

Those of you who have arrived in class prepared and with your work complete, you’ll work in pairs and then threes to discuss the reading. I’d suggest you start out by sharing what you posted in the blog. It’s OK to have started with summary but the best discussions will move quickly to responses. These responses will be based in the books.

What I’d like these discussion to yield is: a) 2-3 passages from your book that you might be interested in talking about more with others; b) 1-2 “big questions” from the section of the book you read for today. Again, this will drive your conversation in bigger breakouts.

Blog Posts for Book Clubs

For easy reference, here’s a blog post requirement review

  • You’ll write one post per week to our course blog (due Tuesdays by 9:30am)
    • It should have a title, tags, a quote from the text, an image or a link out, and citations
    • It should engage the reading and be between 200 and 350 words (2-3 paragraphs).
  • You’ll also reply to the people in your groups (due Thursdays by 9:30am) 
    • These should be thoughtful comments that engage the writer and their ideas
    • They should be 1-2 paragraphs, and should summarize what the writer has said before you respond with your own ideas — this is sometimes called the “known-new” contract

Incomplete Work & Grading Contracts

If you didn’t complete your assignment, a) I will mark it as late, and b) you’ll need to spend some time in class completing it. There will be breakout rooms for this. Please go to the room that corresponds to the book you’ve decided to read. Work turned in later than today’s class will be marked “make-up” and, eventually, “ignored.” Please review our grading contract to recall how this can affect your semester grades.

Essay 2 Comments & Required Revisions

You should check your preferred email address (whatever you indicated that was during the submission of Essay 1). I have sent feedback to everyone who turned in Essay 2. These were, generally, pretty good. A few were really excellent and we’ll look at them with the writer’s permission. Some need a small amount of revision, with the most common reason being either a missing reference to the peer-reviewed reading or a lack of a works cited page. Both are easily fixable. In a few cases there was a bigger issue; if that’s your situation talk to me after class this week.

Essay 3 Topics

While the specific prompts won’t be available until next Monday, after we’ve gotten underway with book clubs, I can say with some certainty the general topic choices you’ll have for this essay. We’re returning to a more traditional format, in this case a 1,000-1,500 word essay. Your choices of topic will be as follows:

  1. The Research Option: Using library sources from CCNY’s Cohen Library or the NYPL, pose a research question about a social issue that emerges from your reading and discussion of your book. Your essay should define that issue and give it some background using at least two peer-reviewed sources. That background should explain where your book enters into a larger conversation about that issue. And your essay should explore the way that issue shapes the experiences of the writer of this book. Examples abound but could include: immigration; identity; sexuality; gender; race; education; place; family; disability. And many more!

2. The “Struggle” Option: As we articulated the reasons we were choosing these books, many writers described an interest in the “struggles” these writers “overcame” along the way to becoming “successful.” If you pick this option, you’ll engage that idea of a “struggle” story (sometimes also called a “deficit narrative”). In what ways do these stories resist that trope? In what ways do they reinforce it? Were these stories “inspiring”, “depressing” or something in between? How do these terms help us as readers, and how is that a binary that limits our interpretations?

3. The Fly-on-the-Wall Option: Drawing on Alvarez-Alvarez and (to a lesser extent) P & E as models, observe your own group and at least one other group. Use social science research/data gathering skills like interviews and surveys to make an argument about the benefits and limits of book clubs in a pandemic-influenced college class.

4. The You-Tell-Me Option. Think up your own topic and pitch it to me by Nov 4.

See you in a few.

The Weight Of Reality

“I wanted to write a lie” (Laymon, 2018 pg 1)

            Kiese Laymon”s book heavy is a memoir, written in the form of a letter to his mother. He begins the story by telling his mother that he wanted to write a lie. This quickly sets the tone for the upcoming story and the chapters ahead. By stating that he wanted to write a lie he is admitting that it would be easier on him and his mother. This illustrates the heaviness and harshness of his reality.

            In the first 62 pages he discusses relationship with his body. Throughout the book we see him struggle with body image to the point where he wondered what was wrong with him. We see him repeat the phrase “I hated my body” (Laymon, 2018 pg 47) he had internalized the idea that the root of his problem was his image. We see this when he discusses the topic of sex with Renata. He states “when she came over and didn’t choke me or ask me to keep it straight, I wondered what was wrong with me. I always assumed it was because my thighs and calves weren’t muscly enough. On those days when we she didn’t touch me, I didn’t eat or drink and I did calf raises and squats bathroom till I cramped.” Not only those this show his relationship with his body, it also shows the correlation between his relationship with sex, his body, and food. 

“my body knew the things my mouth couldn’t, and maybe wouldn’t express” (Laymon, 2018 pg 27)

            Ultimately, the first 68 pages are about the traumatic experiences Laymon body experienced and although he at the time was not able to articulate through words despite his mothers’ linguistic teachings, his body was telling that story for him.

Laymon, Kiese. (2018). Heavy. New York, NY: Scribner

Belonging in the Face of Oppression

While reading the first part of Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz there was a recurring idea of belonging. Diaz explored her feelings of belonging in childhood through telling stories in relation to gender and race. The lack of belonging that Diaz felt in her family occurred when she was compared to her brother. In comparison with her brother, she often felt isolated because she felt that he was often favorited due to his gender. The connection that she felt with her father during childhood was complicated by the secret trips her father would take her brother on to La Plaza. He would not allow her to go to La Plaza because she was a girl and this reasoning caused a fit of anger and left her, “longing for something to lift this burden of girlhood” (Diaz 9). The strong bond that she felt with her father was hindered due to his beliefs about what girls should and should not do.

The lack of belonging in her family was also felt because of her race. Diaz often felt disconnected from the stories she read and the movies she saw. “I’d lie in my own bed, imagining myself in those movies, writing revisions of them that included characters like me” (Diaz 42). The characters in the stories were people that did not look like her and therefore she struggled to see herself in the stories and connect. This feeling was reinforced by the racist comments that were consistently made by her grandmother. When giving her a haircut, her grandmother cut her hair short like her father’s hair and antagonized her with comments about not being able to look like her white mother. “It wasn’t the haircut, she said, chuckling, it was my bad hair…Your father’s fault. Your father and his black family” (page 50). While her Abuela proudly displayed her darker skin tone and hair, her grandmother put her down and made her feel like she was less than. Diaz’s lack of belonging has a strong connection to the intersection of multiple forms of oppression, and in this section specifically, it was sexism and racism.

Citations

Díaz, J. (2020). Ordinary Girls: A Memoir. Algonquin Books.

Grande, R. (2019, October 29). Abused, Addicted, Biracial and Queer: Jaquira Díaz Is Anything but

               ‘Ordinary.’ The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/books/review/ordinary-girls-jaquira-diaz.html

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Stereotypes of Good Looks in Fairest

I am able to put myself in someone’s shoes, but I can’t always think the way others do completely because I can’t live the life they went through. This statement feels very accurate after reading the first four chapters of Fairest. I was able to see how Talusan grew up and how different it is being someone living in the Philippines and having albinism. The part of her story that interested me the most were the topics of how society perceives looks.

The world comes with lots of expectations and stereotypes that judgement feels natural to us. There are many people that Talusan meets that judge their own appearance. An example is from page 2, where a fellow Harvard alum named Kit Clark said, “The men keep getting younger and I’m only getting uglier.” and “My life is here. I accept that I’m undesirable.” (Talusan, 2020). Talusan takes the time to compare him to the stereotype for a black gay man that is considered hot. While Talusan is the one that is doing this, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clark did the same thing to himself. He not only views himself as ugly, but he states that he accepts it. While I always hear stories of people called ugly returning looking like a Greek God, I rarely ever hear about people like Clark. I can relate to him and his insecurities. Instead of following the stereotypes, he chooses to be himself. However, the jabs at himself concerning his looks shows that deep down, it bothers him.

Another example of judgement is when Nanay Coro, her grandmother, said “This is because you are fair and beautiful…not dark and ugly like me.” (Talusan, 2020, pp. 24). Her grandmother implied that she is beautiful because she looked white while everyone else was dark. If she were here, she would be judged for having albinism. However, in her community, her being white brought an advantage. It is also interesting to hear everyone connect the words “dark” and “ugly”. No matter what, no one ever says they are dark and beautiful. This shapes Talusan to enjoy the attention, especially since she was treated as the “chosen one” to leave for the United States. This is significant because it shows how different societies view beauty, yet we always obsess over it or give up on trying.

Citations

CNN Philippines Staff (2021). ‘Fairest’ writer talks about transitions, ‘confusing experiences’ in memoir [Photograph]. CNN Philippines. https://www.cnnphilippines.com/lifestyle/2021/7/13/Meredith-Talusan-Hanson-memoir.html

Talusan, M. (2020). Fairest: A Memoir (pp. 1-82). Penguin Books.

Fairest' writer talks about transitions, 'confusing experiences' in memoir

Exhibiting Pain and Trauma

Days, and often hours, before you beat me, you touched me so gently. You told me you loved me… You made me feel like the most beautiful black boy in the history of Mississippi until you didn’t.

Laymon, 2018, p. 5

Throughout the first 62 pages, Laymon touches on the various forms of pain and trauma he witnessed and experienced. While he touches on the love he received from his mother and grandmother, the suffering he encountered seemed to weigh more heavily on my mind. As Laymon alludes to in the quote on page 5, the pain that one feels when it’s inflicted by someone they know is supposed to love them hurts more than anything else. Laymon’s conflicting feelings towards the things happening to him at the hands of his mother and others, is something that is completely understandable. Unfortunately, this also led to him coping in really harmful ways, such as restricting himself and also binge eating (23; 47). It’s interesting how instead of lashing out at the people who harmed him, he chose to harm himself. 

Most of the time Laymon makes constant reference to how he was conscious of and hateful of his body. He chose to take things out on his body because he had this idea that it was the cause of most of his issues. If he didn’t look the way he did, maybe he would be loved, “Renata decided not to be my girlfriend anymore… I knew it was because my legs were fat and I made her breasts smell like pork chops, rice, and gravy the first time she pushed them in my mouth,” (24). Being a Black boy from Mississippi who also happened to be fat took a serious toll on Laymon’s self image and how he perceived others thoughts about him. What I find even more heartbreaking about this particular instance is that Renata was not his girlfriend, she was a sexual predator who took advantage of an insecure 12-year-old. Laymon is completely misguided about his struggles, but as a 12-year-old it’s hard to know what really is the problem. Despite being traumatized by those around him, he still tries to find a way to explain the pain he’s experiencing because he doesn’t understand how bad it is. It’s really unfortunate that this is what he had to go through as a young boy.

Not only does Laymon refer to his own pain and trauma, but he also touches on the things others experience. What really stood out to me is when he writes about knowing the different forms of oppression that go on in the world (pp. 27-28). Throughout these pages he does give examples of the pain that people cause one another because of their positions of power. I liked how he didn’t only focus on his pain but also the pain of those around him. More often than not, the things that we witness change our outlooks on things and I think that’s why Laymon was able to become so knowledgeable about why the things he was seeing were wrong. He felt within himself that these things were off, even if this is what we are taught is right. As he says on page 10, “we are studious children of this nation,” all of our harmful traits are what we are taught from a young age. I think that he understood that his mother beating him is something that she learned, and it’s why he continued to love her despite all of the pain and trauma she caused him. I hope that throughout the rest of the book we can see how Laymon’s evolution is shaped by his life experiences and how he changes when it comes to addressing his pain and trauma.

Ordinary Girls Day 1

From the first few pages of Ordinary Girls is clear that Diaz’s father is important to her. She romanticizes his college days and association with the independentistas, his love for literature and poetry, and it influenced Diaz’s love for books as well. On page 3, she says, “I was sure of one thing that I wanted everything my father wanted.” She later details a disgusting, “horrifying” man, looking for her father, who exposed himself to her when she was a child. Despite her father putting her and her family in obvious danger, in the next breath, she says “I adored my father.” She loved her father with all of his complexities, even if it meant hardship for her. 

The issue of gender construct is brought up early in the book, when Diaz laments about how her brother gets to go wherever he wants, but Diaz is forbidden from some places because of her gender. She calls it the “burden of girlhood” on page 9. Even when playing cops and robbers as a child, the boys knew they could make Diaz play the role of robber, internalizing misogyny, as girls couldn’t possibly know how to defend themselves. 

The way our parents interact with us has such a great impact on our psyche. Diaz describes her mother’s worsening schizophrenia throughout the story, and several instances that might have escalated her condition. When Diaz’s father tells her she is crazy, or imagining things after accusing him of cheating with la otra, this gaslighting could not have had a positive impact on Mami. 

Lastly, poverty weaves its way through the entire storyline of this section. Diaz’s father would not need to sell drugs, the family would not need to uproot frequently, and Diaz wouldn’t need to deal with being “empty fridge poor” with better opportunities and more support.  A big reason for the lack of support, not that it’s much better in the states, is a lack of funding for  small businesses.

Class 15

Hello & good to see all of you on campus again.

Think of today as “Day 0” of our book clubs. We’re going to do a little work in what I’m calling “stations.” Each of these gets us going on the kind of work that will be typical for Module 3 (book clubs proper) and Module 4 (reflective writing and portfolio making).

To that end, I’ll have you cycle through class today in three stations. At the start of class, I’ll describe them and ask you which station you’d like to start at. Each person will go through each station, ideally.

For descriptions of the stations and the list of who will start there, see today’s entry in the “Chalkboard” Doc.

Class 14

Today, Essay 2 is due. Thursday we launch our book groups. It’s pretty much official: we’re halfway through the semester in all kinds of ways.

Pat yourselves on the collective back for getting here. It’s been a slog, I know, but I’m so proud of all of us who have been persisting and doing good work despite everything.

Enough rah rah sis boom bah. Today’s class balances some looking backward (at Essay 2 through “hacking Zoom” and at our earlier informal work) and forward (to the book groups).

To the Chalkboard!