"My Digital Story"

For some reason I could not upload my digital story video directly, but I will add the link. I really did enjoy the digital story project but I do not wish to share my video for the E-book. Thank you so much for a great semester Professor Zamora!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bo8Iu9Mlgw

"Lone Star" Movie

While I watched the movie “Lone Star,” I noticed that this was not your typical romance/murder mystery movie; there was in fact a much stronger meaning behind this film. What I happened to take from this movie was a combination of every story we have read throughout the semester, every conversation we’ve had and even every digital story I’ve seen; all of the material we have covered can be related to this movie. What I found most fascinating about this movie was a subject I may have pondered about a couple of times but have never actually seen it being discussed or addressed. Here in this movie we have whites, blacks, Chicanos and Indians; such a diverse group of people living in one town, and yet still so much alike. 

How so? For example, this semester through the film “The Cats of Mirikitani,” for the first time I learned that at one point Japanese-Americans were considered lower than African-Americans, but what I also learned was that when you truly think about it, every culture has at one point had their fair share of racial exclusions. Every culture or race breaks down into pieces what they have went through in America and their experiences, when in reality every culture at one point or another has experienced their fair share of racial discrimination in America. Instead of understanding and relating to the past together we seem to think that our culture is the only one that have been faced with difficulties. In this film the people of Rio County, whites, blacks, Chicanos and Indians all remember the past in dissimilar ways. But eventually I understood, these people have lived together in this town, and although they each remember things differently what they did have in common was that they each had to pay a price.

"Cats of Mirikitani" Film

The film “ The Cats of Mirikitani,” showed me how we truly do not know what a person has been through in their life until we get to know them. Jimmy Mirikitani may have just seemed like a struggling artist/ homeless person to anyone just walking down the street, but to Linda Hattendorf there was more to him. Linda knew right away that there was more to Jimmy, there was a story that was worth discovering. After the 9/11 attack Linda could not bear to leave Jimmy on the streets alone, so she took him in. Not only was it an opportunity to help someone who needed it but it was also an opportunity to unravel an inspiring story. For Jimmy the 9/11 attacks was history repeating itself, humans always feeling the need to go to war. Jimmy was a Japanese-American who experienced and lived through the Japanese American war. His art consisted of the camp, the war and cats because a boy who constantly followed him in the camp loved cats so he would draw them for him.

Painting for him gave him a sense of release; he turned his hurt into art, along with his memories and experiences. Aside from what he had been through he used art as an escape and was still hopeful about life. All of Jimmy’s siblings aside from one, died in World War II. It was amazing to see that a man that had went through so much in his life and has experienced racial discrimination chose to tell his story through the beauty of art. There are those who let what they have been through in life affect there future but Jimmy never did, judging off of his personality you wouldn’t think Jimmy had gone through so much. In the beginning of the film we see the hurt behind Jimmy’s eyes, we see the obvious and well-deserved resentment he has against America. But in the end of the film you can notice almost a weight being lifted.

"Fictive Fragments of A Father & Son" by David Mura

This story is about a son who with time learns that his father has practically abandoned his Japanese roots. The father has become fully submerged in the American culture. As the story goes on there is a mention of the father being proud to be an American, however, in no moment was there a mention of the father being proud to be Japanese. The fact that Mura's father has completely abandoned his culture could be the result of the scorn his culture may have received in the past. At one point the Japanese-American were considered less than African-Americans. Mura's father was obviously ashamed of his ethnic background and made the decision to slowly abandon his roots completely. 

Although some people may find it unfair to Mura for Mura's father to have abandoned his Japanese roots; I can honestly understand his father's reasons. It has always been hard and is still till this day hard for immigrants to have the same opportunities as Americans. Or to say in the most bluntest manner; it is hard for immigrants to have the same opportunities as "whites." Mura's father had to work ten times harder to get to where he is just because of his cultural background, he had to adopt the American ways and in a sense be more American than the Americans. Therefore the father, throughout his life converted himself by changing his name, changing his beliefs and converting to Christianity. Mura's father’s decision to become a Christian gave him a sense of fitting in with the American way of life. What he was escaping from was the burdens that had shaped his parents or his fathers life. 

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” ― Oscar Wilde 

"Smoke Signals" - Movie

Smoke Signals is not your typical Native American movie but there are some themes such as the way life works that are Native American themed, it’s about the sense of how in life everything you do has consequences. “Some children are pillars of ash, me and Victor were born of flame… and ash.” In the movie “Smoke Signals,” one other major theme is definitely Fire. The first fire that occurs in the beginning of the movie results in the death of Thomas’s parents and would have led to Thomas's death. Also if he hadn't been saved by Victor’s father Arnold Joseph. The first fire in the beginning of the movie is the center of the story; it is where everything begins. No one truly understands the mourning that Arnold Joseph went through and why he was so strongly affected by the fire. 

He mourned by cutting his hair, jumping into his yellow pick-up truck and vanishing to Phoenix; the truth comes out towards the end when Victor speaks to Suzy. Victors father Arnold Joseph was the one who started the fire that killed Thomas’s parents and this quilt remained with him till the very end of his own death, who in result became ashes himself. The second fire that occurs towards the end of the movie brings about the sense of closing a chapter in life and embracing a new beginning. It was important for Thomas and Victor to return to the roots of their distress, by doing this it allowed them to accept what happened and move forward. They were able return home from Phoenix with a sense of relief and closure, "Sometimes to go forward you have to drive in reverse." 

"Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes's poem "Let America Be America Again" is being written from not only a black man's perspective, but also from that of an immigrant, a poor man and an Indian. Hughes is hopeful of what America could one day be "Land of the Free," although it has never truly been. Hughes causes readers to question the patriotic images that are wonderfully painted for us and for those who come to America with the hopes of achieving the “American dream.” In the third stanza of the poem Hughes writes "But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe" this line in particular makes the reader question the true meaning of “opportunity” for all because as Hughes states, "There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this homeland of the free." Although America has never truly been America "the land of the free," we should never stop fighting for that dream, we must never forget what the original dream was and why we started fighting for our freedom in the first place. 


It is up to those who have been deprived to get back their America. It is up to those... to us who have seen the people that have come before us fight so hard up until this point. It is up to us to continue the long journey and to always fight. America has not been "good" to everyone equally there are people who have come to America with hopes and dreams and who have believed this land to be a promising one yet have been let down. For some America has never lived up to its reputation. Hughes ends the poem with the hopes that America can someday fulfill its destiny. He believes that America can still be all the things it was supposed to already have been. Everyday people forget what we originally started fighting for in the first place. Instead, we continue to fight each other when we should be lifting one another. Hopefully as time goes on we continue to fight for the original American dream... EQUALITY FOR ALL!