Peer review feedback

       Thanks to the feedback from my peer review.  It was useful and effective source for improving my writing skills.

What have I learned from the literature?

       I found the literature we studied this semester generally and personally very interesting.  Personally, I was able to connect my own personal experience to the literature we studied and to picture myself in those stories.  Generally, those events occurred and written in the literature were evidences of injustice such as abuses and violations of human, labor and civil rights.  The existence of injustice affected our moral tremendously and the society as well.  The best way to explain what I have learned from the literature we studied this semester is that in order to record great achievements for better society, we have to control our greed.

Second Final Paper Rough Draft

An Unforgettable Struggle

                Everything will fade and some will even be forgotten as time passes.  However, there are certain things or occurrences which are not only easily be forgotten, but they seem to engrave in our minds for as long as we live.  As I recall when I was just about thirteen, my parents sent my brother and I to my grandmother’s house in the countryside of South Vietnam for summer.  My grandmother’s house situated near the corner of the paddy rice field, where the entire piece of land was divided into parcels.  Some of which are dry, some of which are filled with water, and some of which are barren.  On some of hot summer days, I often sat at the wooden window from my grandmother’s house, looking out the rice field, which somehow had an infinite attraction to me.  The green of the rice field seemed to be more brilliant and vibrant than any other green in the landscape.  At the same time, the rice field seemed to inspire the workers to enormous labor.  Continuously bowing towards the earth, often directly under the merciless rays of the sun.  Those worked in the rice field were poor and suffered hardship.  Due to the reason of being poor, these field workers were desperately seeking for job opportunities to sustain and provide a better life for their families.  Naturally, landowners are more than happy to take advantage of the availability of these vulnerable, and desperate workers.  I have seen and heard that these field laborers endured unfair treatment and wages because they feared being fired or will not get paid from the landowners.  In Dubious Battle, by John Steinbeck, which addressed the injustice in the California apple fields for the laborers.  These laborers were not treated decently with fairness and fair wages.  Therefore, they organized a strike against the rapacious landowners for guaranteed fair wages.  Although the strike did not end triumphantly, the initiation was memorable and unforgettable.

                The development of the strike in In Dubious Battle took place in Torgas Valley, California apple country.  Torgas is a small apple orchards valley which owned by three men, Hunter, Gillray, and Martin.  They also owned Torgas Finance Company (89).  These landowners who were powered by the law, hired the pickers to pick the ripe apples for packing plant.  Often these landowners took advantage of the vulnerable and desperate pickers’ situation, they cut the labor wage.  In addition, there were low quality working conditions and no labor standards for these laborers.  The pickers were not supply adequate equipments for the job.  For example, a seventy-one years old man, Dan, was hired for doing the same job as the younger men in the field.  As described in chapter 6, just when Dan was pridefully bragging about how strong he was to another picker, he fell off the broken ladder (77), which was used for the job.  Dan was hurt and a group of co-workers had to make a stretcher out of a pair of coats with the sticks inserted through the arms to carry injured Dan off the ground (78).  Dan was not taken to the hospital because he was not insured and got no money for the treatment.  As a result of this cause, the strike movement was formed and a designated man named Mac McLeod to lead.

                Mac was an ambitious and described as a skillfully muscular man, assigned to lead the strike.  During a conversation Mac once said, “A strike that’s settled too quickly won’t teach the men how to organize, how to work together.  A tough strike is good (26)”.  Moreover, he was a self-controlled man, capable of being a mentor towards others.  As described in chapter 2, Mac had more experience about field work than anybody in the state (14).  One of his assigned duties was to train the newcomers.  Other than himself, Mac was also working with a group of men, who were Harry Nilson, Dick, and Jim Nolan.  Harry Nilson was a man who originally initiated Jim Nolan’s application to join the Party.  Also in the same Party, Dick was described as a well looking man, whose duties were a messenger and supplying Party’s members food and goods.  Harry and Dick relatively have been members with the Party for some time.  On the other hand, Jim Nolan was just a new comer, still in training under Mac’s supervision.  Jim desired to join the Party because his entire family has been ruined by the system (6).  Consequently, he was depressed and had nothing to live for.  His father had a reputation for being the toughest mug in the country, was killed by a riot gun where he used to work (6).  Jim lost his mother while he was in jail for vagrancy (7).  Jim also had a sister, who suddenly disappeared and dropped out of sight (13).

                As duty called and as having shared similar pitiful plight, Jim and Mac merged with a group of pickers at the apple orchards to start the strike movement.  Initially, Mac and Jim arrived at the pickers’ camp site in the countryside where Mac provoked the pickers by saying, “S’pose we didn’t let nobody else pick (41)”?  Subsequently, Mac and Jim were introduced to London, a man who they called a good guy (42), acting as their leader.  Ironically, Mac and Jim have won London’s heart also developed trust by helping his daughter-in-law deliver a baby when she was having labor difficulties.  Mac conceived a plan to carry out his duty by using London as a connection to other neighboring pickers.  His tactics had successfully moved the pickers out of their smugness.  Together, they expanded their force by gaining other groups of pickers.  In order to have the strike movement organized, they elected Dakin (different ranches leader) for general chairman of the strike committee and boss-in-chief (99).  Dakin was known for being calm with good reputation that other pickers admired and followed.  As the strike movement progressed with multiple attempts, the strikers finally realized that they needed more than just bare hands to fight.  Brilliantly, instead of helping strikers resolving their indignant protest, police force used barricades to block the roads, tear gas, and guns to prevent further strikes (242).  Consequently, the strikers had to retreat and were lurking into the dense apple orchards, waiting for better opportunity.  As a matter of fact, some of the strikers either had fear or grew tired of the situation, they decamped.

                Without doubts, the struggles between laborers and employers in the novel can only prove destructive and demoralizing to both parties and also to society as a whole.  Neither Communists nor anti-Communists enjoyed the novel because the Author, John Steinbeck, did not in favor of the authority or denounce the striking workers as un-American.  For better result in improving working conditions and wages, the authority should not be raiding, but enforcing workplace laws.  In addition, the labor system needs to be reformed to ensure that all workers are guaranteed fair wages and equal labor rights.

               

               

Steinbeck, John.  In Dubious Battle.  New York:  The Penguin Group, 2006.  Print.

A Difficult Paper

       I came from a third world country and did experience a little about Marxism and Communism, but never thought it could exist in a democratic and civilized country like America.  In Dubious Battle is a novel about a strike written by John Steinbeck to show how struggles between laborers and employers occurred in California apple country.  The story is provoked and justified.  The writing style and the text written I found somewhat difficult to understand reading it the first time.  I had to re-read almost the entire novel again in order to have better understanding.  However, I still struggle having difficulty writing my formal paper about Marxism and Communism which I have little knowledge of.  In order to work through my writing difficulties and to complete my formal paper, I will have to do research to obtain more knowledge about this subject.

U.S. Farm Worker's Rights and/or the U.S. Labor Movement-

     For many years, there was no justice in the fields for the farmworkers in California.  They were not treated decently with fairness in the communities of California's agriculture.  They had to endure devastating conditions, never coming close to the quality of life that mainstream, industrialized or white-colar Americans had come to expect.  For example, on many ranches, there were no portable toilets and drinkable water provided on-site during work hours for the farmworkers.  Work related injuries are also extraordinary high among farm laborers.  Workers still earn substandard wages, often below the minimum wage.  Also, farmworkers' children find school difficult for many reasons: some stay home and babysit so parents can work.  Some lack transportation to school, and often parents' limited education hinders their ability to assist with homework.  In addition, a very small percentage of the nation's farmworkers are covered by labor contracts.  Then in 1962, there was a "Mexican Martin Luther King", named Cesar Chavez, initiated a movement to empower farmworkers with a labor union.  He was a powerful persuasive speaker, who led the struggled migrant farmworkers to find justice and dignity.  Together with the farmworkers, they became allies with other unions affiliated with the growing civil rights movement, and pressured the politicians to end the unfairness.  Enclosed image, showed the joyful flourishing farmworkers movement.  I chose this image because it represented victory.  Throughout the country, there has been an outpouring of honors for the man who inspired it.  Cesar Chavez's life and work transformed American Society.

UFW Website Reader's Response-

     My class assignment was to read on UFW website.  Basically, the website was created by an organization of farmworkers to share their experience and knowledge working in the fields of agriculture in California.  The United Farm Workers of America Union was founded by Cesar Chavez, in 1962.  Cesar Chavez's life and work transformed American society, and his name is synonymous with the struggle of American migrant farmworkers for dignity and justice.  Today, the UFW continues to carry on Cesar Chavez's work and vision in major agricultural industries throughout the nation.  I was enlightened from reading the articles on this website, which I never encountered before.  I also admired the remarkable work that Mr. Chavez and the Union had done for the farmworkers not only in California, but across the nation as well.  Thanks to him that now the farmworkers have a new way of looking at life.

    

Rough Draft

                                                                                                                                                                                               

Trang Dinh

Professor Knapp

English 1B

21 October 2011

Rough Draft

                The word “war or invasion” is perhaps very familiar to Marjane Satrapi as much as to myself.  As her father once said to her, “2500 years of Tyranny and Submission” (11).  Long before the cold war occurred in my country, the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, Vietnam was first invaded by China for two thousand years.  For centuries the Chinese and the Vietnamese fought over who would control the land.  During the brief periods of freedom from the Chinese, the Vietnamese often fought among themselves to see who would rule that part of Indochina.  When the Vietnamese were finally free of Chinese rule and had some peace among themselves, the French arrived to rule the nation as a colony for most of a century.  During World War II, the Japanese took over from the French for four years.  At France’s return at the end of the war, a part of the Vietnamese people renewed the struggle to free themselves from foreign rulers.  The French-Vietnamese War ended in 1954 with a divided nation, North and South.  Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, also the main character, contributed the chronicle of her childhood going through the period of war in her beloved homeland, Iran.  She witnessed the chaotic events and the effects as the consequences of war.  The existence of family close knit and supports motivated her to overcome cruelty and hardship during this period of time.

     As Persepolis progressed, I realized that I had similar life events as the main character.  Although, we may have similar life events, but she was more fortunate to have a special family bonding that I seemed to lack.  Apparently, Satrapi was very fortunate to come from a close knit loving family.  She had a knowledgeable and caring father, who would spend his time not only to play with her, but also to disentangle several of her curiosities (19, 25, 84).  Also in accredit, Satrapi’s mother was a middle class, modernized woman, adored and supported her both physically and mentally (127, 138, 203).  On the contrary, I was not as fortunate as Satrapi on this aspect.  My mother was born to a poor family.  She was the oldest of seven siblings.  Her father passed away when she was only fifteen, so she had to take care of the younger brothers and sisters, while her mother was out, trying to make a living.  Despite all the hard work, her mother-my grandmother-was barely able to make ends meet.  For a long time, traditionally in my country, it was widely accepted that when a girl would get married, she would live with her husband’s family, taking care of them to fulfill the fiduciary duties on his behalf.  A side benefit to this practice-not publicly acknowledged-is that a new daughter-in-law would invariably be providing free labor to her in-laws.  In contrast, Satrapi’s family had a maid, Mehri, working for them, and cared for her when she was younger (34).  In addition to her being fortunate for having a close knit loving family, Satrapi also had a grandma who cared and loved her dearly.  For an example, prior to her departure to Austria, her grandma spent a night with her, and gave her advice on life (150).  Satrapi’s grandma also gave her advice and cheered her up on another occasion when she had problems with her own relationship (333).  Unlike the relationship that Satrapi had with her grandma, my grandma (my father’s mother), a very astute woman, was very distance to me.  She was keenly aware of the situation that my mother’s family was in.  So when my mother was old enough, my grandma summoned my other grandmother to her place, offering for her son to marry my mother, in exchange for a decent sum of money.  Even though my grandmother sort of knew what the future might hold for her daughter, deep inside she also knew that she would have no choices but accepting the marriage proposal.  She would have one less mouth to feed, and with the money received, she would be able to take care of the remaining children somewhat better.

     
     “In spite of all the dangers, the parties went on” at Satrapi’s house (106).  Satrapi and family were fortunate to have a blessing life that even during war, they were still able to party with friends.  In addition, Satrapi’s parents often made traveling arrangements to keeping up with family close knit (126-127), whereas the second phase of my mother’s hardship life began.  Not only did she have to fulfill her duties as a wife and daughter-in-law, she was also serving as a maid to my father’s family.  On top of that, she had to help with the family’s business, working there until late every night.  She was not allow to take time off for pleasure.  This went on for years until my grandmother died.  The family subsequently sold the business.  When my father passed away not long after, the family also decided to estrange my mother together with her kids.  As much as she was hurt, both physically and emotionally, my mother knew she had to stay strong to take care of herself and her young children.

     
     As described in the chapter, “The Trip”, life was hard anywhere during the period of war in Satrapi’s homeland.  Just as hard as life was anywhere in my country during this time period.  We were living in a closed, oppressive society.  There was no free enterprise, with everyone working for a meager wage, if they were lucky enough.  As she battled from one day to the next to survive, my mother was also brave enough to think of ways to flee the country, seeking a better life for her kids.  In the chapter, “The Dowry”, with love and much concern for Satrapi’s safety and better future, her parents also sent her away to Austria (147-148).  As for my family, after multiple failed attempts, we managed to arrive in the United States, empty-handed and not even speaking a single word of English.  My mother eventually found a day-time job and forced herself to learn ESL in the evening.  She did not make much money, but she was just happy to know that her kids would have a better future.  She lived a simple life, not getting anything much for herself.  Instead, she spent whatever she could save on her children to give them a life that she never had.  Similar as it was for Satrapi as described in “The Sheep” chapter, that she lost her beloved Uncle Anoosh, I also lost my mom.  Just when my mother thought her life had turned around for the better, misfortune struck her again.  She was diagnosed with liver cancer and kidney failure.  Since her conditions were not detected early enough, her doctors gave a bleak prognosis of having less than one year to live.  She never lasted that long, passing away just a few months afterwards.

     Satrapi and I experienced similar chaotic moments and effects as result of war in our countries. 

Satrapi was more fortunate that she had a close knit loving family.  She and her loved ones had a special bonding relationship that they adored and supported each other especially during the unstable period of war.  Dissimilar with the Satrapis, my family and I suffered the difficulties, striving to survive life during this period of time.  Thus, having had good family bonding and supports always overcome any hardship regardless what the situation may bring.

My Idea Post

     After several thoughts with reluctance, I have finally decided to elaborate more on my blog topic, “My Mother Never”.  My reason to have chosen this topic for my “First Formal Paper” is to contribute more details regarding the misery and suffering that my mother had in her past life.  I would elaborate more on why my mother had to accept the marriage that she had no desire and affection for.   She could have chosen a different path for her solution instead.  I would like to express my thoughts on why my mother did not have a good life.  I would also elaborate more on the reason why I did not address my dad’s mother as grandma.  To support and organize an argument, I would use info on true occurrences and facts based on cultural standards.