Week 9: UFW

Because I took Professor Knapp’s English 1A class last semester, I am very familiar with the United Farm Workers and the movements that they inspired. Our final term paper in English 1A was a research paper where we had to research a topic related with farm workers and/or the fight for equality in general. I chose to research and write about Dolores Huerta, the influential activist who worked alongside the likes Cesar Chavez and Robert F. Kennedy in the fight for equality not only for farm workers, but for anyone who has been subjected to the horrors of inequality. Generally speaking, I learned about the Bracero Program, the strikes, and the resulting rights that came with being able to collectively bargain with the employers. The bracero program was an agreement between the United States and Mexico that was negotiated by President Franklin Roosevelt (U.S.) and President Manuel Camacho (Mexico) during World War II. It basically imported temporary Mexican laborers to harvest crops because there was a shortage of people to do these tasks. The Bracero Program was supposed to end after the war, but it was made into Public Law 78 in 1951. Led by the efforts of Cesar Chavez, the farm workers were able to end the Bracero Program in 1964 through Congressional legislation. The fight was long from being over however. They had to fight for better treatment of farm workers. They had to fight for better wages. The official website of the UFW provided a statistic that said in the mid 1960s, the average wage of a farm worker was $0.90 per hour, plus $0.10 for every filled basket. Not only that, they had to pay around $2.00 a day to stay in a filthy, mosquito infested shack that had plumbing or cooking capabilities. These were truly inhumane conditions that sorely needed to change. The Delano Grape Strike helped in getting legislation passed for farm workers rights. It started when grape pickers demanded a pay increase to $1.25 an hour, resulting in the growers denying their request and bringing in scab workers. Previously, growers were able to quell strikes by eventually agreeing to slight wage increase. They finally relented and raised wages. However, to the shocked horror of the growers, the strikers became even more inspired! The strikers demanded the right to unionize. Cesar Chavez asked the public to refrain from buying grapes that did not have a union label. Because this was happening during the height of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the strikers benefited from a heightened awareness from the public of the negative effects of racism and discrimination. As a result, Cesar Chavez’s plea to not purchase grapes without a union label was extremely successful as millions of people stopped buying certain grapes.

This picture is of a group of protesting a bill in Wisconsin that eliminated collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees. 60 years after Cesar Chavez struggled to get the right to collectively bargain fair working conditions for one group of workers, a conservative state government is trying to eliminate that progress. I chose this because it best represents the continuing struggle in the volatile 21st century.

Week 7: Feedback

Erika Hernandez, Ilse Munoz, and David Bethune were extremely kind enough to peer review my rough draft of the Persepolis formal paper. They provided me with many wise, constructive suggestions that would really benefit my final draft. They recognized that I was lacking a strong thesis statement, so I knew to really focus on that when writing my final draft. They also noticed that I did not include any type of personal experience in my paper. They suggested that if I incorporated my own personal experience, it would make my paper more strong and more rich. They also suggested that it would really strengthen my thesis statement and would really draw the reader in. Ilse especially suggested that I reread my Historical Narrative formal paper from English 1A because she said that she really enjoyed it and that if I was able to write like that, I would be in great position. The one thing they all really like about my rough draft was that I was able to incorporated strong quotes that really gave my paper a sense of direction. They suggested I enhance that sense of direction and improve the overall flow because they felt my paper has great potential.

Persepolis Paper Rough Draft

Jaspal Dosanjh
Professor Knapp
Rough Draft #1
Due Date: 21 October 2011

Marjane is a young girl who lives in Iran. She has a very unique perspective that develops as the graphic novel progresses. She lived in Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution during the reign Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, simply known as the Shah. She lived in Iran during the Islamic Revolution when the Shah was sent into exile. And she lived in Iran in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. The progression of her perspective as she gets older can be broken down into those three events.
Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Iran was a lot more secular. Schools were also secular. Female students were not required to wear the hijab. Male and female students were allowed to study together. And the schools were not religious. The school that Marjane went to was a French school. During this time of pre-religious upheaval, Marjane saw herself as very religious; “[she] was born with it” (6). She was so religious at this time that she saw herself as the last prophet. She originally wanted to become a prophet her family’s maid, and good friend Mehri, ate separately from the rest of the family, her father owned a Cadillac when many other people could not afford one, and because her grandmother was always in constant pain. Marjane also has her own holy book (which only her grandmother knows about). She also had many conversations with God in the middle of the night. I found this to be extremely interesting because of her relatively young age; she is only six years old. “[She] wanted to be Justice, Love, and the Wrath of God all in one” (9). It is very astonishing that she had that type of devotion to any cause, let alone religion, at that young age. It is also astonishing that she has such a deep understanding of God and her place in the religion in general.
During the Islamic Revolution, Marjane starts to progress away from her religious side and more to her revolutionary side. She states “the year of the Revolution I had to take action. So I put my prophetic destiny aside for a while” (10). She felt the need to act, yet she was still very young. Again, I find it extremely astonishing that she has such a sense of responsibility and also such a vast comprehension of the enormity of the moment in which she is living. It is around this time that her conversations with God were fewer and fewer. She starts reading more about different revolutionaries throughout history such as Karl Marx and Descartes, Fidel Castro and the children of Palestine, the Vietnamese killed by the Americans and the different revolutionaries of her own country. Her last conversation with God, He asks her why she does not want to be a prophet anymore to which she says that she does not want to talk about that. She then overhears her parents talking about an incident where the police locked some patrons inside of a movie theater and burned it to the ground. Her parents discuss their desire to go to the demonstration the following day. After begging her parents to let her go to the demonstration, she finally begrudgingly accepts her parent’s decision not to let her demonstrate. But when she asks for God that night, he does not come.
Finally, after the Islamic Revolution is successful, she fully progresses into her revolutionary ways leaving her religious self behind. She becomes more and more rebellious. She rebels against her school. She rebels against her parents. She rebels against the suppressive nature of the new theocracy. She does not like to wear the veil. She argues with her teachers. She wears jeans. She does not accept the fact that Mehri is not seen as her equal. She does not accept the fact that there is a social class system. She does not understand why Mehri and her love cannot be together. She does not accept the fact that her father observes and lives by the class system. She does not accept the fact that she is restricted in what she can or cannot listen to or wear in public.

Week Five Journal: Pre-Writing

The blog that I expanded into my first formal paper was the character analysis of Marjane. I really wanted to expand this post into a full paper because, being the main character and all, she has many deep facets to her. I also wanted to quickly point out that I really feel like she is very idealized as well. There is not much wrong that she really does, which is a bit peculiar to me. The thing I really focused on about Marjane was her evolution into a sort of rebel. She evolves from what she thought was a prophet into a revolutionary then she finally finds her niche as rebel in her own way. I felt like I could really see and feel her progression. She was really into God in her early years. At one point, she talked to God almost every night without fail. She comes up with her own tenets (which only her grandmother knows about). After she hears of the theater that is set on fire by national forces and the subsequent protest that was scheduled in response to it, she feels a great urge to go with her parents to protest such horrible injustices. Towards the end of the novel, she rebels in her own ways. She starts smoking (she’s rebelling against her parents, but she is really rebelling against her childhood), she ditches school, she talks back to her teachers, she listens to banned music, and she wears “inappropriate”clothing. It gets to the point where her parents are so worried about her safety that they send her to live in Vienna, Austria. She is only fourteen at the time. Because of this graphic novel, I was able to think and reflect on my own progression and evolution as a an individual. To kind of reflect on who I was to who I have become to who I will be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and beyond in relation to who I hope I can become. It is sometimes mind boggling taking the time out and looking back. Because we change every single day, we a lot of times fail to see that change on a “macro” level (us as a whole) and sometimes focus too much on the “micro” level (very specific characteristics). It is important to consistently reflect on your life so you can recognize patterns in your evolution and so you can see how your beliefs have developed over time. The reason this is so critical in life is because when you are able to recognize those patterns, you can change and/or break the patterns that you don’t like. You have the awareness to better adapt into who you wish to be. The importance of seeing how your beliefs have developed cannot be understated. Your beliefs today are in direct correlation to the beliefs you developed from the moment you were born.

Marjane's Uncle

Marjane's uncle is extremely significant to the graphic novel. His name is Uncle Anoosh. Before she learned of her Uncle Anoosh, she was disappointed because she was competing against one of her peers, Laly (I wouldn't call Laly a friend because Marjane told Laly that her father was probably dead since Laly's mother told Laly her father was on a trip) whose father was a hero. Laly's father was thrown into prison and tortured during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's (the son of the deposed Reza Shah and simply known as the Shah) reign. Marjane was bitter because her father was not a hero. Shortly after Laly's father comes to visit Marjane's family, she learns of her Uncle Anoosh. Uncle Anoosh was in prison and for the first time in thirty years, Marjane's grandmother was reunited with all six of her children. "I had a hero in my family... Naturally I loved him immediately" she says. Her uncle decided to stay the night and tell Marjane about his stories. When he was eighteen years old, his uncle (Marjane's grandfather's brother) liberated the Iranian province of Azerbaijan and his uncle named him his Secretary. However, his father (Marjane's grandfather) remained loyal to the Shah and declared his son and brother a traitor. After his uncle was caught, Anoosh ran away and came back to his mother and father after a long and tiresome journey that lasted days in the snow on foot. Because the Shah's soldiers were still looking for him, he decided to go into exile in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (or the U.S.S.R.). He swam into exile (which is ridiculous). In the (now former) Soviet Union, he got his doctorate in Marxism-Leninism (or Dialectical Materialism). he eventually got married and had two children. He divorced his wife because she didn't have a heart. After he separated from his wife, he decided to go back to Iran under disguise and a false passport. However, he was soon discovered and thrown into prison for nine years!

Character Description

The character I want to focus on for this post is the main protagonist, Marjane. I chose her because I found it really easy to connect with her. On page 6, she says she "was born with religion." I took this as she was born into a religious family. I was also born into a religious family. I was also born into a religious family. She also has an identity crisis of sorts right after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 when it becomes mandatory for all women and girls to wear the veil. She says she "really didn't know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious but as a family we were very avant-garde." At first she saw herself as the Last Prophet. She had a code by which she lived by. During and after the Revolution, she found herself becoming a revolutionary. She saw herself as Ernesto Guevara. Her family gives her a lot of books, which she reads. She learns about the "children of Palestine. About Fidel Castro. About the young Vietnamese killed by the Americans. About the Revolutionaries of (her) country" (page 12). Her favorite book, however, was "Dialectic Materialism." She loved being able to visualize Karl Marx (he looked a lot like God) and the great Descartes. She wants to go demonstrate for the Revolution. She says (which I wholeheartedly agree with) "For a Revolution to succeed, the entire population must succeed." It is the reason the American Revolution succeeded. It is the reason the Nazis came to power. it is the reason the Cuban Revolution succeeded. It is the will of the people. What the Revolutionaries do with that will is what determines whether it is right or wrong. After this, she learns of the ordeals her grandfather suffers. First he was a Prince (his father was the Emperor who was overthrown by Reza Shah). Marjane's Grandfather then became Prime Minister for Reza. After that, he became a Communist after studying and talking to intellectuals in Europe. Because he became a Communist, he was often thrown into prison. On some occasions, they put him in a cell filled with water. She did an experiment by taking a bath for a really long time to try and experiment what her grandfather experienced. The event that really influenced her was the family's maid (Mehri) and how she was treated. Mehri had fallen in love with the neighbors son. However, because she was illiterate (since she was the maid/servant), Marjane wrote all her love letters for her. Marjane's father eventually found out and went to tell the boy that he was corresponding with the maid, not a daughter of his. The boy, of course, said that he didn't want to be with her anymore. When Marjane asked why they couldn't be together, her father said that people must stay within their own social classes. Because of this, she and Mehri decided to sneak out and go protest.

My mum never...

My mum never went to school in the United States of America before this semester. This semester she is taking a social psychology class with Dr. Potterton. She goes every Wednesday evening from 1800- 2100. On Wednesday's, my classes end at 1340 so I am able to go with her and sit-in in her class. Dr. Potterton is gracious enough to let me do that. I think part of that has to do with the fact that I have taken three of his psychology classes before and did extremely well in them. He was also nice enough to loan me an extremely good book titled Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer (a book I HIGHLY recommend, by the way). Anyways, it is really exciting for my mother to be back in school (and to be in school in the States for the first time ever). She really wants to do well so she is asking for my help and advice, which is a HUGE flip-flop in our lives. I'm usually the one asking for the help and advice (when I'm not stubborn enough to ask Mum for help). It's like teaching a young child about how to study. I find myself using techniques and advice I have acquired along the way in my education. Important skills that I took for granted like how to study and how to take notes. Luckily she's a fast learner. I have to teach her that there is a system and a method. What I am essentially saying is that she is seeing everything on a micro level. I am trying to show her how to look at it from a macro level. The best way I can explain is in football terms (surprise, surprise). In football, coaches give the playbook to their players. The players have to learn the whole playbook, especially the quarterbacks. But how do you learn a 500 page playbook in a matter of weeks? How do you learn a new, different playbook every time you get a new coach? That's 500 pages of new plays and new terminology. Well it's actually simple. Instead of learning every single play, you learn the system and concept. Every single play is different and called differently. But each play fits into the system. For example, "Right Wing 46 Sweep" means "Right Wing" formation, the runningback in the 4 position is going to get the ball and go through the 6 hole and he's going to Sweep (which tells the quarterback to toss the ball, not hand the ball, to the runningback, and also tells what the offensive line to do as well). Now with that base play and system in general, I can make a play up off the top of my head and my players should know exactly how to execute the play. For example, when I say "Right Wing 32 Trap" my players should know that the runningback in the 3 spot is going to go up the 2 hole on a Trap play. Same concept in school. Don't learn every single individual thing. Learn the system and the rules and learn how to exploit it. Learn what to look for. Key words and key phrases show you what to look for. One thing I really enjoy about my mum being in school (and what she also enjoys) is that we get to spend some quality time together. We don't get to see much of each other. We spend Monday nights studying together and watching Monday Night Football together and we get to go out together just her and I, and not the rest of our family. That's special to me.