More on Being "Useful"

After some of our discussion in class today, I can't seem to get a certain story out of my head. I'm not sure exactly where I heard this (possibly it was referred to in another work?), or what book it refers to, but I remember hearing a summary of a dystopian novel which relates to the idea of "usefulness." The summary, as I remember it, dealt with a society which had recently undergone some sort of natural disaster, and so had limited natural resources and food supplies. Not all of the survivors of the natural disaster would be able to subsist on the resources left, so the quandry presented is the decision over what types of people would be more of use to the new society. Lawyers or professional football players? Doctors or electricians? This moral dilemma certainly lends itself to being applied to Piercy's poem. What exactly is work? Who exactly is of use? Any other thoughts on this?

-Tara Burns

Politics and Confidence

I was thinking about the Refugee Ship poem and how parents choose the culture a child grows up in. How much right does a parent have over their child? Parents have the right to choose the language their child grows up with, but the child may have wanted to grow up with a different language. They have the right to name him/her, but he/she may not like his/her name. These are things the child may resent, but have the possibility to change. But what about parents genetically modifying the embryo? Abortion? This is entering politics but I was wondering what opinions were out there on the rights parents have over other people's lives. People in opposition to gay rights and aren't gay themselves. Audrey and I were discussing this after class today. Politicians can say they believe in gay marriage and they can say they don't - that's a lot of influence on a given individual's life. But that's how representative government works, I suppose.

And I forgot to mention today in our discussion of Barbie Doll that I think an individual would change the way he/she looks all because of self-confidence. Everything boils down to self-confidence. A person will succumb to the image of the media if he/she isn't confident in herself. A person will give into the peer pressure of becoming anorexic if his/her friends are doing it and he/she isn't confident enough to say no. A person will get a nose job because he/she isn't confident in his/her natural uniqueness. Feel free to disagree with me, but I think that happiness comes from confidence. If that confidence comes from being plastic or being natural, so be it.

-- tori

I am half Italian, so when I went to Italy over the summer I thought I would feel a very strong connection to the country because it's "in my blood." I did love the landscape and enjoyed every city I went to, but I found the only connections I had to the places were realizing that my cousin had spent an entire semester abroad during college at an apartment building we walked by, and discovering that my sister had taken a tour of the same glass-blowing factory that I did when she went to Italy years ago with her school. If I had not known I was Italian, I would not have thought that I should feel any special connection with the country, and maybe then I wouldn't have been so disappointed. I feel as though my heritage has more to do with the traditions and time I spend with my family than with the actual country my great-grandparents were from. If I had been adopted into a family with an entirely different culture, I don't think I would feel out of place. I think I would feel more connected to the culture I was submersed in than the one that is technically in my blood.
Furthermore, although I am equally as Polish as I am Italian, I feel much more connected to the latter part of my roots. I think this is because I spend much more time with the Italian side of my family than the Polish side, and the Italian side is much bigger. This just reinforces the thought that if I was to spend a great deal of time with a culture that I was in no way blood connected to, I would end up feeling as close to it as I do to my real roots. Is there anyone else who feels this way?

-Alexa

Double Standards

Our discussion in class Friday had me thinking about the double standards that still live on in society today. The commonly known double standard of a man who flirts with many women being a "lady's man" while a woman who reciprocates the same behavior being "sexually promiscuous," is quite debasing for women and very excusable for men. On the flip side, the double standard of a man who is unemployed or a stay-at-home dad being a "bum" as opposed to an unemployed or stay-at-home mom being "suitable" certainly doesn't do justice to a man.

Though such double standards are unfair to one or both sexes, they are still rather common today. I always thought double standards derived from past events that led people to view men and women as such. The past behaviors of men and women under certain circumstances must have produced the double standards. My question, however, is why double standards still exist even today? Perhaps certain double standards are true in very specific cases nowadays, allowing said double standard to linger on?

-Chloe Martianou

A few years ago, a relative of mine and her husband adopted a baby from Guatemala. They named him Giovanni, a very Italian name. I found this a little odd since he's not Italian. The parents are Italian, but not directly from Italy. They are either the children, or grand-children of Italian immigrants (I'm not sure which). This certainly gives the baby a wide variety of ethniticities, being Guatemala but raised American with an Italian name. I wonder what he thinks of this combination and what he associates himself with. How connected can he feel to his adopted parents Italian roots since they are not his, despite the name? Does he ever feel like it doesn't fit him, since he is not Italian? Or does he simply accept the entire culture of his adopted parents as his own? In which case, does he forsake the Guatemalan? I haven't seen him since, so I don't know, but our discussion made me think of him.

~Becca

sexist jokes

Coincidentally, in my class right after English yesterday, some of my guy friends were making sexist jokes. It started with a joke about women in the kitchen, and then turned into them jokingly telling me to make them sandwiches and asking me why I wasn't in the kitchen. They were obviously just kidding and we were all having fun, but I think it shows that gender stereotypes are still pretty pronounced today. These guys aren't truly sexist, but they still have been exposed and somewhat influenced by common stereotypes against women. Historically, women have been confined to a certain role, and while we are progressing away from that, I don't think we will ever shed that idea completely. People will always feel more comfortable with the idea of the man working and the woman taking care of the kids and the house, despite how accepting we may become of alternate roles. What do you guys think?

~elizabeth

Refugee Ship

Joanne Park

Personally, I don't have trouble identifying myself as either 100% Korean of Korean-American in the US because I don't feel the need to draw the distinct line between those two cultures and it is easier for me to think that I have both of the cultures, not one or the other.

It is easier fot me to decide which culture or the background of my identity is more dominating in the US than in Korea. In America, where people are more opened to diversity, it is easy for me to say that I have both Korean and American identity. However, it is more difficult for me to define my identity in Korea, where it isn't so diverse, because I'm not the "typical" Korean; I'm the Americanized Korean. So referring back to Refugee Ship, it is possible for me to describe myself as the ship that never docks since I'm stuck in the middle too. But unlike the author, I have a sense of belonging.

I certainly agree that the way one grows affects his understanding of himself. Even though the author was grown up in America, she could have had Hispanic cultures within herself if she were exposed to her parents' culture while she was growing up. I see myself as both Korean and American because I grew up being taught that it is important to accept both of the cultures that were exposed to me, not one or the other.