Zac Guglielmo
Blog post 3
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Rodriguez
Quote/Discussion

Quotes 1- "My mother! My father'! After English became my primary language, I no
longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents."

This is so sad, I don't know how I would feel if this happened to me. I believe that this is completely wrong by the people who are telling these kids and the society of people who are bilingual and speak different languages at their homes to stop speaking anything but English. I think that stripping someone down of heritage and stripping them down of their own identity is completely ignorant and awful.If that happened to me I wouldn't know how to act, I couldn't even communicate with my parents. Its something that we need to respect as people and a country as a whole. I know many people who will say this is America speak English. This is America, land of immigrants, speaking multiple languages is no problem. Teaching the common tongue in school is normal but trying to strip someone of who they are is unacceptable.

Quote 2 - "The silence at home, however, was finally more than a literal silence."

This quote is another quote that I find sad, the silence at the home began to really become prevalent. Spanish roots were cut and the communication was no longer there, family was being lost. Without communication people don't interact. In this the people weren't speaking Spanish to their parents and that led to much more than just a silence of words. I am a very close person with my family and I would be significantly hurt if someone made me lose my connection with my parents. Its still there with the love but not being able to even have a conversation must really be terrible.

Discussion-

 I think in class we should talk about what it would mean to us if we had lost our capabilities to speak to our parents. Who would we be mad at? who would be at blame? As a child you dolt have many outlets to help you learn the language you're losing. I would personally hate the education system because if they made me lose that connection then they couldn't be forgiven. It is something that many of us probably haven't experienced, and I hope no-one has, but there are cases I am sure that people lost connection with family through language barriers. It would be cool seeing everyones take on this matter and what people think is wrong. How can we fix it and what solutions are there to help promote more youth learning English and their native tongue.

Zac Guglielmo
Blog post  2
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Discussion in class

Kozol

I think that a great discussion point in class would be why do we think that Mott Haven is like this. Is there people who think the place is burdened with long term effects of their history or is it something simpler like lack of want to change. My personal opinion is both, I think people need to try harder to get out pf their situations their in but also its tough because when for generations before the only way of making money was selling drugs and being a prostitute then it is normal to follow in footsteps, even if those footsteps art great ones. I think that when you break it down it is obviously much more intense and a lot more factors but there is always different views.

I like how in class we discussed that the institute and individual are both at fault but one is hard to see if you're looking through a one way "lens". Its an argument that won't be settled because the institute promotes different things and the majority if the time the institute handcuffs the individual and makes their decisions bad or worse. Who wouldn't turn to drugs or sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children, at fault is definitely the individual but the bad promotion and lack there of help from the institute is also a massive fault for these results.

Kozol really shows us how awful Mott haven is. Imagine cockroaches and rats and no heat, sweating because no air conditioning. Everyone knows someone who has HIV and so many people on drugs. It is a very sad community and it needs help to become normal again. The impossible part if finding enough people outside of the community to actually care enough to promote change.

Zac Guglielmo
Blog Post 1
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Quotes

Kristof

Quote1 - “We have never been a nation of haves and have-nots"

This was the first line of kristof's piece and I strongly disagree with what he is saying. If you look at society as a whole we are essentially a country of have and have nots. Like we talk about in class all the time, institutional backlash is thethe individual cannot escape some situations. Not all situationsbut more often than not people are stuck in whatever class they'reborn into and thats a proven fact. A country of have and have nots is what we are, there are privileged wealthy people , middle class and then the lesser fortunate.Not everyone can be a have whether we like it or not but I think him saying this is ignorance and uneducated.

Quote 2- "Remember that disadvantage is less about income than environment"

I strongly agree with this quote because if you are born in a poor area and a place that there isn't much then I believe you can make a ton of money but not always escape out. I think that the burden of not being privilegd will always be on your shoulders. A wealthy black man will always be looked at differently by a racist, a female business owner won'tget a nod from a wealthy male business owner. I think the environment stands for more than just where you're raised but the work we live in and our social norms.Income can help in ways but you're usually always known for who you are , not for the number in your bank account.

Quote 3- " They grow up not in a “land of opportunity,” but in the kind of socially rigid hierarchies that our ancestors fled, the kind of society in which your outcome is largely determined by your beginning."

I agree with this also. It is relevant to the second quote because it is saying that the you are a product mostly of how you're raised and where you're raised. If you're raised in a wealthy family you're more opt to find yourself in a wealthy family in the future, freak cases you can break through your class barriers but people who start financially privileged in the beginning of their lives are definitely more opt to have better futures.