Friday, February 8, 2013

Langston Hughes said it best...

"The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay?" We began the school year discussion notions of freedom, and many of us were critical of the notion--I still think of Mikey's "mountain man" comment as particularly poignant here. So how do we define freedom after doing this reading? What is freedom for African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and other minorities? Consider 2-3 examples from the reading to add substance to your point.

23 comments:

  1. Freedom is a very interesting idea. I'd say, in the context of this reading, that a lot of the freedom that people want is the freedom to be one's self-this issue being that not even white people quite have that. We all have the ability to do what we need to to get things done, but what the issue seems to be quite a lot of the time is that pride and want of being "one's true self" up to one's own standards gets in the way. There is always a choice to be made in which path one would like to take, so i'd say freedom is not all or nothing, it is measured by how many choices one has. it's all really hard to put your finger on because it has so much to do with perspective. it was mentioned in "getting by" that white men could have stake or beans and all of a sudden they were losing their jobs and had to have beans and they were not used to having less freedom, but the minorities were used to it... and in "the new pattern of life for the indian" it states, "Our design is to blow up the Indian soul, to again make the Indian the master of his own mind." which sort of shows that being the master of who you are will bring you freedom, and who are we but our actions and decision? again, its really hard to give an exact definition, but that's what I got out of the text.

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  2. TO define freedom is not an easy task. After reading this, we can see that there are so many areas in life that can make a person feel unfree. What stood out most to me was the pressure made on Indians to become like the white americans. "They painted us white" says Sarah Hutchison about what they learned at school. Mr Collier talks about how the Indians were to "despise his old costumes and habits as barbaric" He also tells that this broke the Native Americans economically and spiritually.
    I think that when we talked about this last time, we came to the decision that you are free as long as you can make your own decisions. Now I think that if society puts you under pressure like this, so that it feels wrong to be what and how you want to, then you aren't really free neither.

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  3. Unfortunately even though we continue to strive to make everyone equal, even though African Americans were freed under the 13th amendment over 100 years ago, and Native Americans were given right to their land I still don't think minorities are "free". Unfortunately we will always have some kind of "scapegoat" in society and as history has showed us time and time again it is always the minority group. It struck me in the Getting By interview when he said that "if you can tell me the difference between the depression today and the Depression of 1932 for a black man, I'd like to know it." Depression wasn't "new" to minorities as it hit the white population in the 30s nor would it be a term of the past as Burke claims. Also, I was so shocked to read about the Japanese girl who won the oration contest was not awarded the prize solely due to the fact that she had Japanese background. That sure doesn't sound like freedom to me.

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  4. The definition of freedom is different for everyone, it's an ever changing idea that is hard to describe. In my opinion America has a long road ahead of it to achieve freedom for all. While much has changed since many of these essays, articles, and poems were written, some things have stayed the same. Collier said 'through this experiment the Indian lost much of his own culture and received no usable substitute', I think that this is a problem that Native Americans still struggle with today, so much of their culture and traditions were destroyed. I think that steps were made in FDR's presidency, but more could still be done to better help Native Americans today.
    When I read about the Mexican Americans during the Great Depression it reminded me of George Bush's administration and how so much emphasis was put on illegal immigrants and how the were stealing 'real American's job' the article points out that they said the same thing in the 1920's with repatriation, but what they really meant was that they were stealing Anglo-American jobs. It is as ridiculous of an idea then as it is now.

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  5. We as people and country are inconstantly striving to make everyone equal, which is a Perpetually steep up-hill battle. despite the fact that African Americans were freed in a legal sense under the 13th amendment over 100 years ago, and the fact that Native Americans were given right to their land still didn't change the fact minorities weren't "free" in the purely social and socioeconomic terms. Unfortunately we still suffer from some kind of objurgation in society and as history has shown time and time again it is the minority group who gets dealt this social and very physical burden. A quote that stood out for me was in the Getting By interview when he said that "if you can tell me the difference between the depression today and the Depression of 1932 for a black man, I'd like to know it." The Great Depression wasn't exactly what most would define as "new" to minorities at the time as it hit the white population in the 30s nor would it be a term of the past as Burke claims. Also, I was surprised to read about the Japanese girl who won the oration contest and was subsequently not awarded the prize solely due to the fact that she was of Japanese descent. That sure doesn't sound like freedom to me.

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  6. I'm not sure what exactly freedom is. Throughout history, we have been pointing our fingers at others for different reasons and using them as an excuse to belittle those people. Society has a way of making people feel unfree. We can argue the true definition of freedom, but then the question: to what extent are we allowed to be "free" comes up. I do know that the feeling of freedom is when you feel accepted and comfortable being your own person with your own thoughts and ways of living. However, minorities struggled to have that warm feeling during the depression. The text makes it clear several different times that freedom is based on superiority. I like how the fact that everyone is identical is mentioned and also how it is hurtful to make rules in schools about people not being able to speak the language they are most comfortable speaking.

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  7. I also think of Mikey's point whenever you mention the concept of 'freedom'. You can never be free in terms of living your own rules unless you are a mountain man. Otherwise, you have to live the way society has molded you.
    Freedom in the sense of personal liberties, however, is all over the developed world today. People can do as they please, as long as they do not break the law or do anything which is deemed socially unacceptable.

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  8. I think that throughout the next year and a half, we will constantly come back to the idea of freedom. And each time that happends, Mikey's mountain man concept will always suit as a terrific example. It doesn't matter whether your black, Mexican, Asian, or white. We are never truly free. We will always be molded and modified by our own society. I found the part in the reading with the Japanese girl who rightfully won that contest but wasnt awarded the prize. All the training that went into that, all of the hard work. So many aspects of freedom in this country are overlooked because of the way we feel of our Nation as a whole. We feel that we have always lived in freedom and there was never to much of a problem.

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  9. I think that a part of freedom is to remember the culture you have come from and to not be ashamed of it. With the Native Americans and they way there were oppressed and abused for so many years. How everyone was telling them to become as "white" as possible in order to be successful, it is understandable that they would be hesitant to go back to their roots. But i think what America did good was realizing what they had was wrong and that the native American culture was an amazing thing and needed to be praised not buried.
    i think another big part of being free is not being chained to social class norms. For example, Mr. Burke was not part of any social class really because of his skin color and that seemed good for him because there was no expectation of earning enough money for a high end meal. there was no pressure to get a "formal" job because what he was doing worked. so being shackled to social norms is a way people are not free.
    I believe the last way people aren't truly free is because of government intervention. Now i understand that government is key to a civilized country but to much of it will be catastrophic to the country and all the people in it. For example the mexicans of the 30's and 40's and even in modern times are continually persecuted for being here illegally and taking the true American's job, but when these people are hunted down for trying to do better for their lives and the lives of their children, then that is just plain wrong. American is the land of dreamers. Where a man can dreamer the most fantastical dream and one day, with enough hard work and patience, it will come true. I think we should have some control over who we let in and now many we let in but to destroy the American dream is to destroy the very notion our country was based upon.

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  10. Like any utopian ideal, I don't believe that true freedom could ever be experienced in any form of society, much like Communism of Capitalism. This is because one person's idea of true freedom would conflict with someone else's idea of true freedom. In the context of this reading, as well as a working society's idea of freedom, the people want to feel as though they are the true masters of their fate, and that they have a say in the world around them. People feel powerless and violated when the things around them are changed without attention to their own agenda. For example, the Mexicans would like a Mexican representative to voice the opinion of the Mexican people, etc. People of the same race tend to have the same views / values, in an effort to remain united, and retain an identity. This feeling of belonging to a movement bigger than yourself is often a good substitute for freedom, and some even mistake it for freedom.

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  11. I agree very much with Mikey's idea of the "mountain man". However, living by yourself in the woods is dangerous and even life threatening...so, is freedom ever really obtainable in reality? During the Depression, it did not exist. Today, it isn't obtained either, and I don't think it ever will be. Interestingly enough, African Americans weren't effected that much by the Depression; they were "born in depression" to begin with. With the race being already accustomed to making little money and supplying their family with little food to eat, they loss no sense of pride which was experienced greatly by the white people, who had been spoiled leading up to the Depression. It seems to me that during the Depression, the Japanese were treated worse relatively speaking to their status beforehand. The story of the Japanese girl who could not participate in an oratorical contest despite her exceptional success on the homework assignment demonstrates pure racism. Although she persevered and eventually graduated from college years later, it was very difficult doing so compared to an American. In addition to African Americans and Asian discrimination, the Indians were deprived of their culture, which was broken both "economically and spiritually" until they took action.

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  12. It would be impossible to ask for a form of a complete freedom, because no matter where you are, you would be restricted to some side effects of the decision made by yourself and the enviromental circumstances,for example, a student has to do his homework, attend his classes and be a good kid because his status requires those, he is restricted by those requirements and therefor he is not free. And so do adults and anyone else in the community, so technically every single individual of the society is not free. Yet, I have thought this problem over and over for years, somehow one day I came out with one conclusion that if one believes what he is fighting for, no matter how much he carries.

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  13. The purpose of society is to restrict certain freedoms through rules and regulations in order to promote harmony among the people of said society. White people were simply restricting peoples' freedoms that weren't part of their society, yet they still had jurisdiction over. This was a flawed attempt to preserve their cherished society, and minorities simply had to suffer for it. A famous scholar once said, "the weak do what they can, the strong do what they want" and this mantra has been the impetus for human development since the beginning of time.

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  14. Even though many different things in the contusion define freedom in the Untied States, freedom for African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and other minorities unfortunately to this day, no matter how equal we think we are, some people just don’t seem to be “free” in this country. At one point in the reading a man says “if you can tell me the difference between the depression today and the Depression of 1932 for a black man, I'd like to know it." This quote, while really sad, to some people may feel true because even though times have changed for some ethnicities, not every ethnicity gets the same treatment. Compared to all of the other ethnicities, to me the Japanese seemed to be treated the worst. At one point in the reading it talks about a Japanese girl who could not participate in some type of contest no matter how good of a student she was, just based off of the fact that she was Japanese. So overall, when it comes to freedom it depends on whose defining it and who is on the receiving end of it.

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  15. Freedom means many different things to many different people, both in their minds and in the ways that they themselves are treated as "free". While no one is TRULY free, we are free in our own senses. When thinking of minorities groups and freedom, you cant think of it without also bringing up discrimination. While Americans are supposed to be equal, we are not all thought of as the same. For example, the minorities were the majority of the first people to be fired in the depression. We are given freedom yet we aren't given the freedom to be ourselves without judgement. one thing the article states is that all the African Americans were "born into the depression".

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  16. There is no true freedom. Because no matter where you go there will be laws or a leader telling people what they can and can not do. I agree with Meghan time has changed but the way people are treated is almost the exact same. For African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and all the other minorities in this country are not truly free. But to them maybe freedom is the opinion to do a lot more of what they wanted to do. But each and every person back then and now have different definitions of freedom.

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  17. Freedom is defined as a state in which someone can act and live as he or she chooses. America doesn’t have that. We pretend that people are allowed to do whatever they want and that we’re all equal, yet it isn’t true. Sure, you can do whatever the hell you want, but there will be consequences. And for the minorities, that can completely change what freedom is. Not too long ago to be forgotten, African Americans were supposedly “free”, yet the racism was still there. They took away the chains and whips, or at least the ones that could be seen. They were replaced with racism and Jim Crow laws. Nooses and lynchings and shit. And African Americans weren’t the only ones subject to this limited “freedom”. All the other minorities faced their own difficulties in a country where you were supposed to be able to get a job. You were supposed to be able to live wherever you wanted. It would be a lie to say that we’re free within our minds because if I can’t get a job in the Depression, or I gotta get food from the back of the diner instead of from the front, or I’m afraid to go down South because I don’t wanna get lynched, it does something to me mentally. So freedom isn’t even an actual thing, because it’s supposed to be wholesome. Yet, America is a country where everyone’s “freedom” is limited in some way or another.

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  18. Freedom is being able to do what one's heart desired. The meaning of freedom to minorities in U.S. during the depression would be financially adequate. Sometimes, freedom might not be totally free, but a few more options or choices. For example, when the Mexican immigrants cannot obtain jobs anymore in the U.S., Mexico's government welcome them to come back and offer to pay for their transportation. Freedom can also be seen in the Japanese girl's story. Her freedom is made out of people's kindness. Overall, there is really not much freedom either culturally or financially.

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  19. let america be america again the once free land of america has vanished. the new society that took its place is a unescapable domain of white culture that allows the few to prosper and the many to suffer. since the times of serfdom european culture has taken advantage of majority through violence and fear. once people are scared and desperate they are manipulated to dig themselves into a deeper hole that further restricts their freedom and humanity. the reading told multiple stories of cutural leaders caring for others and placing the group as primary importance. in european culture the unilateral sense of equality is gone there is only a upper class of people deemed superior to the rest who in extravagance decide whether the hungry children in the street are feed, or the millions of men out of work should be compensated. the deppression marked a time in history where the rich became comfortable letting the weak struggle. inflating the stock exchange, locking the american government into the federal bank and allowing corrupt companies to grow of the backs of american workers. sentenced the end of freedom not only for minorities but for every person who is not a billionaire. the european constructed model that the majority are unable to lead themselves has thrusted the world into pandemonium. countries that don't run off corporations seeking only the betterment of the CEOs are flourishing now while america and the national minority of the working man is left for scrapes and used.

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  20. Nobody is truly free. People cannot just do whatever they want because then there would be chaos and anarchy. In the case of these racial groups, each had its freedom limited in a different way as evidenced by the reading. Many Mexicans did not have the freedom to stay in this country and several hundred thousand were deported or repatriated during the Depression, so many that lots of them starved once back in Mexico because there wasn't enough food to go around. Clifford Burke, the African-American man, had to make money through gambling because all of the available jobs went to white people before anyone else, so he did not have the freedom of making an honest living. The Native Americans on reservations did not have the freedom to embrace their cultures because the white teachers taught the students to repress and resent their ancestry, culture, and language. Mary Tsukamoto even had to be apologetic for her existence due to her Japanese descent. Clearly these people had limited freedoms, and all were less free than Caucasians.

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  21. The word freedom in the United States is a very significant but also a contradictory word since America is filled with racism despite the fact that the constitution stated "all men are created equal" and despite the fact that the 13th Amendment gave equal rights to blacks, American is filled with racism. Everyday, as an international student from Korea, I see stuff that makes no sense. Race tension in the United States is so high that it is very common that black kids only hang out with black kids and the white kids only hang out with white kids. Plus, in the reading it mentions that the discrimination of races during the depression era and the modern era is not different and it also mentions a Japanese girl who didn't win the prize she was suppose to simply because of her Japanese background.

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  22. The concept of freedom can not be perfectly defined.In the reading there are a bunch of examples of segregation against Indians for example that were under pressure and forced to be like whites. For people that used to be under pressure or under control such as Indians, Asians, African Americans etc freedom is being "free" which means being able to make their own decisions without any negative consequences, being able to walk without fearing someone, being able to think whatever you want and share it out loud . That definition of freedom I'd say is the one that is "correct".
    However some people that actually know what freedom is but do not appreciate it, would say that freedom for them would be doing whatever they want whenever without going to school/work or being able to hang out with friends anytime whenever without restrictions. But that is a selfish way of describing freedom if you think about what other people call freedom.

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  23. Many of my classmates say nobody is truly free, but they are thinking about absolute freedom. In my opinion, this question is asking how the level of free is different between races. In this country, freedom of people has been obtained very well. However, in the years of immigration of people. Africans were sold as slaves. In another words, black people unfortunately began from the bottom of the society. Although today we are very open to ideas, the effect of slavery is not easy to get away right away. African Americans are facing having different level of freedom. For example, in a southern state college an African student might be rejected to join a club or an association. That's the difference of freedom among races.

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