American Born Chinese: Final Thoughts

I was very surprised by the ending of the book. Really it was actually quite confusing to me. The way I interpreted the ending of the book was something like: Jin turning into Danny, and then turning back into Jin..??? Or maybe that he was really both characters the whole entire time? Haha I don't really know but I get the jist of what was going on. I had to re-read the last few pages a couple times, but I think the book’s true overall message is simply that people should embrace their history and who they truly are. Jin by the end of the book learns that he doesn't need to turn into the stereotypical “white American boy” that Danny is. He starts a fight with his cousin, Chin Kee (who is actually the monkey king and I THINK also the father of Wei-Chen maybe?) and once his cousin’s real identity is revealed, Jin starts to realize that he is actually Chinese and not a white American boy. And the best part is, that he is okay with that. We know that he makes things better between himself and Wei-Chen, and also better within himself.

I really liked reading the book overall. I thought it was a fun book that took almost no time to get into and read. It was my first graphic novel and I am can say I am quite pleased with my experience with it.

American Born Chinese: First Impressions

Reading the first section of American Born Chinese was very interesting because it was my first graphic novel. The novel is told into three different stories. The first story is about a monkey king. There’s this little monkey who is king of his land and one day he gets an invite to a dinner party in the heavens. Sadly he finds out that the other gods actually don't want him around. The monkey therefore transforms himself into something higher up than a monkey and turns out to be evil. I am very  unsure of how a story about a monkey ties into the title “American Born Chinese”, but I guess once I finish the book I will understand. The next story is about a little boy named Jin who moves to a new school and has to deal with other kids being mean to him because of his race. He eventually makes a good friend, (who is also Chinese) and his life seemed to get better and revolve all around trying to get a girl. Similarly the last story is also about a boy, Danny, who is trying to get a girl. Danny, who is white, really likes a girl in his school and wants to date her and fit in at school but his very stereotypical Chinese cousin visits him and kind of ruins it for him. I am assuming all three stories will find a way to connect in the end, but I am very unsure how...

Brown Girl Dreaming: Final Thoughts

After finishing up Brown Girl Dreaming, I started to think about how some people have multiple struggles in their life that they have to deal with. The book touched on topics like segregation and racism, religion, separation of parents, and even deaths of loved ones. Jackie had to learn how to cope with these things at such a young age. To me she seemed like she was a mature child growing up because of the things she had to deal with.

Reading about Jackie's life was very interesting to me, however it was kind of irritating not being able to read about some of the details and explanations that I wish the book would have covered. I would have liked to know more about Roman’s birth father and even more about Jackie’s father too. As readers we know very little her actual father, and nothing at all about Roman’s. This also makes me wonder more about Jackie’s mother and what type of woman she is. We know that she is a very hard working woman who wants what's best for her kids. She teaches them to talk properly, use their manners, and act well behaved. It is evident that she loves her children very much,  I would just like to know her from a more personal viewpoint.

In the last half of the book, Jackie, although still a young child, is finally starting to discover new things about herself. She is not very happy about moving away from her grandparents and heading to New York with her mother. As the story progresses, though, New York turns out to have good opportunities for the young girl. Some of the great things to happen to her include finding her best friend, Maria, and also discovering her love for writing. Her teacher even starts to notice what a great writer Jackie is. The book ends with Jackie saying good things about everyone important to her. As readers we can tell that she is going to grow up to be a strong exceptional woman who is eager to find good in the world.

Brow Girl Dreaming: First Impressions

So far reading Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, has been a big change from what we have been reading in class up to this point. Segregation seems to be the main theme of the book as it takes place in the 1960’s during the civil rights movement. As readers we hear all about how Jacqueline and her family are treated differently because of their race. Not knowing how old Jacqueline is going to be by the end of the book, makes me wonder if these segregation conditions will get any better for her as the story progresses.

For the first 138 pages of the book, Jacqueline describes her life up to 5 years old. Aside from segregation, I wonder if another big theme of the book will have to do with her father or how he treated her mother. We don't really know what kind of guy her father is, or why her mother left him. We know that Jacqueline’s brother, Hope, said that she is too young to remember them fighting. We also know that the man doesn't want to move away from Ohio for some reason.

The last few pages of this first section of the book talk about how the family is moving to New York. They are currently living with their grandparents in Greenville, South Carolina. From what I can tell, the grandmother is really going to miss the kids, and I worry for her and her sick husband. The grandfather has been doing a lot of coughing and he is really sick right now in the story. To me he seems really nice and caring and I would hate to see something bad happen to him. There has not been a huge climax yet in the story, so I am interested to see what happens.

Yaqui Delgado:Final impression

I was surprised to read the ending of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. This book was FINALLY the first book we read in class to end with a happy scene. Well.. almost happy. Obviously it is still unfortunate that Piddy will probably always live in fear now, and Yaqui never faced any real consequences for her actions. Even with those circumstances I am satisfied and just relieved that the book ended with Piddy finally starting to cheer up and feel happy.  

All throughout reading the whole book I couldn’t help but to feel anything other than just stressed out. I wanted Piddy to do so many things differently about her situation. Among those things, more than anything I was hoping she would confront her mom about what was happening. Her mom always cared about her and would clearly do anything in her power to protect her daughter. When she finally did find out what was going on I felt a lot more relieved knowing that her mother could finally understand why Piddy was acting so different lately. Piddy's actions go to show how much a person's attitude and mood can be influenced by a bully.

Although it is sad, it is very true that most people who are victims of bullies, face a lot of emotional problems that they are not able to suppress. Piddy for example was apologizing for being badly bruised all over her body. Although there was no reason for her to blame herself, she couldn’t help but to say she was sorry. She also had a lot of anxiety that Yaqui was going to attack her at any moment. Even after moving to a new school, she couldn’t help but to feel a little bit of fear in the back of her mind. Maybe later in life everything that Lila said about her being far away and forgetting all about Yaqui, will come true.

The Youth Lens and Feed

Although the portrayal of youth and adolescence in M.T Anderson’s book, Feed, is basically the same as the adults in the story, there are many aspects that could be applied to the Youth Lens as seen through the stereotypes included about teenagers.

The adolescence throughout the story were very wrapped up in their technology and social media. More specific to their stereotype, they were very easily influenced by their surroundings from the internet. When the girl characters from the story found out what the latest, new hairstyles were on their social media, they were quick to do their hair the same. Also when lesions started to become popular, they went as far as to get fake ones implanted onto them. They would work hard to fit in and focused on looking good to stay hip.

The male characters fell under stereotypical teenage activities when they went into “mal”, meaning they let themselves become something like being under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Titus also took on the role of acting like a jerk to his girlfriend, Violet, and didn't really show her too much emotion towards the end. This is kind of like the stereotype that a male adolescence is “expected” to have.

The adults in the book didn't really seem like they acted that much different from their children. It must have been the feed that was making these teenage stereotypes true for all. The book did a nice job of depicting how society views the youth and adolescents of today.

Yaqui Delgado: First Impressions

We have started to read Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, by Meg Medina, and so far it's not too bad. I do like that it has real life situations and it’s not a love story. I am not totally in love with this book, but I do think by the end of it I will be satisfied.

There is a lot to do with bullying so far. The main character, Piddy, is starting to to get bullied by some girl who she's never even talked to. To me it sounds crazy that someone would want to beat up this girl when she's never spoken to her before. Out of all the previous novels we’ve read, this one deals the most with bullying, but all three have had types of buying in them. Eleanor from Eleanor & Park was bullied by the kids at school because of her weight, Violet from Feed was somewhat bullied (in a less noticeable way) by Parks friends when they would make fun of her for being weird, and now Piddy is starting to be bullied by Yaqui and her friends.

Although I am not 100% sure of the financial situation that Piddy is facing, it does not seem that her and her mother have a lot of extra money. She appears to have more money than Eleanor or Violets family did, but she still doesn't seem very financially stable. All three of the girls are bullied, and all three of them have rough financial backgrounds. Could this be to say that there are ties between financial status and bullying?

I am a little surprised that Yaqui wants to beat up Piddy just because her boyfriend was looking at her. I feel like a lot of girls would just give someone a dirty look in this situation and not actually act out in any physical violence. Not that a ton of “violence” has happened yet. Yaqui stole Piddy's elephant necklace, and threw her milk at her, but hasn't “kicked her ass” yet. I am interested to keep reading to see how this book will progress, and I am hopeful for Piddy’s safety.

Subvertisement

For our subvertisement assignment we are supposed to find an advertisement and subvert it into an alternative meaning from the original intention of the ad. The subvertisement I created is made from a Netflix ad that I found. The original ad is showing that netflix offers unlimited movies for only $8.99 a month and comes with benefits to make your movie watching experience easier. It shows a family happily sitting down on their couch, about to watch some Netflix. Really this ad is aimed at all types of people because who doesn't love watching movies? But when I think of Netflix, I think of laziness.

I don't necessarily have a problem with Netflix (I use it quite often), but I do think that it has made people a lot less productive since its creation. There has been so many times that I've heard people say  that they didn't do their homework because they were watching a movie on Netflix or trying to finish a series. While on social media I always see so much about how people are obsessed with the service. I've read lots of different tweets implying how people are wasting their day on it. It's not to say that I hate Netflix or watching movies or anything, but I just think people could definitely be doing better things with their time, rather than turning into a lazy couch potato all day.