Journal #15 "Border Patrol State"

Leslie Marmon Silko’s essay reminded me of a horrifying experience that happened to me when I was about thirteen.  My church youth group went on a mission trip to Mexico and built houses and helped renovate a church in a small border town.  We would drive to Mexico in school buses in the morning and return to Texas in the evenings.  The  cross back into Texas was always a nerve wracking experience.  Some days the border patrol would simply look in the bus and see all of us inside.  Some days they would enter the bus and walk up and down the aisles.  On a rare occasion they would make each of us exit the bus and leave all our personal belongings (excluding our passports) on the bus.  I would always think of imaginary horror stories of the Border Patrol not letting me cross the border into the United States.  Our youth leader was one of our main translators in Mexico but was of Spanish descent.  One day they would not let him back into Texas saying he could be “a possible illegal immigrant.”  This man was half Hispanic half white and had a passport and a driver’s license to prove his citizenship.   The Border Patrol made the school bus full of children wait so they could make a couple phone calls.  After waiting two hours in a yellow school bus in the heat, they finally let him go and told him they were just making some precautionary measures.  I had lost all of my respect for Border Patrol because of that incident.  That man was a citizen of the United States and should not have been put in that demeaning situation. 

“Border Patrol State” was an honest expression of the frustrations of the lack of respect the Border Patrol has for the general public.  They were simply asserting power because they had the ability to do so. Silko’s recollection about “the uniformed men would be only too happy to drag us out of the car if we did not speedily reply with their request.”  She made a point that they think their subjects of interrogation should obey them because they have the authority to make matters worse if they choose not to comply.  

Journal #14 on "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

If I were a soldier in Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s unit, I would mainly carry fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of losing my or a friend’s life, fear of a surprise attack, fear of losing my family back home.  It would consume every thought and action I would carry out.  The weight of this unrelenting fear I would carry would weigh down every move I make.  I would double-check every footstep or doubt which direction I am walking.

            I would also carry the consumed thoughts of the loved ones I left back in America, similar to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross.  Is my significant other staying loyal to me, is he being truthful in his letters when he is describing how much he loves and misses me?  Will he wait for me to come home or lose hope and find another?  How will our relationship be when I return home?  Will I act the same around him after all of these horrors I have seen from the war?  If I had children I would wonder how well they would be surviving without a nurturing mother figure in their childhood.  Will they remember what I look like?  Will they ever forgive me for leaving them at such a critical age?  All of these unanswered questions I would carry would cause me to hold my gaze at the ground.  All of this uncertainty would not let me see clearly and function properly.  I would not be able to make quick decisions that are key in battle. 

            After returning home from the war(hopefully) I would constantly carry images of war in my head.  They would follow me everywhere I go.  They will affect past and future relationships.  They will affect my perspective on life.

Journal #13 on Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin)

In “The School Days on an Indian Girl,” American Indian writer Zitkala-sa expressed her experiences regarding the assimilation of her people into the melting pot of America.  I believe Zitkala-sa was pursuing the American Dream but was trying to achieve it in the wrong ways. While reading the story, I connected the theme of many other short stories we have read in this class:  assimilating to the white culture will bring success.  The fact that her long, thick hair had to be cut of during her first couple days of school was the first act made by the “pale faces” to make her belong in the Eastern culture.  She had explained that the enemy shingles another’s hair after defeat or submission.  This point in the story symbolized her defeat of her Native American heritage to the white man.  The school forced the Native Americans to dress in white men’s clothes and learn English.  I know Zitkala-sa was pursuing an education but do not agree with forgetting her heritage to do so.  My attitude changed towards Zitkala-sa in the end of the story when she was coming across more success. The second to last paragraph in the story symbolized her defeat against the prejudicial white man.  “The evil spirit laughed within me when the white flag dropped out of sight, and the hands which furled it hung limp in defeat” (438).  This sentence represented her success in her field despite her Native American background, which sure sounds like an American Dream to me.

Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen

"But Christianity in substance they have accepted; and I know of no people who have developed a tenderer Christian conscience, or who have shown themselves more ready to obey its behests. Nor has any people known to history shown a greater reverence and love for their Christian teachers, or filled the measure of a grateful return more overflowingly. And where else in the world's history is it written that a savage people, pagan for ages, with fixed hereditary customs and beliefs, have made equal progress in civilization and Christianity in the same space of time? And what people has ever been subjected during such an evolution to such a flood of external demoralizing influences?"


- Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen Chapter LVII Human Autonomy

The paragraphs leading up to the one above were explaining how Americans were mentioning how natives of Hawaii' did not wholeheartedly accept New England Puritanism and therefore were considered "savages."  I connected this chapter with Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden."  Just because the natives of Hawaii' were different than the white men, they believed they were superior and needed spiritual guidance.  Queen Liliuokalani's words were expressive but had a feeling of tranquility to them.  She was expressing that even though her country might not chose Christianity as their religion, they still had a set of values and were righteous people.