Response to Gerald Early's "Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant"

Gerald Early’s “Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant” is not what I expected it to be. Instead of being about feminism like Rich’s “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” it’s about feminism and race pride. Two birds with one stone! A black man himself, Early definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to race pride, but it’s interesting to see his outside view of the black women beauty culture, especially through his young daughters. I especially liked the conclusion of the essay, in which Early learns the rules to playing dolls with his daughters. When he questions his daughters for making two black dolls have a white child they respond with, “We’re not racial. That’s old-fashioned.” Early then realizes that he is “much too old, much too at peace with stiffness and inflexibility, for children’s games.” I like how Early uses this as the end of the essay because it also connects to a bigger idea: that younger generations tend to be more liberal and open-minded than previous generations.

Amandla Stenberg in her video
"Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows"

This essay also reminded me of the work that Amandla Stenberg, a 16-year-old actress, is trying to do because their purposes are the same. Amandla often writes and posts about Black Culture, hoping to reach out to her fans and educate the rest of the world. She even made a video titled “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” to spread awareness. Early doesn’t achieve his purpose as well as Amandla does, but that is because he doesn’t have the same power to become viral like young Amandla does. However, his essay conveys his point very clearly, and Amandla would love it.

Response to Adrienne Rich's "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying"

Pay Equity and Discrimination - Chronogram

Adrienne Rich’s “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying” was originally read at the Hartwick Women Writers’ Workshop in 1975. Rich was a popular essayist, poet, and feminist of the time and was called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century” by the Oxford University Press and the Los Angeles Times. Her speech-turned-essay discusses the how’s and why’s of lying among women, “within the context of male lying, the lies of the powerful, the lie as a false source of power.” The feminism in this piece is very clear, as she writes about the power of the male and how women must lie for survival in the face of that power. Today, this sounds a bit extreme, but the farther back in time one goes, the more sense this statement makes. Historically, women have always been dependent on men, and while we are becoming more independent, men and women still aren’t treated as equals. For example, in 2013 women earned only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
Also, the prose of this speech-turned-essay is also noteworthy. As one reads, it is obvious that the piece is meant to be read aloud in the way that the words flow, almost like a poem. Rich writes, “In the struggle for survival we tell lies. To bosses, to prison guards, the police, men who have power over us, who legally own us and our children, lovers who need us as proof of their manhood.” The second sentence isn’t an independent clause, but the flow and beat of it works well with the rest of the essay. This is an example of an asyndeton and an enumeratio, both of which make the list seem longer. In addition Rich writes, “It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us,” each in its own line/paragraph. This anaphora helps show the components and highlight the importance of “it” (love).

Response to Richard Rodriguez's "Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood"

Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” follows a young Rodriguez as he transitions from Spanish to English as his primary language and learns that intimacy doesn’t depend on a language. Rodriguez controversially argues against bilingual education in this essay and against affirmative action elsewhere in the book that this essay was taken from, Hunger of Memory. He writes that bilingual voters’ ballots are “foolish and certainly doomed” because they “implie that a person can exercise the most public of rights-the right to vote-while still keeping apart…from public life.” Rodriguez points out many of these paradoxes about private and public life, but I disagree with his analysis. While he is certainly credible since he experienced everything himself, he has fallacies in his argument: teaching children in their family languages would keep them alienated from the public life. He writes that those who support bilingual education are idealistic in that they can’t better both the sense of self apart from the crowd and the sense of self within the crowd at the same time. What Rodriguez fails to mention are those who are truly bilingual and very fluent in both languages rather than heavily favoring one, like my parents. Because they are bilingual they can have thriving public lives while still maintaining their intimate private lives.

Bilingual Joke - Brainless Tales by Marcus

In addition, the first 30 or so paragraphs could be halved and still have the same effect or even a better effect since there would be less repetition. I enjoyed the essay much more when Rodriguez began to write about the transition in his life and how it affected him, especially when he was called “pocho” for forgetting his Spanish. Being bilingual and bad at my family language, this resonated with me. Rodriguez writes about how he and his grandmother were still intimate despite the lack of Spanish sounds that used to define intimacy for him, and I mostly agree since my relationship with my grandmother is similar to his. While the relationship is intimate, it could be even more so if I spoke better Chinese so that I could better communicate with her.