Gentrification

Gentrification has affected me and my family and I really do think gentrification is a problem for communities where the economic class gap is extremely large like in Brooklyn. You can live in a million dollar home in Manhattan Beach, or pay a few hundred dollars for rent in a subsidized apartment in East New York. I live in one of these apartments in Spring Creek. This isn't a wealthy neighborhood by any means; intact, it's government subsidized. Spring Creek is the largest federal subsidized housing complex in the country and in 2006, it was up for sale. Over the course of 4 months, community activists protested the sale of the property to a private real estate enterprise who would indefinitely raise the rent for all of its 5,881 apartment units. These were all low-middle class families who struggled to get by, and where would they go if their rent was raised? That question was never asked by the prospective owners. Fortunately for all 14,620 residents (myself included), the property was sold under the premise that housing and rent would remain affordable and all of those living there, would remain to live there.

Some families aren't as fortunate, such as Taigi Smith's. I could only imagine the struggle and the obstacles that were placed under the displaced tenants who once lived in Mission. I do recognize the socio-economic structure western society is based on. I do know that "money talks" and that those who are more fortunate have their voices heard louder than those like my neighbors and I. In spite of that, I do not understand the justification for raising rent and evicting tenants that cannot afford to pay. There should be protection and urban development laws that landlords and tenants have to adhere to.

"The more things change, the more things stay the same."

Pha Lo's "When eating organic was totally uncool" is a prime example of Jean Baptiste's quote, "The more things change, the more things stay the same".

What I found most interesting was the history of organic food in the states. My family has been buying organic food for years because of its health benefits. My mother pays premium prices for organic products such as milk, cheese, produce, poultry, and other food staples. My father even plants seasonal herbs and fruit bearing trees for the satisfaction of reaping what you sow and the benefits of eating food that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides and injected with growth hormones. My family shares the same sentiments as Pha Lo's family. Pha Lo's story gave me insight into the history of organic food and its transition from an old world tradition to $25 billion business it is today. To think that in his time, traditionally grown food was food for those less fortunate than others and today its food that only a small portion of people can afford to purchase is extremely telling of how, "the more things change, the more things stay the same".

Assimilation and Identity

Ilan  Stavens's Latino USA: A Cartoon History identifies the dismissive attitude American's have towards Latino Americans socially and argues against it under the premise that its insensitive and demeaning. He models is argument in a novel way which at first glance, may appear to be humorous and satirical, but is actually deeply rooted into the social injustices Latino Americas experience in American culture. 

I completely understand and agree with Stavens's premise. My mother was born in Uzbekistan and my father was born in Tajikistan. I am ethnically a Bukharian Jew. Unfortunately most people i meet are ignorant of Eastern European and Asian history and therefore, I identify as "Russain" because i speak Russian. For the sake of saving myself a long and tedious explanation, I identify with Russia. This is something I am not comfortable with doing but as a result of improper education and ignorance, I have to resort to it. Does this mean that all of Eastern Europe including the Slavic states and the ex-Soviet block states have to wear a "Russian" label? Does one have to adopt a stereotypical label as a result of ignorance in order to assimilate?

America is a country of immigrants. Its original inhabitants are few and far between. There is no ethnicity, race, creed, or culture that has any reason to deem itself dominant and worthy of recognition over others. 

Its Not An Oxymoron

Feminism. Who's to say that there is only one definition, one perception, one right and one wrong characterization of feminism? In her essay "Its Not An Oxymoron: The Search For Arab Feminism", Susan Durraj retells her journey of finding her own definition of feminism. 

Before reading Durraj's account, I wasn't convinced of the claims women made regarding their struggles and inequality to men. In western culture, women had the right to vote, the right to an education, property, a job, divorce, and all of the other civil liberties men have. The feminism of women with all of these privileges wasn't a feminism i could identify with, I simply was not convinced. 

Durraj shared my concerns and could not identify with western feminism herself. Durraj proposed the question, "Where was my feminism?" (p.298). As opposed to western women, Durraj did not see oppression in performing house work. She was raised in a very conservative family where her mother and father exercised specific roles to maintain the integrity of the family and the household. She was more concerned with women that struggled to get to their University by taking a multipassenger taxi in which they were groped numerous times. Or with women that couldn't afford to go to a University because they had familial responsibilities to take care of their younger siblings. Durraj explains that these women could not be considered feminists by the standards of the western women she had met in her feminist theory class, "but by the standards of a different feminism-one that allowed women to retain their culture, to have pride in their traditions and to stilll vocalize the gender issues of their community...they believed in the dignity and potential of every woman; they wanted to erase class lines between woman" (p.301). This is the feminism that Durraj found for herself and identified with, this was the result of her journey.

After reading her account, I too have adopted this definition of feminism. Her version of feminism encompasses the macro, as opposed to the micro. Her brand of feminism is more concerned with the fact that women are still kept illiterate and birthed into lives of subordination as opposed to who will do the housework.

Racism In The Modern World

We all live in 2014, the modern world; but how modern is our "modern world"? There's a saying that dictates, "The more things change, the more things stay the same", but what is really changing and what is staying the same?

Physics dictates that forces come in pairs of equal magnitude and in opposite direction. This analogy parallels that struggle that minorities face today. As much as society would like to believe that everyone has the same opportunity to be successful, the struggles author Bell Hooks describes in her book Remembered Rapture reminds all of us that as far as we've come as a civilization, we still have a long ways to go.

In her essay "The Class and Politics of Writing", Hooks describes the obstacles she had to traverse to become an accomplished writer as an African American female. Being from a poor working class family of color herself, Hooks denotes the inequality and injustices she faced becoming a writer. She describes how mainstream publishing corporations rejected her writing and the writing of other minorities under the premise that it would invoke a resistance movement and the elitist group of individuals responsible for the circulation of information would never allow it. For her work to become recognized, she would have to turn to other methods of publishing. Hooks also mentions the resistance she felt from her parents. Writing about the secrets of her family was considered treason and her parents condemned her work. Many other writers were threatened for their well being if they wrote about the secrets of their families and some were even excommunicated.

Does racism still exist in America? The answer is unequivocally yes; but racism has changed. The Jim Crow south doesn't exist and lynchings don't occur in America. Racism has become more introverted, less mainstream, and ingrained into our psyche. No one told Bell Hooks that she wasn't worth publishing because she was black, it was mutually understood between her and the company but it wasn't dared to be said. No one told Bell Hook's that the experiences of an African American woman came second to that of an affluent white women, it went unsaid but completely understood.

As a civilization, we must grow and evolve together. It takes one of us to make the difference.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it"

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Little Failure? Or Big Success?

Gary Shteyngart's memoir Little Failure is a humorous recollection of his life as a Russian Jewish immigrant coming to America. He's captivated audiences based on his ability to ridicule himself and retell even the most embarrassing moments of his life. He doesn't hide anything about himself to the reader and thats what I loved about it.

His struggle of assimilation in a foreign country and eventual actualization of success is a story any immigrant can relate to. The realness of his struggle to fit in and make something of himself makes his story easy to identify with and this is the root of his success.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't agree with Shteyngart's label; failure. 

From a young age, his mother labels him "Failurchka"  because he didn't get the grades in high school to land him a seat in an Ivy League school. Shteyngart carries this label with him for the rest of his life and his entire memoir revolves around himself identifying as a failure. Shteyngart manages to pave his own road that his parents could not have imagined for an immigrant boy; he becomes an accomplished writer. He spends his life walking against the slope of immigrants "going into law, medicine, or maybe that strange new category known only as ‘computer.’ ” I consider this achievement to be a great success. In spite of his parents wanted realized for him, he realized his own dreams. He walked against the grain, he did not give into social conventions and did what he wanted to devote his life to; writing.