Blame it on the alchohol

                 Recently I have been reading the book Winter's Garden by Kristen Hannah. Hannah focuses on a topic that in the past has been kept very close to the chest of the former Soviet Union. It is a story of dread, of hope, of starvation, of war, and above all, of desire. The desire to tell control your life, the desire to keep someone you love from hurt and harm, the desire to finally be free of whatever shackles that this material life chains you with. This is the story of Anya Whitson. The story that she is reluctantly telling her daughters. So she begins, Anya was not born Anya Whitson, she was gifted the name Vera Petrushka of Petr Valinokas, a seemingly ambiguous man who wanted to be a poet, wanted to make a difference under the oppressive rule of Stalin, the premier of the Soviet union, posed in such a substantial position of power that he captures and kills off all who dare defy him in even their choice of occupation. This is the world that Vera comes of age into.
                  Yet Vera is not afraid of Stalin, sure she knows she is not to do anything that might jeopardize herself or her family in the slightest, minuscule bit but she continues her life as it would be without him. She becomes a carefree adolescent, she falls in love, takes care of her sister. And above all, she is happy. That is Vera's ultimate defiance towards Stalin. Stalin is like a black hole, sucking in every star, anything that might shine against his darkness. He extinguishes that light in most people. Although they say they are in defiance of him, he has broken them. They have winked out. But not Vera, Vera is kept out of the black hole because her light shines on. But, alas, she is not invulnerable to the light of others. Vera's father is arrested under the unforgiving streetlights in front of their sparse home and Vera knows, deep inside that he will not come back. And so, she too becomes just another of Stalin's broken toys, her happiness and innocence destroyed because he has broken into her life and her bubble has popped.
                 So that is Vera Petrushka, but who is Anya Whitson? Why did she change her name and what isn't she telling her daughters about her past? This is what is going through the mind of Nina Whitson, Anya's daughter. Nina is a war photographer she uses her photos as a cathartic way for her to both help other people and distract herself from the loneliness she feels without her father, who has died recently and the fact that she is practically estranged from her mother and her sister Meredith. So Nina is used to investigating the facts. She is used to hunting down every single frame and shot until she has a compete clear picture of what has happened. And not only that, Nina is used to her photos being published, she relishes the idea of exposure, the fact that now everyone can know about the horrible things that take so much effort to hunt down, to triangulate the locations the names of things people want to keep covered up. So it comes at no surprise that Nina is the one to try to uncover her mother's hidden story. She needs to know the reason her mom can barely look at her, the reason she doesn't laugh, the tragedy or insanity behind the garden she plants in the winter when only ivy blooms. And Nina is used to getting her way.
                   So how does she find out what changed? What changed after the night Vera's father was captured in order to make this carefree girl into who Nina sees before her, a cold women with snow white hair, a woman who's age is unknown, who doesn't seem to love her own children. Just how much light could Stalin siphon off without killing the frail woman? Nina finds a way to get her mother to tell the rest of the story.

Get her drunk.

             Not really something one anticipates from such a poignant and sensitive story. How does alcohol play a part in this play set in the Soviet? Does it melt the ice that surrounds Anya? Or does it penetrate her deeper and deeper into the despair and semi-madness NIna and Meredith already see in her? Over their daily shot of alcohol Anya begins to open up to her daughters, but is it the truth? Anya is spinning tales and stories about knights and gardens that bloom in the winter, princes and snow bridges and ballerinas who can fly. How do you discern what is real or fake in this myriad of fairy tales? If Anya finally telling her story, how she changed that night and who she became? Do these fairies lead to something greater? Or is Nina just searching a woman who has fallen down the rabbit hole? Meredith, NIna's older sister sums it up perfectly when NIna asks her why her mother is seemingly insane

"Blame it on the alcohol."

Age Divided

             I recently read the book "Cuba Turns 15" by Maria Osa. The book follows Violet Paz, a 15 year old Sophomore at the huge impersonal Tri-dist high school. Violet has two best friends, bubbly and hippy-like Leda Londquist t the serious and driven Janell Henry. Violet is spotted by her ax-like teacher, Mr.Axelrod as funny and is put on the speech team for original comedy. At the same time, her traditionalist grandmother and Polish mother are planning her a quincenera, or coming of age ceremony for a `15 year old girl. Violet is doubtful of having her quince, but she gradually comes around to it, as well as to the idea of exploring her Cuban Heritage.  I think that the reason that Violet decides to join the speech team and explore her heritage is because of her quince.
           Before Violet decided to accept her quincenera as something that she wasn't going to fight and something that she actually wants to do, she feels like she is 5, as she says, "a little girl still running home when the bell rings" She doesn't want to do anything at her school in terms of activities and doesn't want to involve herself in anything outside her comfort zone. Also, she tries to avoid mentioning anything that even remotely involves Cuba, a subject she knows that her dad doesn't want to talk about. However, after she accepts her quincenera role and responsibilities she decides to stick with speech team and her competition speech becomes better and better. Also, she begins to explore her Cuban heritage, no matter what her dad says. A quincenera and any coming of age ceremony is about accepting your responsibilities and becoming serious about her life. I think that Violet is realizing that she has a responsibility not only to herself but to the world to let loose and explore who she really is.
             In conclusion, Violet became more risk-taking and open after she accepted the responsibilities of a quincenera. But I think that the quincenera was just a nudge that Violet needed to realize the responsibility she had to herself to be happy, and the responsibility to the world to show them what a great person she really was.

Indians are from India

            What do you think of when you hear the word "indian?" Do you think of intricately beaded moccasins and ponchos? Teepees and campfires and long feathered headdress? Or do you think of saris, swaths of fabric draped and folded around a women's body, bindis (dots of red on foreheads) and spicy curies? Although these descriptions are generalizing, most people's thoughts follow one of these two paths.
            The truth is, "Indians" are from India. They factually fit the second line of thought. So why is it that when I asked my sister, two of my friends and my aunt, most of them said that they first thought of the first description when thinking about the word "indian?"
           To fully develop this train of thought, we need to know a bit of historical information. When Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, he thought he had sailed around the world and was in India. That is why he labeled the Native Americans he saw and enslaved as "Indians." Although the term is factually wrong and even a little racist, people and text books use it to this day.
            Its the text books that I have a problem with. In school we are given The US History text books that take us from colonization to present day. Although they are supposed to teach us what happened before we were alive, these text books gloss over many of the gross and unpleasant pieces of America's history.
             When I read Howard Zinn's amazing and thought-provoking young adult non-fiction book, "A Young Peoples History of the United States" it opened up my eyes. I finally saw how my text book didn't give me all of the information about our world. For example, the text book talks about Christopher Columbus as a brave explorer, who did enslave some natives, but gave them work and paid them. The text book does not speak of the massive numbers of native who were killed, whole tribes driven to extinction as a result of Columbus' endless thirst for gold and other precious metals hidden in North America that Zinn's book does. Another example is slavery. Of course the text book does not justify slavery, but it never mentions some of the gorier details that were involved in it. One example, it was extremely common for female slaves to be raped and sometimes impregnated by their masters, who forced them to engage in sexual activities because they "owned" them. One of these men was none other than one of our "founding fathers," Thomas Jefferson. The textbook speaks of his ingenuity in penning the Constitution and his political role, but not the slave he impregnated.
                I think that it is wrong for text books to gloss over details that might not be deemed "age appropriate." History is supposed to be about facts, not half-truths that don't include all of the details. I would rather know about the bad in people as well as the good things that they contributed to America. Because, as proven with the word "indian," people take generalizations and factually wrong things they read in text books and remember them, and truth is lost.

Am I Blue?-Well Does Society Think You Are?

                                                                                           

             Growing up as a teenager is a whirlpool of expectations: where you go to school, how you dress, your level of popularity, even who you love. Everybody expects you to be somebody. And that somebody isn’t always who you are, its just who people are confortable with you being. These societal pressures are crushing and can lead to the elimination of your uniqueness. In his short story, Am I Blue?, author Bruce Coville asserts that conformity limits ones self and forces people to fit into boxes and stereotypes formed by others. Coville does this by showing the reader how people have to conform to the stereotypes of their jobs and societal positions and how many gay people change themselves to conform to stereotypes and, also, that society even has stereotypes for gay people.

Sometimes who you are can be more terrifying than any other outside threat. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on therapists trying to fix something about the person they are versus the person they want to be. Many gay people in the short story, Am I Blue? by Bruce Coville are scared by who they are and how that might make them different from what society expects from them. This leads them to change themselves in order to fit into the boxes people put them in based on their station in life. One example is found when Vince, the main character, has been given the gift of being able to see if someone is gay (as they appear blue if they are). Vince says “Mr. Alwain, the fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which surprised me, because he was married and had three kids.”  Vince is surprised because the man seems to be straight with a family and a typical job, but he actually isn’t. While being straight (a more typical existence in most areas) might be easier, Alwain decided to cover up an integral part of who he is because of what society might expect him to be.  Another example found in Am I Blue? is when Vince is watching the news. He says he “the shade of a spring sky—pale blue, but very definite. So was the congressman he interviewed, who happened to be a notorious Republican homophobe.”  The congressman spoke derogatively towards homosexuals, though he was one himself. This man probably felt pressures to conform to his party’s and his conservative surrounding society (Republicans are traditionally against the idea of homosexuality)’s viewpoint and changed himself to appear heterosexual. The congressman felt he had to be different than who he was because of his societal status. A third example of changing yourself to fit expectations in Am I Blue? is also found when Vince is watching the news. Vince says he “did get a kick out of the three blue guys I spotted in the sports feature on the team favored to win the Superbowl.”  People do not expect football players to be gay, as football is thought of as an extremely masculine sport. The football players who appeared blue have not identified themselves as gay, probably because of what society expected people in their proffession to be. They buried their homosexuality to appear “normal.”

On Facebook, if someone posts a picture of a male wearing jewelry, pink or extremely fashion forward clothes, there’s almost always a comment saying “that’s so gay.” Some people who post things like that aren’t homophobic (they’re just joking), some are, but it goes to show that while society holds stereotypes for people to not be gay, there are also stereotypes for what gay people should look like. So even if you openly acknowledge that you’re gay, you are still not free of stereotypes and expectations. In Bruce Coville’s short story, this is evident.  When Vince and his fairy godfather Melvin are in a café, Melvin shows Vince how many people are gay in the restaurant that is filled mostly with theater club members. Almost 1/3 of them are and Melvin explains that, “Groups like that tend to have a higher percentage of gay people, because we’re so naturally artistic.”  And “Of course, some bozos take a fact like that and decide that everyone doing theater is gay. Remember, two thirds of the people you’re seeing aren’t blue.”  As Melvin explained, many people think that all people in theater are gay just because it is artistic, which gays “naturally” are. People, therefore, stereotype people in arts as “gay” even though a lot of them aren’t. Society also stereotype gay people as to how they move, not just what groups they are in.  When Vince first meets Melvin he asks, “Do you have to walk like that?” He states that he is afraid that “walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation{he was in}.” In other words, Vince thinks that people will identify Melvin as gay just by how he walks. Society stereotypes people as “gay” in terms of how they move and what groups they associate with.

In Bruce Coville’s fascinating and poignant short story, Am I Blue?, Coville focuses on the idea of conformity, the injustice of the stereotypical expectations and pressures society puts on both gay people and non-gay people alike. Coville demonstrates that many gay people change or hide who they are in order to fit in with who society thinks they should; be based upon their job or societal position. Coville also asserts that people have stereotypes for what a gay person should be as well. These issues lead to nothing but hiding and trying to fit inside other people’s boxes. The world is not a filing cabinet, people don’t exactly match a certain container and you can’t just put them away. So after seeing the damage that can be done, I challenge you re-examine your own thinking, ask yourself, do I accept the stereotypes that society has put in place for me and my peers? Or do I choose to challenge what people say people “are” and “aren’t,” making my own judgments instead of blindly putting everybody into boxes. It’s your decision.