Gentrification

In the story about the Mission District Taigi Smith talks about how that area was gentrified. She says it is unfair for the people who lived there for many years to have all the things they own cost more and not being able to pay rent. These people have made their small community with things they need to get by. They may be poor but they are comfortable with what they have. I don't think it is fair for these people to be gentrified in this way.  Gentrification is only justified if the people living there before are happy with the living environment and not taken advantage of. These people work hard to get by and deserve equal opportunity

Antigua

In the story about Antigua I feel that it is unfair to the people that live in that land . The tourists get all the good from that land and most of the profit on the Island go toward tourists attractions. I don't think it is fair for the people that live there and have to struggle on a daily basis just for the basic needs. The government there needs to change and more has to be given to the natives. They have a hard time getting by for things we take for granted

"It's Not an Oxymoron: The Search for an Arab Feminism" by Susan Mauddi Durraj

When reading this book i thought it had a very powerful idea for all woman especially Arab women. It shows that women have a say and they wont want to just be a housewife and clean things. Women today have come a long way and many of them have achieved greatness in the working world. She speaks her mind and shows that women have a say in the world. Arab women should read this story and take an important message from it. They should stand up for themselves and try to shift power. They shouldn't be housewife's when they can make much more of the life they have. Arab women have been degraded and looked down upon and they shouldn't stand for it. They are regular people that get taken advantage of and this shouldn't be happening. As time goes on women will get more rights and fight for equality just like they have been doing for the past 70 years.

Caroline

I enjoyed when we read the story Caroline because we had two different versions. After i read the text i had certain images about what the story would be. I imagined Caroline looking a certain way as well as the rest of the characters. Then when we read the comic version of the story the whole thing changed. The characters looked much different and the setting in my head was different. When we read a comic version of any book it makes it much easier to understand because then we can have the actual setting and what the characters look like in our head. When reading a regular book our imagination does all the thinking and we create it in our head. That is why people like comic books so much because it helps them visualize things and it makes the reading more enjoyable. I feel like this is why the comic book industry has made so much money over time. An author that doesn't make a comic version wants the reader to create the story in their head.

Class and the polotics of writing-Edit

In this story she talks about how her story wasn't published because she is black and the big publishing companies didn't want to hear it. I wonder if this was really true or is she playing the race card like we said in class. Many black authors got published by big companies and were successful. I don't believe it had anything to do with race. I think if she just tried harder she could get published. She could have been right and they actually didn't publish her cause she was black. Even if that were the case she should still write and write until eventually they realized how hard she was trying and it didn't matter what skin color she was. By her writing that they didn't accept her because she was black just hurts her because if that wasn't true they are mad they she accused them of something.If it was true and she wrote bad about them they will be upset as well. So it was a lose lose situation for her by doing this. I believe that a better idea would have been to form a team of people who felt the same way and sent a nice letter to the publishing company explaining how they felt. Today many black people get there works published and many don't. I believe that the companies base it on skill because why would they reject a piece of writing just because that person is black? If they see a good piece of writing that would sell then they would take it.

Little Failure-Edit

In the book Little Failure Shteyngart doesn't give that girl he loves so much a name. I wonder why Gary doesn't give her a name if she is supposed to be such a important woman in his life. Is he trying to hid something that this woman did to him. Maybe its to hid her identity or she asked him not to. Another possibility is that he just didn't think the name of this woman was important. Im very curious to know why he did this. Gary is a man who shares a lot about his family and what happens with them. He probably wanted to start a new chapter in his life that didn't involve her because of something bad that happened. I think he was so heart broken that he felt like the less he said about her the better, including her name. Gary probably thought that he would be with this woman for the rest of his life and then something went wrong and he felt that he had nothing left in this world. Another possibility he didn't mention her name is that his family didn't like her and felt that he shouldn't be talking about her in his book. There could be many different reasons why he didn't mention her name but in the end it doesn't effect the book so much.