English exam 1 passages
One by one the old words we had taught them began to disappear from their heads. They forgot the names of the flowers in Japanese. They forgot the names of the colors. They forgot the names of the fox god and the thunder god and the god of poverty, whom we could never escape. No matter how long we live in this country they'll never let us buy land. They forgot the name of the water goddess, Mizu Gami, who protected our rivers and streams and insisted that we keep our wells clean. They forgot the words for snow-light and bell cricket and fleeing in the night. They forgot what to say at the altar to our dead ancestors, who watched over us night and day. They forgot how to count. They forgot how to pray. They spent their days now living in the new language, whose twenty-six letters still eluded us even though we had been in America for years. All I learned was the letter x so I could sign my name at the bank. The pronounced their l's and r's with ease. And even when we sent them to the Buddhist church on Saturdays to study Japanese they did not learn a thing. The only reason my children go is to get out of working in the store. But whenever we heard them talking out loud in their sleep the words that came out of their mouths came out—we were sure of it—in Japanese. ????Interpret the passage in relation to generational differences and similarities: who does the passage refer to? What is happening to them and why?????
Title: Buddha In The Attic Author: Julie Otsuka This passage refers to the children of the picture wives. These children are picking up American culture at a rapid pace. This is happening because they are going to school and seeing everyone act the same while they are different because of culture. This makes them want to fit in.
The words came out in a rush. "If you want, you and Park can come with me. It might take me some time, but someday I'll take you away from all of this." He was quiet, looking at me. "How about if I don't want to be rescued?" I leaned on one elbow and stared at him. "You want to live out the rest of your life in Chinatown?" "Why not? I like it here—great food, low rent..." "Great roaches..." "Ugh. But look, you don't need money to love someone, and you don't need success to have kids and make a life together, isn't that what counts?" "I'm only eighteen! How can I even think about having kids now?" "You'd be a great mother." "I'd be a great surgeon." "Okay." He sat back. "That too. But see, that's what I mean. Like now, I'm wondering when you're going to leave me for bigger and better things." "Never," I said, and I leaned across the table, pulled him toward me and kissed him. His golden eyes were warm again. "I'd go anywhere with you, Kimberly. But I want to be the one taking care of you." ?????Analyze this passage in terms of gender roles and social expectations: what is the tension in this passage between the characters? What is at stake in their respective positions?????
Title: Girl In Translation Author: Jean Kwok Matt is in a bad position because he wants to be the one to care for Ah-Kim rather than her caring for him. This is what we are taught this day an age, that the man is the main provider for a woman and a family. What is at stake for Matt is he will feel like lesser of a man if Ah-Kim takes care of him. And for her it is the love of her life or her profession.
"I was going to talk to the two of you about something anyway when that incident occurred. There's been a change in the factory policy." She didn't bother to use her false smile. "Due to bad economic conditions, after this shipment goes out, the rate for skirts will have to drop to one cent a skirt." "What?" Ma asked. "Why?" I asked. And then I knew. Aunt Paula had seen me working fast. Too fast. We'd started earning more, and she'd calculated that we could receive less and still survive. And I'd imagined I was impressing her. "Sorry, but that's the way it is. Company policy. For all the finishers." We were the only finishers in the factory. "That's not fair," I blurted out. Ma, standing behing me, poked me under my shoulder blade. Aunt Paula turned her attention to me. Her lipstick was smudged in one corner. "I wouldn't want the two of you to be unhappy. You're free to make your own choices if you feel uncomfortable. There's no slavery in America anymore, is there?" And she started to walk away. ???Analyze the irony of Aunt Paula's statement that "there's no slavery in America anymore" in this passage: how does it speak to Ma and Kim's labor conditions and to Aunt Paula's labor practices?????
Title: Girl In Translation Author: Jean Kwok This is a perfect example of verbal irony. Ma and Kim are working In a sweatshop getting payed practically nothing while living in horrid conditions. It shows the real brutality of Ma and Kims labor conditions and how evil Aunt Paula really is.
As soon as the weather became warm enough, Ma took out her violin almost every Sunday evening. I would clean up after dinner as she played, sometimes only for a few minutes, because we usually had so much work from the factory to finish at home. I said to her once, "Ma, you don't have to play for me every week. You have so many other things to do." "I play for myself too," she'd answered. "Without my violin, I'd forget who I was." ???Analyze this passage: what does it say about identity? What does it say about the process of immigration to the US??????
Title: Girl In Translation Author: Jean Kwok Published: 2010 This passage represents never forgetting who you really are. Even though Ma has so much on her plate, if she can find even the slightest of time to make her self happy she will do it. This shows that immigration causes humans to question their identities in a foreign space.
When he put his hand on Riley's shoulder, it was only because he disliked the sight of someone, especially one of his own, turning his back to him without hearing him out. It was also because he needed to promote Brother's Spawn and had thus far convinced a meager passersby to buy a $4 copy that day, and because Brother Man felt, unapologetically, that black people should stick together and that the blue-eyed, wig-wearing brother in the purple suit should have at least acknowledged him with a nod, if not a handshake or a howyoudoin. ????Interpret the following passage in relation to intra-racial relationships: what ideas about social engagement does it present? Why are they important??????
Title: Heads of The Colored People Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires It shows that white and blacks can act different socially. If it is a hand shake or even the way they speak. This is important because we need to learn about how others feel.
And, yes, there are black people who have both those things naturally, without the use of artificial accouterments, so we can move pass the whole phenotypically this or biologically that discussion to the meat of things. And if there is something meta in this narrator's consciousness and self- consciousness or this overindulgent aside, it isn't meta for the sake of being meta; this narrator's consciousness is just letting you know about said consciousness up front, like a raised black fist, to get the close reading out of the way and make space for Riley, who was the kind of black man for whom blue eyes and blond hair were not natural. ???????Analyze the use of metafiction in this passage: what is the goal of using metacommentary? What does it achieve??????
Title: Heads of The Colored People Author: Nafissa Thompson Spires Published: 2018 The goal of metacommentary is to take a moment for the narrator to approach their audience one on one and explain to the reader what is going on. The narrator directs the readers attention to the texts main purpose. This helps the reader to understand the concept more and think deeper.
The Afric-American Picture Gallery was a series of written sketches by William Wilson, under the pen name Ethiop and following the form of similar sketches—which Kevan found with more research—by James McCune Smith in The Heads of the Colored People and Jane Rustic (a.k.a. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a black abolitionist poet and suffragist). Kevan wanted to commission painters, including mostly himself, to create a full exhibit of heads of the colored people, now and then, to take the written, literary work and render it visually. The idea intrigued him, the heads talking to him like the books of Equiano—though he didn't know that reference yet. ????Analyze this passage: how does Kevan's project build on the work of former abolitionists? Why is it relevant in a contemporary context?????
Title: Heads of the Colored People Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Doña Ernestina met us at the door and led us into her living room, where the lights were off. A photograph of Tony and one of her deceased husband Don Antonio were sitting on top of a table, surrounded by at least a dozen candles. It was a spooky sight that caused several of the older women to cross themselves. Doña Ernestina had arranged folding chairs in front of this table and told us to sit down. She did not ask us to take our food and drinks to the kitchen. She just looked at each of us individually, as if she were taking attendance in class, and said: "I have asked you here to say good-bye to my husband Antonio and my son Tony. You have been my friends and neighbors for twenty years, but they were my life. Now that they are gone, I have nada. Nada. Nada. ?????Interpret the significance of "nada" in this passage: why does Doña Ernestina feel this way? How is that feeling tied to the role of women of her generation?????
Title: Nada Author: Ortiz Cofer Doña Ernestina feels this way because their is no love greater than family love. The love of a husband and the love of a child are over the moon compared to anyone else. This feeling is tied to the role of women in her generation because at that time women catered for all the mans needs. And now Doña Ernestina doesn't feel needed.
Maybe I am just bitter because of Miguel—I know what is said behind my back. But this is a fact: when a woman is in trouble, a man calls in her mama, her sisters, or her friends, and then he makes himself scarce until it's all over. This happens again and again. At how many bedsides of women have I sat? How many times have I made a doctor's appointment, taken care of the children, and fed the husbands or my friends in the barrio? It is not that the men can't do these things; it's just that they know how much women help each other. Maybe the men even suspect that we know one another better that they know their own wives. As I said, it is just as well that they stay out of the our way when there is trouble. It makes things simpler for us. ???Analyze this passage in relation to the gender division it poses: what is (one) the labor(s) of women according to this passage and why???
Title: Nada Author: Ortiz Cofer One of the labors of women in this passage is learning to care for themselves. She goes on to talk about how her husband never helps her with any problems
Her grief then had been understandable in its immensity, for she had been burying not only her husband but also the dream shared by many of the barrio women her age—that of returning with her man to the Island after retirement, of buying a casita in the old pueblo, and of being buried on native ground alongside la familia. People my age—those of us born and raised here—have had our mothers drill this fantasy into our brains all of our lives. ?????Interpret the generational difference in this passage: what is the difference between the older and the younger generation? What different ideological drives does it highlight?????
Title: Nada Author: Ortiz Cofer The older generation wants to always remain closer to their heritage. While as the younger generation does not feel the same way. The older generation wants everything to be about the heritage.
The Mayor urges us all to be patient. "We'll let you know what we can when we can," he tells us. There was disloyalty on the part of some, time was short, and the need for action was great. The Japanese have left us willingly, we are told, and without rancor, per the President's request. Their spirits remain high. Their appetite is good. Their resettlement is proceeding according to plan. These are, the mayor reminds us, extraordinary times. We are part of the battlefront now, and whatever must be done to defend the country must be done. "There will be some things that people will see," he tells us. "And there will be some things that people won't see. These things happen. And life goes on." ????Analyze the characterization of Japanese internment in this passage: what are the ideological premises it presents? What does it justify and why?????
Title: The Buddha In the Attic Author: Julie Otsuka The ideological premises that it presents is the pushing out of the Japanese.
On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years—faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a brother or father to the sea, or a fiancé, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and not it was time for us, too, to move on. ???Analyze the type of narrator used in this passage: what kind of narrator is it and how does it help present the narrative?????
Title: The Buddha in The Attic Author: Julie Otsuka Published: 2011 The type of narration used in this passage is, first person plural. This helps present the struggles these women all shared together. Instead of hearing just one specific story we get to hear many stories, and many journies. This helps the reader understand the situation more I feel like.
Larue pushed on the front, and Jimmy pulled on the top, and nothing happened. "It's really stuck." Walter got on his hands and knees and looked at the bottom, Then he took his glasses out of their case and put them on. "It appears," he said, "that it goes right through the floor." Both Larue and Jimmy got down with the director. Larue shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense," he said, "because the floor's concrete. I was here when they built this building, and I don't remember them pouring the floor around a totem pole." ??????Analyze this passage in relation to ideas about presence and permanence: what does it mean that the totem pole comes from the earth? What two ideas clash in this passage?????
Title: Totem Author: Thomas King Published: 1993 The totem pole coming from the earth has to do with the indigenous peoples having made their totems traditionally on trees in the wild. The two ideas that clash are the indigenous peoples culture with modern culture. The modern culture cant seem to accept the totem. And the totem sings and giggles to show its presence thinking maybe the modern people will value it.
Walter Hooton spent much of the afternoon going over the museum's records in an attempt to find out who owned the totem pole or where it had come from. At four o'clock, he gave up and called Larue Denny in the storeroom and asked him to grab Jimmy and a hand cart and meet him in the gallery. "The problem," Walter explained to the two men, "is that this totem pole is not part of the show, and we need to move it someplace else." "Where do you want us to take it," Larue wanted to know. "Storeroom is full." "Find some temporary place, I suppose. I'm sure it's all a mistake, and when the secretary comes back on Monday, we'll have the whole thing straightened out." ???Interpret this passage in relation to the role of museums: what does the presence of the totem represent for the museum? In what way is it a "problem" and what do the solutions to it proposed here say about the museum's attitude????
Title: Totem Author: Thomas King The totem in the museum represents the indigenous people in America and how they were pushed out to distant lands. This is a problem because we must respect all cultures. The solutions show how harsh the museum is. They don't want any background on it they just want it gone.
The totem pole stayed in the corner, but Jimmy and Larue were right. After the first week, the singing didn't bother Walter nearly as much, and, by the end of the month, he hardly noticed at all. Nonetheless, Walter remained mildly annoyed that the totem pole continued to take space and inexplicably irritated by the low, measured pulse that rose out of the basement and settled like fine dust on the floor. ????Analyze Walter's lingering reaction to the totem pole in this passage: why is he annoyed and irritated? How can you interpret his reaction in relation to ideas about presence and erasure?????
Title: Totem Author: Thomas King Walter is irritated because he cannot do anything about the totem. And this totem is distracting his customers. This shows that something may get erased, but its presence will always linger on in the long run.
