Reaction to John Prendergast ‘s "How Apple and Students Can Help End the World’s Deadliest War"

You never realize how many horrific things happen in the world until you find out and someone tells you. That is the case with today’s talk "How Apple and Students Can Help End the World’s Deadliest War" presented by human rights activist John Prendergast.  The talk was started off with the shocking and gross reality of how an estimated five and a half million people have been killed within the last twenty years in the Democratic Republic of Congo: what Prendergast describes as the “world’s deadliest war”! But even deeper and more personal than that, he talks about the personal story of a Congoian women, who trying to survive in a country full of mass poverty as a teacher and as a seller of salt from mines, found herself being captured along with other women by militiamen to become sex slaves.

She along with some of the other women was able to run away and eventually found shelter after begging for food. But Rwandan soldiers’ happened to find out their location, tracked them down, captured them, and disturbingly raped them. The story of the woman Prendergast talks about is inspiring as the woman didn’t just give up and didn’t, in the words of Prendergast himself, “let despair take over”. Through her skills as a teacher and her courage and resilience as a human being, she was able to use her experiences to not only make herself stronger, but help other women who went through the same experiences and mentor them. She wanted “peace” and for “rape to end” as Prendergast quoted.   

These sexual assaults being done by militiamen and soldiers without any intervention from the government can leave one in confusion as to why this is happening in the first place. John Prendergast notes that “war happens from greed and grievances”. And because the Congo government, in which Prendergast describes frankly as a “mafia”, benefit economically from the minerals dug up in the mines by women, the Congoian government condones and cooperates with these “looters”.  As a result, these criminals use rape as a method, as a “weapon”, that can socially control and exploit the people and their communities for resources. The Congoian government—along with other African sovereign states—on average is about 60 years old. And so Prendergast makes the point that these types of atrocities happen when a new nation is forming. Although he does mention that there are leaders and activists in Congo who heroically fought (and continue fighting) against these crimes and help the victims. Also, slowly but surely criminals who committed these sexual assaults have been prosecuted in the justice system.

But the main point Prendergast wants to make is that there are things we can do as students, as people, to help put a stop to these terrible acts. He makes a strong case that we as consumers have control and influence over the electronic industries that are the ones that purchase these minerals from places such as the Congo and use them in their products such as the laptops and cell phones we use on a daily basis. Prendergast gave his own personal story he had in convincing Apple, a major leader in the electronic marketplace till this day, of where they are getting the resources from, and in turn, what the atrocities they are contributing to. Prendergast and his team had corresponded back and forth with the one and only Steve Jobs. And ultimately Apple was on board to regulating who they bought resources from creating a domino effect with other companies.

John Prendergast said that “history is altered through social movements, through interacting“.  Because of the knowledge we gain when we learn of these horrific acts committed around the world, and in particular, within Africa, we can contribute by taking actions in a variety of ways. We may not be able to go to the source (in this case Congo’s government), but we can reach out to our elective officials and express our concerns and what we care about, in which through their political influence can ultimately pressure the governments who are doing immoral acts so that those governments can enforce regulations, hold people accountable for the crimes they commit against humanity, and try to prevent it from happening in the future.  U.S. politicians, as Prendergast noted, not only want to hear from students and what they care about because of their own political interests that perhaps one day in the future we would vote for them. But they really care on an emotional level about what students’ want, what we as citizens’ demand. And so if these politicians’ realize that more and more people care about these crimes against humanity and want the U.S. government to address them, then they’ll work on it.

In a less political but more economical manner, we can express our grievances as consumers to the industries by simply writing them and telling them that we aren’t buying those products knowing that it comes from places such as the Congo where women are being exploited to produce these minerals and being sexually assaulted. These companies are constantly surveying and analyzing its target markets in order to understand what the consumers demand and what companies can do to accommodate them. And if they know they’ll lose money because people don’t want to buy their products for these reasons they will without a doubt change their methods.

We can also gather student polls and push towards campus initiatives encouraging universities such as Kean to make statements on behalf of the students’ grievances. We can also keep informed and find and follow organizations that we like who fight for causes around the world, such as John Prendergast’s own EnoughProject. I myself have struggled with the feelings of being helpless when atrocities such as the one in Congo are going on. Now I know that we students have more influence and control over the things that happen in the world. We have a voice.

Further Information:

 http://www.enoughproject.org/

“The Third and Final Continent”: America as a Land of Opportunity, As a Land “Beyond Imagination”

The famous maxim that we as American citizens (and even people worldwide) have known is that United States is the land of opportunity. And this is true in the story “The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri. Travelling from Calcutta, India, to England, and “finally” to America in the 1960s, the narrator tells the inspiring, optimistic and significant story of his personal journey, assimilation and achievements gained in America. He came to America for a job opportunity to work in the Dewey library at MIT.  At first, the narrator finds himself disorientated, barely understanding how to cope with the cultural changes put in front of him when he arrives to the U.S. in Boston in comparison to his life in London. Although after a while of adapting and accustoming himself to the different changes such as eating cornflakes and milk as consistent meals, he finds himself renting out a room from an elderly woman who lives in a house by herself named Mrs. Croft, who plays a symbolic role in the context of the story.

Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) on the moon in July 1969.
He once said, "This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"

Mrs. Croft can be said to represent a more traditional person in the sense of character, language, wardrobe and culture. But Mrs. Croft as a person represents something much more profound and timeless, which the narrator realizes later on in the story. Mrs. Croft would have the narrator sit down next to her and would comment on how amazing, or better yet, “splendid” it was that an American astronaut made it to the moon, making the narrator reply on how splendid it was as well. From their first interaction, this conversation between Mrs. Croft and the narrator would then become a ritualistic habit in which the narrator will endure out of respect at first but learn to enjoy later on throughout the weeks of living amongst each other.

At the beginning, even since his arrival to America on the plane, the narrator noticed the nationalistic and patriotic sentiment people had when the news was made public that two American astronauts landed on the moon and planted its flag there: as “[s]everal passengers cheered…’God bless America!’” (p. 174). But the narrator didn’t make much of it. From a historical perspective, which the author doesn’t elaborate much on, the Space Race during this time was very significant for citizens of the U.S. in the battling against the Soviet Union and against communism in the Cold War. However, from a more humanistic view, as reflected by Mrs. Croft, this event represents the possibilities of how far humanity can go.

Mrs. Croft was born in 1866, a time when the most deadly war of all times in American history had just ended.  Historian Drew Gilpin Faust shows how the death toll and the gruesome reality of the American Civil War left many Americans devastated by loss and how atrocious the war was, making it difficult for Americans to cope with the aftermath of the war and how to redefine them as a people and America as a nation. And so this was a historic event of human beings “doing the impossible” by landing on the moon in a positive way in comparison to a time when approximately 620,000 men (about two percent or six million dead in the United States population as of 2008) had died (many who not only died from disease but from killing each other in a mechanized, uncompassionate manner). This shows how people can change and how there is no obstacles humanity can’t overcome or limits to how far humanity can go. To paraphrase Dr. Zamora: Mrs. Croft is a “relic” from the past that teaches us  about the present and even shows how far we can go in the future. And the narrator is an embodiment of this relic that is Mrs. Croft.  

A Land of Ethnic Diversity

Meanwhile, the narrator is also awaiting his wife, Mala, to come from India. It was an arranged marriage and although he was aloof to the idea of an arranged marriage he warmed up to her as she did to him, oddly enough through Mrs. Croft. When the narrator introduces his wife to Mrs. Croft she said that Mala “’is a perfect lady!’” (p. 195). This is symbolic in the fact that here is a woman who grew up in the late-nineteenth century with traditional values, and rather than being prejudice (as one may think), she was actually quite open to Mala. And this reflects what the author depicts America as a country: as a land of acceptance. That America does not discriminate. It accepts anyone from any ethnic background and gives them the opportunity to make a better life for themselves: this is indeed a country founded upon immigrants and has, and continues to be, a country made up of people from all sorts of people from all sorts of different backgrounds. Mrs. Croft (as America), in the author’s views, also represents independence. Mrs. Croft had been living by herself and taking care of herself on her own. And the narrator and his family were able to have that experience of independence as well.

Interestingly enough, out of all continents all, the narrator decided to make his home in America. He came to America for an opportunity and made the rest of his life here. He did not grow up in a wealthy lifestyle in Indian (especially after the passing of his father), nor did he live a prosperous life in England, nor did he when he first came to America. But his experience through his travels across the three continents taught the narrator the important lesson to not give up, and overcome any obstacle that got in his way, just like the astronauts did by landing on the moon. Therefore when his son was “discouraged” the narrator told him that “if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer” (pp. 197-8).  

America gave him a solid job opportunity, helped him connect with his wife, in which he would gain much admiration and love for. It let him keep and embrace his Indian culture while also letting him assimilate in an entirely new one. It gave him his first home, and a son who attends an Ivy League school. America gave him and his family a better life that he couldn’t find elsewhere. While America is not perfect, and while we as American have critiques on the way this country has done things in the past and in the present, ordinary people from all over the world come to America to make a better life for themselves, making their own personal story extraordinary. It is something in the air within mainstream culture that can’t help but depict this country as a “land of opportunity.” And in my opinion, I think there is some truth to that.

Further Readings:

Read on the author's personal life in "Jhumpa Lahiri's Struggle To Feel American," NPR Books, November 25, 2008, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97418330

Interested in the time Mrs. Croft grew up in? Read Drew Gilpin Faust, The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, New York: Random House, 2008.

Debunking Authority, Debunking Truth: Cha’s “Melpomene Tragedy”

What is objective reality? What is truth? Is there one definitive answer or is life, history and even personal, ethnic and national identity constructed by multiple interpretations? Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982) in her chapter “Melpomene Tragedy” from her famous novel Dictee (posthumously published in 1982) addresses these issues of definitive truth and authority in a postmodernistic fashion. Given the colonial context in which Cha grew up with relating to Korea (her place of birth) and the colonial education she has received, she has a lot to say about authority and the way history and life is represented to us. Cha, in a sense, wants to undermine representation and how reality isn’t so straightforward, hence placing the reader, and even herself, in a realm of displacement. And we can see that through the vague manner of not understanding who is exactly the narrator is (except being female).  

In a letter the narrator writes to her mother, which may symbolically represent her motherland (Korea), her language represents authoritarian and deterministic attitudes that she grew up with. But she feels that despite being part of another nation and adopting another language (which is hard not to be part of) the narrator longs to return home. She writes, “Nothing has changed, we are at a standstill. I speak in another tongue now, a second tongue a foreign tongue. All this time we have been away. But nothing has changed. A stand still” (p. 34).

For those who have come from one country and has moved to another, one finds themselves disorientated at first. But slowly but surely we can’t help to begin following that path of embracing a mainstream culture by following certain ideas and ways of life. The narrator sees herself wanting so badly to keep her heritage, her ethnic identity that she had once grew up with. And in her letter to her mother she finds ways to justify that she is staying on that path no matter who else tries to impose another identity on her otherwise. For example, how American culture imposes itself on others. (Given the fact that Cha immigrated to America at a young age from Korea and how America played a role in the Korean War and the splitting of North and South Korea itself during the Cold War in mid-twentieth century, Cha knows firsthand in what that means.)

Imposing a certain set of ideas of what is right and what is wrong through authority is setting us up, as human beings, for failure. We are only seeing one side of the picture. Because there isn’t a right or a wrong answer as some may want to believe, but there are multiple versions and variations of how life is perceived and how we interpret it. And perhaps that is what the narrator was trying to say of American identity being deceiving because they promote democracy (as they had done with South Korea) in everyone having free will and choice, but they are taking away and changing something more valuable and important: their identity.

I pass a second curve on the road. You soldiers appear in green. Always the green uniforms the patches of camouflage [referring to Americans]. Trees camouflage you green trucks you blend with nature the trees hide you you cannot be seen behind the guns no one sees you they have hidden you. You sit you recline on the earth next to the buses you wait hours days making visible your presence (p. 38).   

            … Arrest the machine that purports to employ democracy but rather causes the successive refraction of her none other than her own (p. 41).

We possibly don’t, nor mostly likely can’t, have the answer to the big questions in life, but simply have answers. There isn’t just one form of living, but multiple ways. In which case, living with uncertainty and a life full of possibilities is a choice that we can embrace. And living a determined life ordered by whatever authority is something we can do away with.

Sandra Cisneros “My Name”: The Search for Individuality and Identity in America

Sandra Cisneros’ “My Name” is from her famous novel The House on Mango Street (1984) is an extraordinary text that touches upon themes of displacement, gender inequality, and of identity. Cisneros life and times is interesting, complex, and indeed complicated. And it is easy to see how her personal life translates into this text. Sandra Cisneros (1954- ) was born in Chicago and grew up in a chauvinistic, machista type of culture alongside six brothers, her Mexican mother and father. This made Cisneros feel isolated. She would even state that growing up it was like she had seven fathers instead of one.  Thus, Cisneros didn’t feel as part of that lifestyle and “My Name” is representative to her feelings at the time. Another crucial moment Cisneros also traveled a lot back and forth between Mexico and U.S. which gave her instability of who she was culturally, making feel like she didn’t belong to either. Although it can be interpreted that in her writing Cisneros did embrace biculturalism.

But who is Sandra Cisneros? That is based on interpretation. For example, some websites classify her as an American writer. But on her own website she doesn’t state what she would classify herself ethnically. She just writes how she was born in Chicago and about all the success she made in America through her writing. Yet again, she writes on the Latino experience, is involved in the Latino community and various organizations, and is currently living in central Mexico. Therefore, this is an important question to tackle when trying to understand Cisneros and what it means to be American.

The narrator of this text begins by explaining the definition of her name and how she personally interprets. Cleary doesn’t associate herself with her name because it represents not only represents “sadness” to her, but makes her feel inferior gender-wise. Her grandmother who had her same name (whom she inherited it from) reminds the narrator of that sad hope as she was victim of being mistreated due to the chauvinistic lifestyle that comes with the Mexican culture. The narrator feels that she wants a name that she can personally identify with. She wants to create her own identity, not have an inherited one.

Historically speaking, given that ideas of feminism had flourished influencing Cisneros during the time she wrote the text, the narrator’s break from her name does not only represent her transference to a more American identity but also to lift the stigma of being an inferior sex. As mentioned before, the narrator inherited her name, Esperanza, from her grandmother, which to the narrator “means sadness, it means waiting … [as Mexicans] don’t like their women strong.” Actually in an interview, Cisneros explained how when she was a grad student she created Esperanza when she was “feeling very displaced and uncomfortable as a person of color, as a woman, as a person from working-class background.” Although, writing the novel as a whole she never actually believed the impact she’d make on others. “When I wrote ‘House,’ when I started it, I didn't think I was giving voice to Latino women. I thought I was just finally speaking up. I had been silenced, made to feel that what I had to say wasn't important.”

 Nevertheless, Cisneros and her writing has made a major impact in the Chicano community, to the Chicano literary movement and contributed to the construction of the Chicana identity. The House on Mango Street in particular has sold over two million copies and is read in middle schools, high schools and in universities across the nation. All in all, the text in relation to American identity perhaps suggests that there’s no such thing as being “American.” It’s about finding yourself and who you are as a person and your place as an individual in the world at large.

Further Readings:

Audra McLeod, "Sandra Cisneros: An Interdisplinary Approach to The House on Mango Street,"  http://www.unc.edu/~dcderosa/STUDENTPAPERS/childrenbattles/SandraCisneros.html
Sandra Cisneros own homepage, http://www.sandracisneros.com/

                                          Sandra Cisneros and her early life