Ticket Out the Door

"There is more than one way to burn a book..."(Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury)

Wow, what a great class today! I learned so much today from my fellow students' midterm presentations, particularly about power structures within literacy and censorship, what it means to have "American" values from a journalistic viewpoint, and the difficulties of assimilating into a new culture. I realized, on a deep level from the students who presented on "class", that knowledge is truly the key to freedom and individual agency. However, people don't just need access to factual knowledge, they need the ability to read critical literature, literature that makes them critique, question, and not accept everything at face value. Also, there are more ways to burn a book than physically burning one. For example, teachers can burn books metaphorically by discrediting literacy, discouraging readers, or not allowing students to read the books they want. Without active reading, the existence of books do not matter.

When the "race" group Google searched "American family", I was shocked to see that there were no ethnically mixed families in any of the photos. I acknowledge that there was at least diversity among the families, i.e. African American families, Asian families, etc...however, it was a wakeup call to see that mixed race families were not depicted. Being half-Japanese and half-caucasian, I realized that America still has a way to go in honoring the presence of mixed race families, and encouraging the mixing of races. The poem "Elena" by Pat Mora brought up by the other "race" group really touched me because it reminded me of how the loss of my mother tongue, Japanese, signified a severance of a more whole, authentic relationship with my mother. I felt very close to her growing up, but I always felt that not being able to speak Japanese fluently with her also blocked me from accessing an important part of her identity. I realized how difficult retaining one's mother tongue and culture is when assimilating to a dominant culture, but also how crucially important it is in keeping one's own culture alive, as well as genuine relationships with one's parents and family in one's "mother" culture.