What I Learned This Semester

This is a drawing of all the major things things I learned or enjoyed learning about this semester. The Cosmic Race by philosopher José Vasconcelos was a major concept I never knew about. The idea of labeling Latinos a “Cosmic Race” is interesting because it would be giving a name to our mostly ambiguous identity that has been confusing us since the beginning of time. We are a diaspora so our culture is scattered and we may be mixed with many things. By giving it a name and understanding that we are a people that are many things because of our history makes its us feel seen and valid. That is why the person in the middle is someone of many colors because of the inside we are made up of many cultures. Bad Bunny and Selena are two of my favorite artists that I respect and listen to constantly. I really loved learning more about them and their impact this semester. Lastly, The Young Lords was a group of NYC Puerto Ricans that I never knew about. They were very progressive and I feel like if they existed today they would have many members and would be thriving. They fought for our rights just like we are today.

My Reaction to: La Guera by Cherrie Moraga

Playlist for “Kimberle”

1. Isabel’s Moment (feat. Tobias Jesso Jr.) – King Princess

I chose this song because I feel like it is a song that really supports how Kimberle is feeling about her break up and how the speaker feels about her relationship with Kimberle.

Lyric: “But hope is something you find when you’re sober”

Quote from Kimberle: “Quite the little Cuban sandwich we’ve got here,” Kimberle said, passing me what now seemed like the obligatory after-sex joint followed by the vaguely racist comment.” Kimberle turns to smoking joints and cigarettes to numb her pain from the break up. Like the lyric suggests: there is no hope when you’re high and that is exactly how Kimberle feels without her girlfriend

Lyric: “And I’m still trying to draw all the lines through my friends and my lovers, it ain’t clear how we feel when we spend all this time with each other”

Quote from Kimberle: “Trembling there in the dark, I realized I wanted to kiss Kimberle—not for anyone else’s pleasure but for my own.” and “Kimberle, don’t you ever think about what we’re doing—about us?” These quotes relate because the speaker doesn’t want to be friends with Kimberle, she wants to be something more than just lovers. She’s not sure where Kimberle stands with her, but she knows that they spend an excessive amount of time with each other and there could be a possibility that they could be more than friends.

2. Hard Times – Paramore

I chose this song because Kimberle and the speaker are both going through Hard Times in their personal lives. The following quotes are examples of how hard their life has been.

Lyric: “(Hard Times) gonna make you wonder why you even try (Hard Times) gonna take you down and laugh when you cry (These lives) And I still don’t know how I even survive

Quotes from Kimberle: “Her girlfriend had caught her in flagrante delicto and walked out; depression had swallowed her in the aftermath.”

“She couldn’t concentrate at her restaurant job, mixing up simple orders, barking at the customers, so that it wasn’t long before she found herself at
the unemployment office (where her insistence on stepping out to smoke cost her her place in line so many times she finally gave up).”

“It quickly followed that she went home one rosy dawn and discovered that her landlord, aware that he had no right to do so but convinced that Kimberle (now four months late on her rent) would never get it together to legally contest it, had stacked all her belongings on the sidewalk, where they had been picked over by the students at International House, headquarters for all the third-world kids on scholarships that barely covered textbooks.:”

“Me, I’d just broken up with my boyfriend—it was my doing, it just
felt like we were going nowhere—”

3. Post Break-Up Sex – The Vaccines

This song is about having sex with strangers in order to forget your ex. This song relates because this is exactly what Kimberle is doing in order to cope with her feelings about her break-up.

Lyric: “Post break-up sex that helps you forget your ex, what did you expect from post break-up sex, Oh when you love somebody But you find someone”

Quotes from Kimberle: “Kimberle had not been installed in the studio more than a day or two (crying and sniffling, refusing to eat with the usual determination of the newly heartbroken)”

“To my amazement, Kimberle had brought somebody home. I didn’t especially like the idea of her having sex in my living room”

4. Alewife – Clairo

This song reminds me of Kimberle because she is suicidal and needs help from her friend. And in the song Clairo talks about how she could’ve committed suicide if her friend wasn’t there just like the way Kimberle could have done it if the speaker wasn’t there. An example of this is when the speakers goes out to search for Kimberle after she ran away through the window and goes missing.

Lyrics: You called me seven times
One, two, three, four, on the line
I didn’t mean to scare you
Just had the thoughts in my mind
They showed up to my door
My parents didn’t know what for
Swear I could’ve done it
If you weren’t there when I hit the floor

Quote from Kimberle: “She was asking me to keep her from killing
herself. There was no method chosen yet—it could have been slashing
her wrists, or lying down on the train tracks outside of town”

5. Mirrors – PVRIS

I chose this song because it reminds me of how the speaker may feel about Kimberle. The lyrics fit the same way the speaker would describe Kimberle especially while having sex with her. Kimberle is someone I feel like fits the “dead inside” description the song mentions and for some reason the speaker still likes her. The placebo feelings the song mentions is also a good way to describe how the speaker may be having romantic feelings that aren’t actually there, instead its probably lust.

Lyric: But when you float above my body
Standing up right above me
I don’t feel so lonely, lonely

Quote from Kimberle: “At one point, Kimberle was balanced above me, her mouth grazing mine, but we just stared past each other.”

Pandora’s Box Newspaper Connection

This is an article about a transgender woman named Tracey Williams that dies as a victim of domestic abuse. This connects to Arturo Arias’ Pandora’s Box because it is about how Pandora a woman who suffers under the fate of an abusive man gets freed by Juanita a woman who had just transitioned and was also about to suffer under the hands of physical abuse. Eventually Pandora decides to transition as well.

Selected Photography

These two pictures both draw my attention. They both showoff a landscape and subject. In the first photo the subject is the plant and in the second picture it is the triceratops. The landscape in the first picture is very open with rocks and dry plants and the second picture has a landscape that is tall and grassy. The biggest difference with these two pictures is their style. The first photo is black and white giving it this somber serious tone meanwhile the second picture is colorful and bubbly giving it a lighter lively tone. There are colors coming from the grass, the sun, the bubbles, and the people.

Poem and Movie Clip

This movie clip and poem connect to each other because what I see similar is that they are about trauma and their relationship to it. The Rocketman bio pic is about Elton John and his struggle with parental trauma, addiction, and sexuality. And in this beautiful scene he faces all the monsters in his life and lets go of their power on him. Then he proceeds to hug his inner child. I love this scene so much because I feel like trauma may exist within us, but no matter where you are in your life no matter how old you are it is never too late to be the person you want to become. I feel like this differs from the poem because the speaker is running away from their trauma. They don’t want to stop and face it because they aren’t ready to and that is okay. However, eventually the marathon will stop.

Porcupine Love Alternate Ending

i really really miss you now and long to see you.

I’m keeping a journal now since my therapist suggested it. “Your thoughts become a lot smaller once you let them out”. I am currently writing this as I am waiting in the airport for my flight to New Zealand–to see you. Love is something I have ran from my whole life. I’ve been scared of it. I’ve been scared of the helplessness, the lack of control, the feeling that I might have to depend on someone to hold me with my heart in the palm of their hands beating as loud as a drum as the passion pumps breaths into me.

It was all too much for me. I was immature and I wasn’t ready for someone like you Antenna. I know perfection does not exist, but you are the closest thing to it. I don’t need to explore the stars and fly around the moon to know what space is like because I found it in you. Your love is the heat that radiates off the sun and burns away the doubt that I have. With you my chakras are aligned, I feel a peace that I have never known. And with every country we explore I find new pieces of myself. I discover all the parts of myself that were blocked off and stopped me from loving you with every ounce of my body. You allow me to feel my emotions with an ease that flows like water, and with that strength I can make love to you like I never have before. When I insert my fingers in you and you feed me your sounds, I see an angel taking me to the skies with the dust of the stars in her eyes.

This is love and it is something I never want to let go of. Never again. I will hold you close to me until my last breath. I am so terrified, but I’m in too deep to turn back now, now I can only feel my legs running to you with no hesitation or intention to stop, the pain doesn’t hurt me because our love fuels my adrenaline. I love you Antenna and I’ve been faraway, but I’m coming and I will never run from you again.

Group #2

Josabeth Simisterra, Brianna Gonzalez, Maya Pacheco-Berger

Poem

Hex poem to colonizers, recolonizers, and haters

I hope you feel the sting of 

platano poppin’ oil

I hope when you try to jump back,

one drop jumps a second quicker onto your hand

and i hope when you bite into it, thinking the sting was worth it,

you realize you didn’t let the platano ripen enough

and it ain’t even that sweet

just like you.

Response

When reading this poem I first thought it would have a closer connection to brujeria/witchcraft because of the wording of hex, which would typically be used on one you wanted to get revenge on or spite them. I think it’s interesting how of all things the author wished that they wished for them to feel the sting of oil and taste unripe platano. It is so specific, when I was reading I was expecting it to hope they live horrid lives of misery because of the trouble they caused however it was only limited to one food. I think it’s funny because this happened to my sister last week, she forgot to check the ripeness and my mother was so sad taking a bite of each one hoping there was at least one piece that could be salvaged. I understand how sad it is not getting the flavor you want but from the outside perspective of one’s whose culture has been taken and dragged through the mud for profit it is amusing to watch people want to be apart of your culture so badly yet failing so miserably. While it is not a nice thing to wish on people a hex is in no way supposed to be a nice thing, it is in fact it’s supposed to torment your life something that’s always quite off but you can never really figure it out.   

Video: Platanos Maduros

This is an instructional video on how to make platano maduro. This is relevant to the poem because it adds visuals to what the poem describes. The oil that pops and splashes causing to sometimes burn people. Platano Maduro is so special to latin culture and it is included in many latin dishes.

Drawing

This is a drawing of a non-latinx person, specifically a colonizer getting burnt by the popping oil of the platano maduro.

Group 2:

Josabeth Simisterra, Brianna Gonzalez, Maya Pacheco-Berger

Presentation

The piece our group decided to go with was the Blog forum where many people were discussing the topic of interracial marriage. This blog post immediately caught our eye because it seems insensitive especially during these political times. When looking at the article attached it reads about a man (Keith Bardwell) refusing to marry an interracial couple simply because he “doesn’t believe in mixing races that way.” The constant pattern of burdening others and their happiness simply because you believe one thing (that can cause a lot of damage) is horrible and shouldn’t be something tolerated. While Bardwell thinks he’s doing well for the child because he believes that a biracial child will not be treated well by either the black or white community. The child is none of his concern and his need to interfere with these people’s lives is harmful in many ways. The couple will have to deal with this experience for the rest of their life while Bardwell thinks he played savior by thinking since he didn’t marry them he prevented a biracial child. (Which simply does not make sense since you don’t necessarily need to be married to have children.) Reading the responses to the article in the blog forum is just as upsetting considering that people were in agreement with Bardwell and promote these ideas publicly while hiding behind the excuse that they have black friends and are therefore not racist. This narrative is harmful in many ways because it lacks complex thinking. For example, Bardwell assumed this couple would be having children however marriage necessarily mean you’re having children either so if that was the case the reasoning behind his refusal to marry this couple is thrown out of the window because there would be no child for him to be thinking about in the first place. There are many other situations that just toss this idea away however it is clear that people with this idea simply don’t think this far ahead.

Drawing

The scribble of his face is supposed to represent his mind and how it is all over the place, therefore, explaining why he cannot grasp his head around the fact that other peoples lives are none of his business. The fence around his head represents the fact that he is fenced in by his thoughts of what he believes is right and cannot escape this thinking because he’s created this reality that what he believes is what is supposed to be upheld. The quotes around his head breakdown the reasoning behind why he refuses to marry interracial couples and the reason they are written so sloppily is to make it harder to understand which shows how his thoughts aren’t clear and don’t necessarily make sense.

Video

This is a video that highlights the struggles of interracial couples. One thing I really took out of the video is that these people are genuinely so happy and in love. Nothing and no one can deny what these people have. A lot of the struggles come from the reactions of their parents or even strangers who think it’s wrong. A lot of what drives this hatred is racism.  I think people are really uncomfortable with the idea of having to experience another culture and share their own. People don’t want others to mix with a race that they deem inferior and sometimes it may go into classism. Race and social class can sometimes go hand in hand and interracial couples may face that criticism. How they were raised and what they grew up around may be invalidated by their partners’ family because it’s foreign to them. Interracial love is just love. It isn’t any different. The fact that it has to be labeled “interracial” is just proof of how much emphasis we put on race and ethnicity. Love has no bounds and the color of anyone’s skin shouldn’t determine their worth or value as a human being.