pbernal's blog

Tearing Down the Language Barrier

Every environment, whether it is in the city, your home, or the outdoors, has obstacles to tear down and work through. We are not a perfect community and in a way it is great that we will never be a utopia. Individuals gain knowledge through experience, through failing and learning how to overcome and adapt to face our biggest problems. Individuals would never progress intellectually, mentally, or emotionally if our environments were problem safe, poke free bubbles.

Every environment is unique and created differently due to geographic and economic standards. Philadelphia’s solution for better environmental education caliber might not apply to Houston’s solution due to a lot of reasons, but most importantly because of how different each population in each of the environments is. Houston and Philadelphia are two different cities in two different states miles apart from each other, not only does location play a big factor in the issue but so does the general make up of both environments. We would need to take into consideration the types of communities that build both cities, which requires stepping in, and becoming personally aware with who lives there rather than focus solemnly on the problem at hand.

"If Camden was overseas, we'd have sent troops and foreign aid." -Dramatic much? Having seen Camden and interacting with some of the people, I feel like this article was blown up for publicity. Matt Taibbi claims to write about Camden, but when you write about someone or some place, shouldn't you speak from all the angles and not just the ones that will make people stop in awe and surprise. I too grew up in a publicized part of the city that is known to be one of the worst places to find yourself in. One fulll of drugs and violence and no hope for progress. Yet, I'm still living there, walking the "hopeless streets" and enjoying some of the most delicious food I've had in some of the "shaddiest" and "ugliest" family owned restaurants. Personally, I believe Matt has no right to talk about Camden the way he does. He mentions how corrupt and hopeless Camden is, and my question is- "What do you wish to achieve through this? Making it better?" No! If anything he gives Camden no hope, he gives its people, it's families and children no respect. He needs to apologize and learn to give places a chance based on self experience, not reputation. 

Intertwined Threads

Mexican-American, I’m both, not one stepping over the other. My skin radiates historical adventures that trace back beyond what my spoken memories can share. My speaking tongue and my perking ears can understand both sides of the spectrum as I walk on the land of the free, America the brave. I walk each step with fluidity and flexibility, making sure I don’t get too tight on one niche. As a Mexican-American, I carry both threads in me, I’m “heterogeneous and a complex network of entities.” I’m absorptive of both cultures and my existence as a whole is porous and permeable, for both cultures to flow in and out of me but never dissipate.

I have the privilege of being able to jump from one niche to the other. The access and ability I have to be flexible between both worlds is undeniably one of the best advantages of growing up in two different cultures, two different homes fostering me into a young woman with insights in both worlds.

When I was first asked to write about home, I wrote about a place, a school that sheltered me and offered me the landscape to feel safe and free of judgment. But after analyzing the works of Yinka Shonibare’s Magical Ladders and the reading article by Stacy Alaimo: Porous Bodies and Trans- Corporeality, my thoughts on home have altered. My home, my environment, my ecosystem is the intertwined threads of my identification as a Mexican- American.

Although I am physically unable to attend class, I wanted to share my opinions on the reading and the thoughts it sparked. 

"Language choices and practices determine who has access to resources, power, and control and who does not. Foreing language alienates children." Again, we talk in terms of accessibility and how important of a role in plays into individual's choices to be aware of their environment before they can even become a part of it. This reading brings up an important issue, how do we wish to spread environmental awareness and knowledge if we can't expand our ways of doing so? A lot of the times people underestimate the abilties and knowledge capabilties of minorities because they don't believe WE are able to obtain the importance of issues like environmental studies. WILD, a program dedicated to reaching out to those who aren't as accessible to educational resources, is a program that all other organizations and programs should learn from.

Heartbeat, a novel written by Sharon Creech is a book unlike any other that I read growing up. I was never really the kind of child to read books outside of class and my parents never really encouraged the importance of books. It wasn’t until middle school, at age twelve that I came across Heartbeat and since then I’ve been in love with Sharon Creech’s work.

Heartbeat is a novel written in verse. It’s a short poetic novel narrated by twelve-year-old Annie about the changes happening around her environment and how she finds running to be an outlet to handle it all. The free verse written style in the novel is a reflection of Annie’s mood and how everything in her mind flows when she’s running and thinking.

Annie is a twelve-year-old girl trying to understand herself and her emotions, but at the same time the many different things changing around her life. In the beginning of the novel, she has no stability and is overwhelmed by the things in life she can’t seem to understand or control, like that of her grandfather developing dementia and growing old while her mother is expecting a new born child which seems completely bizarre to Annie because she’s an only child. Then there’s also the relationship with her best friend, Max who makes Annie question why she runs and explores the role that running plays into Annie’s life.

Although I didn't get the opportunity of going to the Barnes Foundation to experience Shonibare's exibit, watching just the video made me really interested in his work. His collections aren't just about self expressions, they're about melting both, having the priviledges of a white man as well as having the freedom of and right to critique them. As the video played, and I explored a few more images of his work and the more I saw the more I built on the idea of building on our connections. Shonibare, himself identifies as both European and African and freely uses both identities to create what his mind unravels. Like him, I believe that I shouldn't have to choose one identity to identify who I am. I am Mexican- American, which means I am not only moving forward and adapting to the "american life" but keeping the threads that keep me tied to my physical attributes. I can be a part of this modern society and enjoy it but at the same time I can have the freedom of enjoying not having my phone and listening to Have you ever seen the rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival on blast as I lay away in the backcountry. I can be both and enjoy both quite equally, I shouldn't have to feel forced to choose which defines me more. 

Shonibare's work is all about being among the abyss and not feeling stressed or chained to a perspective you must believe and stick to forever. It's about fighting among all the disadvantages and yet managing to stick your head above the current and enjoying the sun's rays as they glisten on your face. 

Like Morton, I too think that the ecological thought is more than just taking the scientific stand and that it's more than just global warming, recycling, and solar power. To be environmentally aware is to take everything in our sorroundings into effect. Not only the ecosytem and our connection with the living and non living aspects of it, but also the relationships we build, the art, and awareness. I don't think an environmentalist should take offense or feel at all like we're degrading the meaning or importance of the term "environment". If anything, they should agree with what Timothy says, "Ecology includes all the ways we imagine how we live together." Nature exists in all different types of ways and humans are not going anywhere for a long time. Rather than creating boundaries and making everything seem like it belongs in a certain category, we should push for coexistence. 

Sunnyside, Houston, TX

When I was four, I started school and had to go to the afternoon session of Pre Kindergarten. Rather than spending my mornings watching PBS kids, I’d walk around my neighborhood with my grandma and our two-seat stroller looking into people’s trash bags, searching for aluminum cans. We’d carry big black trash bags in the stroller making it easier for us to walk around and keep piling on the cans inside the trash bags. If we had a good day, we’d fill two trash bags and come home to a rinse with the water hose and climb back into bed as we both watched the telenovela and had pan dulce with cola-cola for breakfast.

I started to explore my community and get to know the people around us by picking at people’s trash. I didn’t think there was anything bad with it. No one would point or stare. If anything, our friends around the neighborhood would already have separated the aluminum cans from the rest of the trash and saved us the time and effort. My grandmother wasn’t an American Citizen or Resident at the time, but she had to make money some way or another because my grandfather and her couldn’t support a house full of seven men and three daughters, plus a new granddaughter. 

The Posse Foundation Scholarship is NOT a minority or low income scholarship. It is a merit scholarship awarded to students who demonstrate leadership in all different ways. I am a Posse Scholar at Bryn Mawr College from Houston. My POSSE and I did not receive this scholarship because we're minorities or low income, we became Posse Scholars because of our hard work and leadership skills. 

Please share your support through the Bryn Mawr Community and also those back home to spread the word of what Posse really is.

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/16/262789593/white-house-seeks-ways-to-get-poor-kids-through-college

Re-Creating our World

Quid Pro Quo

Growing up I was always confused, not just about the common mommy where did I come from, but also why did my family seem different from everyone else’s. They talked about family game nights and I really couldn’t wrap my mind around what it meant to hold a strong family bond. I’d watch TV and the concept of home being a safe space seemed bizarre.

Home, for many is known to be a place of comfort, a safe space, but for me it’s never been a place I wanted to be. Ever since I can remember, I’d be absorbed with school or any extra curricular activities just to avoid being home. I wasn’t involved in my community because I wanted to be a model citizen or a well rounded over achiever student, I just wanted out. Home has never really been a place I’d like to stay for the day, it’s just somewhere I can sleep. It hasn’t been a place of comfort and I’m always trying to get out, hence the out of state college decision.

I’d walk around bitter and to be honest, I was envious of my friends and or anyone for that matter that at the end of the night could go home as their sanctuary. Ultimately my drive and incentives to avoid spending any time at home drove me to The Chinquapin School. When time came to leave Elementary School, rather than automatically following after a lot of my peers to the nearest neighborhood Middle School, I looked for better options, anything that would swallow me away from my house.