Writing Task Mentor Quote – Fan

In “Prison Studies” by Malcolm X, he states that the prison environment actually helping him to be more focused on his studies, in the last sentences he said ‘Where else but in prison …as much as fifteen hours a day.’ which proves he in fact appreciated to be able to study in jail. In this case, while his knowledge expands tremendously the fact that black can’t be educated hurts him in every book he read. He said ‘My homemade education gave me …was afflicting the black race in America.’ he understands being unable to listen, thinks, and write was hurting the black race in America.

In Downtown Manhattan 140 Henry st. apt4c, a crowded place filled with dirt and ashes, plenty of food and rice. I remember the first day in school, I walk into my ESL classroom, which is a bilingual classroom. I heard someone speaking in Chinese, I want to get to know him then I sit right next to him, all of a sudden my teacher started to announce and distributing the sticky notes. She wants us to write down our name, age, and habits, the kid that sitting next to me translated for me. It started all good but stuck in the habit part, I just wrote ‘I dong no‘ instead then hand in my work proudly. During the class conversation, I was looking down at my notebook, at a sudden point, they look at me and laugh a little bit then I was confused. After class, a kid behind me use a marker to write the word ‘Stupid’ and stick the note on my backpack which I don’t realize, on the way back home, I felt a look there are always somebody laughing, and I don’t know why then I started to run toward my apartment, my uncle saw me running grab me by the wrist, peel off the sticky notes on my backpack. He told me ‘This means dumb, if you don’t want this scenario to happen again, study as hard as you can if you can’t totally understand a language of a country that you were living in, what is the difference between deaf, blind and you.’ At this point I really try hard to study and get to where I am now, Malcolm X’s words just brought me back to that day, its relevant author Malcolm X’s quote, which is large progress in my educational journey. Also, I know a little about Chinese image and stereotypes by studying, for example, Chinese eyes, skinny, knows Kung Fu, and good at math. Therefore, I saw a lot of similarities between Malcolm’s phrase and my uncle’s words.

Brooklyn, in another city tech building attending the Clip program, my teacher told me she’s doubling my potential on handling college work, by asking me these questions ‘Do you really prepare to participate in college?, or do you want to spend one more year in another program called Cuny Start? because you didn’t pass your test.’ The Clip environment is like a battlefield with people from different ethnicity, people study 8 hours per day, your classwork is your trenches and your pens are your weapons, to kill every essay. People over there must complete 1 essay each week, 1000 words, every day was very busy that I can’t even bite my sandwich in 15minute break, I can’t see lights of my future, I don’t even know the purpose of doing classwork because I just wanted to take the final test, I consider myself a piece of rotten wood, without spirit, but her words ignite me makes me wants to prove myself to her, and by doing homework and classwork I really gain the ability to write long articles and connecting my ideas to the quote. Just like Malcolm said ‘Where else but in prison could I have attacked my ignorance by being able to study intensely sometimes as much as fifteen hours a day.’ In my situation, Clip was my prison, but I didn’t study as much as he did, but still, a lot of progress was done, due to that environment.