Reminder: The deadline for the 2023 Literary Arts Festival Writing Competition is March 20! All creative work is welcome! 

To submit work, students should visit the City Tech Literary Arts Festival OpenLab Website:

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This week, I want to introduce a topic familiar to all Americans (the immigrant experience) and a less familiar one: the treatment of Native Americans at the turn of the 2oth century.

Enshrined on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor is one of the world’s most famous poems: “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus. 

The New Colossus (1882)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The poem is a sonnet by a gifted poet of Jewish descent.  In it, memorable metaphors, similes, and images are used (“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame” and the “air-bridged harbor” for example). Unlike the Colossus of Rhodes (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), America has a statue that does not celebrate military conquest but welcomes all—even the “the homeless”—to its “teeming” shores (Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”)

Read the biography of Emma Lazarus: HERE. 

Yet, even getting enough funding for erecting this statue (a gift from the French) was a challenge. The US government was unwilling to pay for the statue’s pedestal, so a campaign was started by the New York World newspaper, which raised the money, one penny at a time, from the contributions of everyday people. The reluctance to fund the statue on Ellis Island revealed a divided country at the time over whether or not to be an open asylum to the world.

To become an American citizen up until the 1920s (with one exception – see below), no papers were needed. Arriving at Ellis Island, newcomers just had to pass a health exam and were then ferried over to Manhattan (many would stay and live on the Lower East side).  If you haven’t been, be sure to one day visit the Tenement House Museum that explores this history.

During the 1880s and 90s, there was also a reaction to open immigration polices. In 1882, the US government enacted our first law regulating (preventing really) immigration from certain countries.  Most notorious was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  Read about this law: HERE.

This law infuriated many including the gifted author Sui Sin Far. In response to this unfair law, she wrote the story “In the Land of the Free”

As this story shows, Far sought to challenge social and political discrimination against Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans. Her goal in writing was to encourage mutual understanding and respect between the Anglo and Asian communities.

Although she was born Edith Maud Eaton and spoke only English, Edith adopted the name Sui Sin Far to emphasize her Chinese heritage. The Chinese name translates as “fragrant water flower” and signifies “dignity and indestructible love for family and homeland.”

Another compelling read is the short autobiography “School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkala-Sa  (1876-1938). Zitkala-Sa’s story tells the story of how a young Native American girl was forced to attend an “American” school, so that she would become fully assimilated, losing her Native American heritage in the process.  It is a story both heart-breaking and filled with courage.

The works by Emma Lazarus, Sui Sin Far, and Zitkala-Sa speak to the challenges of living in “the land of the free” when one’s own culture and origins are not fully respected.

For this week’s post, I ask that you comment on ONE of these THREE OPTIONS:

1. On a poem by Emma Lazarus (chose a poem other than the “New Colossus” and connect the poem to her bio HERE)
2. On “In the Land of the Free”  by Sui Sin Far
3. “School Days of an Indian Girl”, the brief, moving autobiography of Zitkala-Sa.

Discuss a theme, the artistry, or a part of the work that is most meaningful to you. FEEL FREE TO FOLLOW UP ON A PREVIOUS STUDENT’S POINT BUT AVOID REPEATING SIMILAR IDEAS.

PLEASE NOTE: In April, we will be reading Freshwater by author Akwaeke Emezi.

Here is her biography:  Akwaeke Emezi .

To obtain a copy of this book, please fill out the following form so that a copy can be mailed to your address (on the form you can also arrange to pick the book up in my office in Namm 503). 

Book Mailing Request Form for Online Students

Emezi will be our featured speaker at this year’s Literary Arts Festival on April 27, 2023 (in our new theatre), which I hope you can attend.

The Festival includes the 2023 Literary Arts Festival Writing Competition, which is now open for submissions!  Students may submit their work on the City Tech Literary Arts Festival OpenLab website:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/literaryartsfestival/submission-guidelines/

All creative work is welcome and must be submitted by March 20, 2023.

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Students:

Thank you for your insightful readings of the poetry Paul Laurence Dunbar and his wife Alice. 

As you noted, the Dunbars lived challenging personal lives in a society that mistreated African Americans. This situation was particularly hard for those that strove to make a living as artists.

We will continue these themes when we encounter the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and again in Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi  (please be sure to get your copy of the book!).

This week, I want to focus on the fight for women’s rights that also took place in the 1880s and 1890s. 

Two giant figures in this societal battle were the writers Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Please watch their biographies below:

Kate Chopin

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Below are one short and one longish story written by each.

By Gilman:

“If I Were a Man”

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)

By Chopin

“Story of an Hour” (1894) (respond to one of the highlighted notations)

“The Storm” (1898)

Post Assignment (Due: Monday, March 6)

Choose one story to discuss in terms of the elements of literature:

Review: Elements of Fiction

BE SURE TO READ THE STUDENT POSTS THAT COME BEFORE YOURS.  IF YOU WRITE ON A STORY ANOTHER STUDENT HAS WRITTEN, REPLY TO THAT STUDENT’S POINT (EXPANDING ON IT) OR COMMENT ON A DIFFERENT ASPECT OF THE STORY. I’M HOPING TO END UP WITH EXTENDED READINGS OF ALL FOUR STORIES, SO STRIVE TO AVOID REPETITION

Here are some of the elements you can focus on, in simpler terms:

Genre: discuss your story as a “realistic” or “realist”  text

Theme: How does the story convey the lack of rights and confinement of women in the 19^th century?

Imagery:  Choose a carefully described scene from one of the stories. What is the larger meaning of the imagery?

Characterization: What are the defining traits of the main (or minor) characters – especially interesting in “If I Were a Man.”

Plot (the storyline):  Is  the story unusual in some way? Is there a surprise ending?

Use of irony: Discuss how the reader understands something a character doesn’t.

Symbolism (something that stands for something else): Consider, for example, the color yellow, the storm, a man’s pockets, crawling, a bedroom with locked windows, etc.

Setting: Consider the significance of the time, the place (room), the location of a story, the weather.

Use of Language: Consider the aesthetics of the story– use of comparisons (metaphors and similes), carefully chosen words.

PLEASE NOTE: In April, we will be reading Freshwater by author and journalist, Akwaeke Emezi.

Here is her biography:  Akwaeke Emezi .

To obtain a copy of this book, please fill out the following form so that a copy can be mailed to your address (on the form you can also arrange to pick the book up in my office in Namm 503). 

Book Mailing Request Form for Online Students

Emezi will be our featured speaker at this year’s Literary Arts Festival on April 27, 2023 (in our new theatre), which I hope you can attend.

The Festival includes the 2023 Literary Arts Festival Writing Competition, which is now open for submissions!  Students may submit their work on the City Tech Literary Arts Festival OpenLab website:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/literaryartsfestival/submission-guidelines/

All creative work is welcome and must be submitted by March 20, 2023.

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POST DUE: Thursday, FEB. 23

Hi Students:

Thank you for your incisive discussions of the first half of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.  As you made clear, this work is resoundingly “realist” that tells the hard story of a young boy, grappling (as Linnette and Ceci tell us) with his conscience.  He wants to do the right thing (be civilized, learn manners, and get an education) but something keeps gnawing at him.  He feels, as John writes, imprisoned both by the abuse of his father and the immorality of the household he lives in.  Aunt Polly and Aunt Sally are owners of Jim, an enslaved man.  Like Huck, Jim, by chapter 8, will also make his escape.

At the moral center of this work is the decision Huck makes when he finds Jim hiding in the woods just like him. As Aisha writes, “Huck faces a difficult decision to break the law and violate his moral code, but he ultimately chooses to do the right thing and take a risk to help his friend.”

Mark Twain, as a realist writer, wanted to confront one of the central issues of the post-Civil War Era (or The Reconstruction Era, 1865-1900). The Reconstruction amendments, as you recall, were supposed to provide equality for ALL Americans – but the reverse seemed to have taken place.

One of the loudest voices to speak up against the new Jim Crow (anti-black) laws in the South and on-going racism in the North was the African American author and professor, W.E.B Dubois.  In his highly regarded essay, “The Spiritual Strivings of the Negro People,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1897, Dubois writes about how “it feels to be perceived as a problem” and the resulting “double-consciousness” this causes.

Watch this video based on his essay HERE.    Here is the full essay.

Just yesterday, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Professor at Harvard, wrote a similarly inspired essay in the New York Times about the controversy on teaching African American history in schools, and why it’s so important to fully learn about the many, many powerful voices and varied works (and opinions) by African American writers, artists, and leaders in the last 175 years.

Read: “Who’s Afraid of African American History”

Another contemporary powerhouse who is speaking out on this topic is Columbia Law Professor Kimberly Crenshaw, one of the originators of Critical Race Theory. She also coined the important word “intersectionality” (a term which is also now facing criticism).

Read: “Changes to AP African American Studies a Shame”

As she explains in the article, “intersectionality” is a way of understanding humans from many vantage points, not just as stereotyped, uniform entities.  We especially need to “expand our understanding of Black reality to include the way patriarchy, homophobia, and class shapes our reality,  so we can better transform it [and make] connections with other movements and other people.” 

In light of the brilliant insights of Du Bois, Gates, and Crenshaw, this week let’s explore two more exceptional African American poets and authors: Paul Laurence Dunbar and his equally gifted wife, Alice.

Paul Dunbar’s two most famous poems are “We Wear the Mask” (about African American double-consciousness) and “Sympathy” (about what it feels like to be imprisoned in your own country), both written in the 1890s. As you read each poem, consider the symbolic meaning of “wearing a mask” and/or being a “bird in a cage.”  Think about how Dunbar’s rich language (and artistic use of rhythm and rhyme) conveys his deep feelings as well as the connection of these poems to points raised by Dubois and Gates.

Next, read the biographies of  Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Moore Dunbar.

Scroll down and choose one poem (either by Paul or Alice) to discuss.  CHOOSE A POEM ANOTHER STUDENT HAS NOT CHOSEN, OR ADD ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY TO ANOTHER STUDENT’S POST. Try to also make a connection to their biography or to a point made by DuBois, Gates, and/or Crenshaw.

I look forward to your explication and discussion of the poem you choose.

POST DUE: Thursday, Feb. 23.