Author: aracyli acero

Edna Greene Medford is the author of ” Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation”, she made me realize how Abraham Lincoln had a huge impact on the freedom of African Americans. He did everything he could to stop slavery from happening but in some southern states they still treated colored people as slaves and it was hard for them to make a living out of what they were earning. He fought for the freedom of African Americans because he never understood how in the Declaration of independence it says “all Men are created equal” but by all they only meant for white American people and not colored people. He didn’t like how they would mistreat African Americans  just because of their skin color. It didn’t matter if they were Americans too, they just saw them as slaves. Abraham Lincoln ” hated slavery because of its monstrous injustice.” That’s why he did everything to stop it because  he knew no one had the guts to fight for their freedom and give them equal rights just like everyone had. He made sure that African Americans get their citizenships, and told them be free and vision about what America could be. Lincoln eliminated “Jim crow legislation , desegregated the educational system, and stop all housing and employment discrimination through out the nation.” But after all of this he knew that even if they had their freedoms some would still mistreat them and not care at all about what Lincoln fought for.

In the video called  “Viruses vs. Bacteria | What’s The Difference” Dr. Finch teaches us how viruses can reproduce quickly once it gets into our cells. She also let us know that not all bacteria cells are bad. Some of them can be actually good for our bodies, but most of them can cause infections to us. With the corona virus around us we should stay indoors so the virus won’t be able to reproduce in our bodies. I noticed that this situation started getting more serious and we should practice social distancing so the virus can lower down, and also keep washing your hands.

In the book called “American Slavery-and-‘the Relentless Unforeseen'” by Sean Wilentz it talks about how slavery was inevitable because of the moral Revolution that happened in the late 1740s and early 1750s.  During the moral Revolution they were really concerned that their society should be able to have full power. That was the beginning of slavery. Ever since then not only African Americans but also Hispanics became were treated really poorly and were abused by white Americans. He also talks about how there were many people who were against slavery and  for slavery, it caused a huge fight. The main difference between Hannah Jones story and Wilentz is that Hannah Jones wrote about what African Americans went through when they were mistreated and how they deserve equality like everyone else. Wilentz wrote about what led to slavery and talks about the history of it. What i think Sean Wilentz meant by ” Relentless Unforeseen ” was that people before never thought they would become slaves for people who think they are powerful. They never thought they would receive this hate and abuse. I think Hannah Jones agree with this because African Americans deserved better, they were never supposed to be treated like that. They deserved the same equality like everyone else. When we look back at those tragic events it makes me upset because of the way they were discriminated just because of the color of their skin. Those people who experienced it were scared that they would get lynched, beaten up on the streets, etc. They would be very upset because they didn’t get to have the freedom they wanted, if they did something wrong by accident or just look at a white women they would get killed or beaten up.

In the article called “The 1619 Project” of the writers called Nikole Hannah Jones talks about black Americans and how they never had freedom and equality in the United States. Through her article she talks about how black Americans deserve the respect and equality because they constructed and transformed United States most attracted spots. Without them we wouldn’t have those beautiful attractive tourists spots. Throughout the years they never got credit for it, it was always the white Americans who got the credit and they just left the black Americans on the side . That’s what basically Hannah Jones is trying to tell us throughout her article how black Americans should get the respect and how they should be treated equally forever . I feel like in this article it doesn’t only fit for black Americans but also immigrants. For example there are many  camps that immigrants are in and those camps are in bad shape, without beds for to sleep on, there are no medication and they also have a few food supplies for them to eat. They have those immigrants in those camps because they rather not have them in the United States when because they think they are taking their jobs with their food away and that those immigrants are making look bad. But actually have helped the United States rise up on population and also have many different cultures here. I consider myself Ecuadorian-American not only American because I have to support both of my countries,but sometimes the way Americans treat other people for example Hispanic, black people or Asians it just makes me not want to support United states. I don’t like how Americans discriminate other people. Everyone in America are supposed to have equality just like the declaration of independence said ” all men are created equal “. That’s one of the reasons why Hannah Jones doesn’t like about America. Why would they founding fathers say that if they don’t even believe it. What was the whole reason? Did they just want to live under a lie? I think it’s just pure evil how white Americans view us Hispanics and black Americans as people who aren’t supposed to step in the United States.

I belong to many different discourse communities for example in social media I’m always on Snap chat, Instagram , and Netflix. The community of Snap chat and Instagram is a place where people can post and be at the same time informed on a daily basis, and in this community everyone has a chance to see and re post it in their own page or snap. The community of Netflix is that everyone can watch any movie or binge watch a new show. Its a place where mostly everyone goes to watch a movie and spend their time on Netflix for the whole afternoon. Another discourse community I’m in is at my workplace, as employees our goal is to make other people feel welcome and to make it a friendly environment so the business could be running smoothly. We all communicate with each other by text messages where we talk about shift changes, ways we could make the place more welcoming,  etc. Also every time someone starts their shift they have to write their names on this booklet so that the manager can see what time we started and ended our shift. Another discourse discourse community would be my religious community. My religion is Christianity, our goal in this community is to have a strong relationship with God. In which we all attend church on Sundays and go to bible study to learn more about God and how we can all be closer to him. Our ways of communication are by prayers , songs , or announcements that invite other people to upcoming events, meetings and activities. By these announcements and prayers it helps us bring other people to come to church and have a relationship with God.

In the book my class reading right now ‘Drown’ by Junot Diaz we tend to have one common discourse communities, for example the discourse  community of family. The discourse community of families is that we are born in it, we didn’t have a choice whether we wanted to be in that family or not. In the book Rafa and Yunior  were just born in the family and they didn’t have a choice just like us. They had the same last name of their father even though they aren’t close to him. With their mom they got more respect and value her more because they grew up with her, and she raised them while their father was in the United States. The way they be communicating would be through a phone or face to face. But with the father they don’t really talk to him but when they do it would be in small sentences. That would be because the father won’t talk to them and he gets easily irritated. Even though I have a better relationship with my parents we share a common discourse community.

Another discourse community I have would be the one about friendships. Our goal in my friendship group would be to create  unforgettable memories, travel to  many different countries or cities and to move in together in the future. Our regular meetings would be at my basement, we all spend the whole afternoon there and talk about how our day went, or gossip we found out during the day, etc. We communicate with each other through snap chat, messages, or phone calls. We talk mix Spanglish because if we forget a word in English we could just say it in Spanish so we don’t complicate things. Some slang words we use would be ” pa fuera” which means take it outside, we use it when someone in our group says something stupid or does something stupid we say “pa fuera”. Another slang word we use is ” alien face” we call any guy that we don’t like an alien face because they be looking like a green alien. We also say lets go get something to eat and we already know what place we are talking about, we all just get ready and head the same direction. That place is a small Ecuadorian restaurant and they make the best morrocho ( Ecuadorian spiced corn pudding drink). To conclude, these are some examples that I am in a discourse community and some I can relate to the book Drown by Junot Diaz. Lastly a discourse community is where a group of people are set to conquer the same goal.

Discourse community is place where a group of people communicate to achieve a specific common goal. Linguistic John Swales outlined 6 characteristics a discourse community should have. First, the group should have common public goals, what I understood by that was that  everyone in the group should have the same goal so that in the discourse group they could help each other achieve the goal together. Second, the group should have methods of communicating among members, lets say the group didn’t have any methods to communicate with each other, do you think any think anything will be accomplished ? No right, that’s why in the group everyone should be communicating about what they are going to do to get to their goal. Third, participatory communicating methods, everyone in the group has to participate, they all have to share their ideas that way everyone could see how to get to the goal. Fourth, the group should have a genre because that will define the group. Fifth and sixth, would be that the discourse group  should have a lexis and a standard of knowledge needed for membership. What I understand that role of the discourse community is way where people can communicate to achieve a goal or a purpose.

The social context of my writing in the academia would be that my writing has been the same always. Ever since high school I’ve been trying to get better at writing but I think it still hasn’t changed a bit, I still need help. Last semester in eng 1101 my teacher goal was to make everyone in the class a better writer and it will be really difficult for me because I have a hard time trying to know what to write about. My writing outside the academia would be better than the one in the academia because I really don’t have to write a lot which makes it easier for me. My understanding changed through our reading and discussion by making me understand that everyone has a different way of communicating with others. For example, in the book we are reading right now called ‘Drown’ by Junot Diaz, the author speaks in 2 languages (Spanish and English), this shows us that you can communicate in many ways it doesn’t have to be just one language, people express their feelings in many different ways.  In my household we speak both Spanish and English , sometimes it be difficult for my siblings and I to understand my parents when they speak Spanish to us but that’s how we are able to communicate within our family.

Another example would be that in text messages people would express their feelings and communicate  through emojis, we can admit everyone have used emojis to communicate with other people. I feel by using emojis we can express our feelings through text messages. In the book one discourse community is the one they have with their family. In the book Yunior is telling us what kind of relationship he has  with his brother ,mother and father. I could see the relationship he has with his brother is really comfortable. For example he would be calling him names , they would tell each other everything and they would both go and bother other kids about how they play any type of game. The relationship he has with his mother is actually good he loves his mom, and he be telling us how beautiful she is and how much she takes care of all 3 of them ( his brother, his sister and him). The relationship he has with his father is very strict because Yunior wouldn’t  know when his father is actually happy or not, he would always has a mean face and also he knew that if he doesn’t behave good his father would beat him up. This is a discourse community that I can compare too, and I know other people can also.  The relationship Yunior has with his family is the same relationship I got with my parents and siblings. Even though I don’t have a close relationship with my father we still communicate and laugh every time we hang with each other every chance we get. Then with my mother and my siblings we communicate with each other all the time and we also have a family group chat where we would find memes and send it to each other. Our goal as a family would be to go to many cities during the summer and have fun.

Another comparison to discourse community is the way Yunior looks up to Rafa ( who is his older brother). Even though Rafa would pick on him, make fun of him,etc, he still looks up to him because that’s his older brother. Yunior doesn’t care about those things even though it hurts his feelings he just want to be like him and share many experiences with Rafa. I don’t have an older brother but I have a cousin who I look up too because I’ve lived with him since I was six years old. At first I would think he was the most annoying person but still loved him as if he were to be my other brother. We would argue a lot, play fight a lot and even call each other names but I look up to him because I just wanted to be like him. I wanted to create many memories and experiences with him.While I was reading Drown I came across this character named Ysrael. Ysrael was this character who had a an accident when he was just a baby that made him wear a mask. What happened was that when he was just a baby a pig ate his face which made him get bullied a lot. Yunior and Rafa goal was the see what was underneath that mask they would throw rocks at him and even go to his house. But not only Yunior and Rafa bullied him it was also his cousin, and other Kids in town. Ysrael was a really nice boy but the others didn’t care because of his face. The discourse community was that they call were cruel and their goal was to see what was underneath that mask, and I don’t think they care anything about him.

In conclusion in each discourse community everyone in it should have the same goal, share the same ideas to conquer it. If none of them had same goal nothing will be done, they would understand each other and there would be no discussion to talk about. Each of these examples of discourse community that I talked about, some of us would understand but I think others won’t really know how it feels . That’s an example of how each community some people would understand what is happening but others would actually know how it feels and how it’s significant to them.