Family History: Beat for Love

My family history story is about my mother's grandmother and  how what she did made a difference in my existence and location.

My great grandmother on my mother's side of the family was destined to be a teacher according to her parents wishes. Back in those days a teacher was not allowed to be married, so she was not allowed to court (date). But when my great grandfather saw my great grandmother he just had to have her, so he set out to get her. The thing was, my great grandmother did not like him because he had a big head. But she grew to like him, and her parents did not like that idea. They soon started to date and he would go over her house to be with her. Everytime after he would leave from her house she would get beat with the whip hanging over the top of the door. But that did  not stop her because he love was to strong. It got to the point where before he even came over to her house she would go to the door grab the whip and give it to her dad so he could beat her to not waste any time after he left. After they dated for a while, my great grandfather asked my great grandmother to marry him. She knew it was wrong and totally against what her parents wanted for her, but love cannot be stopped so she agreed. They could not get married in a church because this had to be a private ceremony. So he told her to meet him on the bridge and he would be there with a minister waiting. So she followed his instructions and met him on the bridge and that is where they became man and wife. He told her to not tell anyone about their marriage, to keep it a secret. Because this as an important event in her life she had to tell someone, and that someone was her sister in law. But her sister in law told on her and that changed her life forever.

When her dad heard about her being married, he went up to my great grandmother's high school (she was about 17 or 18) and told her that her mother was sick and they had to get home immediately. When they walked in the house my great grandmother immediately knew that her father lied, but before she could do or say anything, her dad jumped on her and beat her like there was no tomorrow. when the beating was done she ran away to my great grandfather;s aunts house. My great great aunt ran a domino house, and a young lady was not supposed to be there because that was a place for old men to be and play dominoes. So she sat there scared for her life hoping that her dad would not get there and find her. She waited until my great grandfather came and got her, when he got her they went to his parents house. She said she did not like it there because it was a dirty place but she could not complain because my great grandfather was well off. He had chickens, cows, pigs and horses so he was more then able to provide for his family. while living with his parents they had two sons (not twins) one named Charles and the other named John Edward. They lived a pretty good life there until one night. (We do not know if this little part is true but I was told this so yes.) My great grandmother and father lived with his dad in Arkansas in the Jim Crow era where the whites were superior. So one specific night when my great grandfather went out with a couple of guys he got into it with a white man and had to rush home. As soon as he got into the house he woke up the family and said they had to leave and get out of there right away. So they packed up, said their good byes to his parents and were on their way. they dropped my  uncle Charles off at her mother's house because they planned to go back and get him when they were settled down. So they left the baby and came to California. They got settled in and were doing their thing, when my great grandmother got word that her baby Charles and her mother died in a burning house. they said the KKK was responsible for it but they did not know, so she had to go back and confirm it to make sure. She got there and sure enough, it was her mother and her baby. So she buried them and came back to California. They stayed here and had more kids. They had my auntie Cynthia is married to my uncle Troy and had Christopher and Cameron. My untie Bebe had my cousin Drina who is married to my cousin Jason had Jade and  Baby Jason, my cousin Tina who is married to my cousin Chris and they had Dominique and Michael, My cousin Charles named after my uncle Charles who had kids who's names I do not remember. My uncle Alvin who had my cousins Belinda and Alexis, my uncle John Edward who's kids i never met. My auntie Lee Lee who had my cousin Kiesha who had Devandre, Arion and Adonijah, La' Marque who had Malaysia and Niasha. My grandmother Jackie who had my auntie Roshanda who had Markus, Mario, Mark, Montrischa, and Montisha who had Rico; My auntie Gernisha, my auntie Ga'Kia who had Khalid and Kaliyah, and finally my mother Rischa who is married to my father Ronald who had Ron Jr. ,Re'Jon, Riahna, Randyn, my sister Kiara who is married to Antonio who had my neice Kimoni and Finally me Rahni Risje' Johnson. And this is my mother's side of the family story of how i got to be in California.

In this story I learn that on my mother's side I originate from the south. In learning about this story I see how far my family has come, we used to get beat with whips for dating, and bullied by the whites. Now I can date and choose my own future and not have to get hit by my parents about the decision I make about the type of future I want for myself. And no whited person can make me fled a town by threatening me. This story also tells me how strong my family is, we have been through a lot, and if they gave up back then to take the easy way out, then I would not be here today. but my great grandmother got beat everyday for the man she loves. I know little to no people who would get beat for someone they say they love, that is some strong loving right there,I could probably do that if i truly loved that person. and if she did not have the courage to put her trust in her husband and leave her parents at that age then I would not be here, and my family would not be in California, we would probably still be in Texas, Arkansas or some other places in the south. I do not yet know my role in my family because I am still growing and maturing, but I do know that I am strong willed, courageous and have a family who is there for me like her his family was there for them. IN a lot of ways I am similar to her, I am strong, and I am courageous. If I ever do love a man as much as she loved my great grandfather, if not more then that. I would get beat on his behalf everyday after he left from visiting. But until that day comes when I do love a man like that, I will not get beat for no man everyday after he visits me. My great grandmother is strong in many ways and that is the moral of the story, just like the title says "Beaten for Love" If love is that strong, nothing can tear it apart. And that is what I got from this story.

Tiger Mom vs. The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

There are a few similarities as well as differences between the article "Tiger Mom" by Amy Chua and part two of the book "The Joy Luck Club" titled "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" by Amy Tan. The stereotype about Asians is that they want their kids to be the best and they will do anything to keep their kids on top and they will make the decisions for them and basically live their lives because they want the best for them. In the article this is proved in a major way, throughout the article she says many things to back up this stereotype but one that I feel is similar to the story is,

"What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning...the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something...he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction."

In this excerpt from the article it is saying that work, work, work; and practice, practice, practice is all it takes for a kid to be better. and not only will it benefit the kid but it will benefit the parent. She is saying that children can not work on their own and they need the guidance of their parent, and the parent has to make the decisions for them. In the section of the book titled "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" the mother is Chinese and she wants the best for her daughter just like Amy Chua wants for her kids. She wants her daughter to be a prodigy, then she wants her to play the piano. Her daughter does not want to do that because she knows she can't live up to the expectations her mother sets for her so she slacks off and does not do her best. She later tells her mother she does not want to do this because she is no good, (pg 132. pg 137-138, pg 141-142). The differences between these two lives that these families have is that in the article she sticks strongly to her culture and she is very stricter, and because the kids were raised up like that they did not rebel and know of nothing other then what their mother is showing them. In the book her mother lets her rebel and she is not that strict to where she puts fear and restricts the daughter from doing what she wants to do.

I feel that the article is a little stronger then how the Chinese women in the story are portrayed. In the article Chinese mothers are portrayed as strict and always on their kids backs and not fun at all restricting them from having fun and running their lives how they think it should be ran. The mothers in the book are wise and posses powers of wisdom that are very strong. The mothers in the book are nowhere near being like the mothers described in the article, they may come a little close but not all the way there.

In Class Quickwrite: Joy Luck Club POst #2

In  my opinion I feel that the purpose of the introductory piece on page 87 in the book is to show that when kids do not obey their parents there is always a consequence to pay. In the introductory the little girl did not listen to her mother when she told her not to ride her bike around the corner because she would not be able to help her if she fell off. When the girl did not listen to her mother she did just as her mother predicted, she would off of her bike before she even got to the corner. So I feel that this is saying that mothers know what's best for their children and when they are not obeyed by their children the kids will always suffer the consequences. Or when they take their mother's words for granted, they wind up in trouble or in a situation they do not want to be in.

In the story "Rules Of The Game" her mother was very proud of her daughter's chess skills and she loved to brag about her to people she encountered. One day the daughter confronted the mother and said,

"I wish you wouldn't do that, tell everybody I'm your daughter... Aiii-ya. So shame be with mother?...It's not that, its just so obvious. its just so embarrassing... Embarrass you be my daughter?...I jerked my hand out of my mother's tight grasp and spun around knocking into an old woman. Her bags of groceries spilled to the ground...I took off , I raced down the street, dashing between people, not looking back as my mother screamed shrilly, 'Meimei! Meimei!..'"

in this quote the narrator Waverly Jong was embarrassed by her mother and she took her mother's praises for granted and she ran away. She did not run away for long, but she was out of her mother's sight and she could have gotten hurt. In a way she did get hurt because when she did finally make it home her mother said,

"We not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us."

 So from this quote her mother basically disowned her and said they had nothing to do with her. That was her move and now the next move had to be made by the daughter. so all in all the introductory meant that when you listen to your mother, good will come to you, but if you do not listen to her then bad will greet you on your way to disobedience.

Quickwrite #2

 "Family and honor should take priority over the rights of the individual family member."

In the chapter of the book titled Scar, I feel that the way An-mei's mother would respond to this is she would be on both sides of this argument. I say she would be on both sides of the argument because she did run away from her family to be with a man while she was a widow, which was against all tradition in her family. but on the contrary she  did cut a piece of her skin to put in the soup when her mother was on her death bed. So her mother would say that family honor should take priority over the rights of the individual because when it all comes down to it they are the leaders and they are the ones who you will eventually have to go back to when you are in need. Just like she did, she wanted to see her kids because she hadn't seen them since she left and she was a disgrace to her family so that did not help her situation at all. But she would be on the opposing side of this because she knows that at some point in their lives they have to be on their own and do what they have to do in order to live their lives. Just like she did, she made her own decision to run away and marry a man who already had two wives of his own. All of this happened while she was supposed to be a sad widow.

I feel that An-Mei would be on the pro side of this because she grew up with her grandmother who we all know is all for this because she is a traditional person. And like we discussed if you are taught something at a young age and you are exposed to other people's opinions, you start to believe that it is your own opinion even when we all know that it isn't.

Response To Chinese Mothers

From the article that I read in class, I found this little excerpt interesting:

In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

In this paragraph from the article it is a study and it is kind of funny because this is what people call a Chinese family. When we go to school with Asians we expect them to be really smart, and to get all As and to not have a life of free time to do what they want to do. This study in her book proves the stereotypes that are created for the Asian Americans are true. i find that this study is really crazy and if I was her kid I would run away or demand my freedom. I could  not stay in the house for hours and do nothing with my life other than homework, violin practice, and no sleepovers.

I understand how people say that they were raised like that, and because they are like that the will not rebel. With this way of raising their kids their kids will grow up to be boring, and people who don't know what to do. When they are not able to do what they want to do and when they do not have their own voice and their own opinions. They have the opinions of their parents instilled in them because that is how they were raised. i do not agree with this way of raising my kid, but I do know that this is how some people raise their kids.

Animal Farm and Egypt Connections

The connection that I see between the revolution Orwell described in his book, Animal farm and the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Honduras etc. are that when the animals in Animal Farm protested, many of the protests if not all of them resulted in deaths of the animals, like the animals that confessed to Napoleon that they were talking to snowball on the down low. Now in Egypt and other places the protests also result in people dieing. An example of deaths was when the man burned himself alive or the hundred or so people who dies as a result of the government fighting back. In Egypt I found that people are risking their lives by laying on tires of the tanks posted on the streets.

Another connection between Animal Farm and the uprisings in Egypt etc. is that the protests start in one place and they spread to another place. Like the protest started in Egypt and within days it spread to Lydia, then Tunisia, then Honduras and they say it is going to Yemen. In the book Animal farm they started their revolution on their farm, then the word spread to other farms by word of mouth, or in their case the bird Moses spread it to the other farms, and from there it kept going around.

In the book the Animals were hungry for food and freedom, in Egypt the Egyptians are hungry for money and freedom. They both want something and because they can't get ti their way by being civilized animals and people, the only thing left for them to do is to protest until they get what they want and start a revolution so they won't have to follow orders from a person they don't respect or believe is a good leader for them.

This part is kind of true for Egypt but it is definitely true for Animal farm. IN Animal Farm the animals got what they wanted in a way. They wanted freedom and food, so they got their food and freedom. But they did not plan on having the pigs being accustomed to the human ways, walking on two legs, talking and playing poker and living in the house. In Egypt they are fighting for their freedom,and from what I hear about the president stepping down, they are only getting closer to what they want.

In both the book and Egypt they revolt for similar things, they use similar ways to come up with their plans to revolt. the only difference is that one is a book and the other one is real life.

Chapert 11

Gina posted our chapter 11 on her blog.