Group Members: Medina Baram, Ike Kelman, Noah Frank, Lily Weston In this episode we talked about the beginning of "Kindred" by Octavia E. Butler. In this episode, we mainly explored descriptive details in the text. We used quotes from page 33 as examples and analyzed their meanings. We also discussed what we thought would happen going forward in the book, and what other problems the main character, Dana, would get into.

We finished part of the book and discussed our thoughts and impressions of the main character Cheryl. We also talked about what we thought would happen going forward in the book. What we thought would happen to her on her hike along the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). In addition to that we also talked about what would happen to her after she completed the trail because the trail is 22 miles long and we said that we would've expected her to change as a person and how she would change as a person through everything she has been through leading up to her making the decision to make the hike.

I chose this part of my identity to write about because being a woman is one of the biggest parts of my identity. A part of Trevor Noah’s memoir that influenced me was the way that he would portray his mom and the dynamic between him, his mom, and his step dad. I think I chose this specific part of his memoir because I could relate to him about having a strong relationship with his mother and seeing the hardships they’ve gone through and them still staying strong. Specifically when Abel (his step dad) hit his mom for the first time. Fortunately I have never experienced abuse in that way but seeing her reaction and how she stood her ground and wouldn’t allow it made me think of my experience being a young woman/girl and how men treat me because of it. A way that Noah’s writing style impacted me is the humor that he used. The humor aspect of Noah’s writing was in my writing because taking things too seriously could be good at times but also tiring at others. Lighting the topic like Noah does was one of the things that I was going for but not all the time. Reflecting at the end of my vignette, I made a continuous discussion to be more serious because I’m still talking about something serious and not taking it seriously once would show that it's not something serious and that it matters to me. Being a young woman and explaining it to an outside audience is easier especially when I’m explaining something that's happened to me on multiple occasions just like this vignette. It’s easier because having these multiple occasions makes me understand it way more than if it was the culture of being a skater, which I’ve only been doing for half a year. I think because of this understanding and experience I can answer the essential question of how I interact with my world.

ARTIST STATEMENT LANGUAGE, EVEN MORE THAN COLOR, DEFINES WHO YOU ARE TO PEOPLE. By Trevor Noah In Born a Crime, Trevor experienced racism in South Africa. Like Trevor, I experienced racism at a private, Christian school I attended. After reading about Trevor’s experiences, I was inspired to write about my experience at the start of eighth grade. As a child of mixed parents, Trevor’s existence was illegal because relationships between men and women of different races was a crime. Trevor’s mother, Patricia, took him to church every Sunday. One of the churches was an integrated church. I, too, attend an integrated church. On page 26, Trevor attempts to go outside to play, but his grandmother tells him not to. She is afraid that he might be picked up by the authorities due to his mixed race. At first, Trevor was confused and did not understand why he had to stay inside. Later, he realized the reality of racism and he developed ways to cope with it, such as reading books, playing with toys, and creating imaginary worlds. On page 32, Trevor learns about the importance of prayer. His grandmother says that his prayers are more effective because of his ability to pray in English. Trevor mistakenly believes that Jesus is white and his prayers are meaningful because he prays in English to a white god. Trevor’s belief in a white Jesus affected his identity and self-worth. He believed that white and English speaking was better than black and native speaking. In my memoir, I identified and highlighted three of my identities. First, I am an African American. Second, I am a male. Third, I am a Christian. I see these identities in Trevor as well. I know that Jesus is neither black nor white but Jewish. Also, I showed that racism is real and personal. I experienced it. I am learning how to cope with racism. Most importantly, I am learning how to actively work to get rid of racism. Finally, I would like my reader to know that my old school was not all bad. There were pros and cons. There were Christians that tried to get rid of racism and those who tried to keep it going. I just believe that SLA is a better school for me, and I am glad that I am a part of the SLA community.

Artist's Statement While most of the book was influential on how I wrote this vignette, there was one specific part that resonated with me. The part that stood out with me was how he knew so many languages to fit in with different groups of people. He explains in chapter 4 that he was a “chameleon” so he could fit into different groups by knowing their language. The reason why this is connected with my own family because they are very similar in the way that each one of them knows up to 4 or 5 languages. This also stood out to me because of my own desire to learn more languages, more than just to speak to my family. The way that Noah explored his sense of identity in his vignettes was by his stories of growing up during apartheid being a mixed child. He had a hard time figuring out where he belonged because of his skin color. “I stood there awkwardly by myself in this no-man’s-land in the middle of the playground.” (pg 44). This was an example he used on how early he had to “pick a side” to figure out where he belonged because he was mixed race. Noah’s writing style impacted me to write in a more personal and less formal way, using humor to tell my story. The way I did this was by writing as if I was talking face to face with someone. The way I incorporated humor into my vignette was by speaking in a way with sarcastic humor. I tried to get the reader to feel like they were in my place, there with me on the plane, or in Belgium, trying to talk to all my relatives while they all understood each other but not me. I did this by explaining why there was a language barrier, and what culture my family and I fit into, and trying to get to know so many new relatives at once. My vignette addresses the essential questions of this unit by explaining my self identity and learning more about my culture that I didn’t know before going to Belgium.

This memoir expresses a detailed story of how I felt going through self-consciousness because of someone else's words. I wanted to write specifically about something personal that I have talked about a lot but never fully elucidate on. Almost a year ago, I went through change in my personality, style and feelings. I guess you can say some sort of side effect from puberty. I started to become more interested in the 1970's aesthetic and culture. I started to find interest in owning a record player rather than listen to music on my iphone. During this, my sister wasn't too supportive of me. I was used to her acting this way, but something about this time was different. She would say things like I have no fashion sense and that I should stop dressing this way because no one likes it. I was heartbroken. Not too much from her cruel words, but from me knowing that what I was doing was going to get some weird looks and people might say things. I've always been that person who says they don't care what others say, but break down in tears when someone does criticize me. To overcome this feeling, I did a mental interview with myself. I asked questions like "Why do you care so much about her opinions of you?", and "Why don't you say anything back to her?" The reason is, because that won't make a difference. I heard in a movie once that calling someone else dumb won't make you smarter. Or calling someone ugly won't make you any prettier. This story is meant to give off the idea that doing something to someone else, doesn't make you superior. This story is also suppose to give the message that we as humans just HAVE to be ourselves. We can't spend life letting the thought of other disfavor dictate what we do.

Some of my inspirations that made me write this essay was born a crime. Trevors style inspired me because his details in some of the most minute things made me want to translate that into my own essay. I think his style impacted me mainly with the finer parts and how he puts the stories into bite sizes chunks. I tried to convey my culture by explaining how I got there and all of the types of it. I would love to use humor in my memoir because it makes it a more enjoyable expense but I am not great at humor and It would probably just turn out a flop and a face pawn so I did not include it. Alo I felt like the style of my essay would not fit into the humor section. Noah showed his identity by sharing stories of his life with foreshadowing the entire way. I tried to do the same of the small story part but did not know how to do the foreshadowing. I believe that my vignette addressed one of the essay questions because it is about finding your identity and that the question was about identity. I think it would not be enough to just show one story because no one event makes up your identity. For me, It was what part of Judaism I was from. For others, it might be what sport to play or joining a friend group. I thought one dissection just made you say ok let’s play basketball but instead a lot of little decisions that made you want to play basketball. Overall I think that born a crime had a very big aspect on my memoir. Form structure to details I think It made me a better writer.