My topic for Task two

I have decided to do this task about my sister. She is younger than I am by five years, but she is inteligent and wise. She has graduated from Highland and from here at Missouri Western. She is the drive behind my education.

Writing by Mrs. Angelou

I want to say that this town didn't really shape me into the man I am. I want to say that the Military, or just being out of this state for a prolonged period of time made me who I am. But I look back and notice that the people I care about in this town, one in particular being my recently passed grandmother, is what put in me the values and ethics I use today. This town, at least when I was growing up was a town of family discipline. I have noticed that over the years the standard on discipline have changed for the worse. I thought maybe that this was more Marine gibberish coming out of me, but it isn't. It actually saddens me a bit to see the way children react to their parents, or the way parents don't react to their children. This town shaped me into a person who could join the military and survive. But now, these kids can't even say sir, or ma'am, or thank you when someone holds a door for them. It hurts my soul.

On becoming a Chicanno

1. Define your racial identity. What struggles have you gone through? How are your expiriences similar to those of Rodriguez? (Hey, I pick the question from the right spot this time!!)

a. I am caucassion, with an Irish, Scottish, and German heritage.
b. As for my heritage, i have suffered almost no noteable struggles. Lucky for me to say my grandparents had not either. However, being from the midwest, as a child I wasnt around alot of minorities. So as it turns out years later when I joined the Marine Corps, I was tossed into a pool of ethnicities I had no idea existed. I was in fact a minority.
c. Again, I picked a question from the right section this time. Sorry!

Fill in the blank

My topic is about my first deployment to Okinawa Japan, and my assertion is to explain the difficulty I had dealing with the change.


The main idea I want my reader to understand is the difficulty of adjusting to the customs, both military and civilian, of a foreign country.

Colored me

I must admit, I thought she was all over the place in this writing and I found it difficult to follow the first time through. After reading it the second time I was more capable of pointing out the parts of the story.

What does this essays first sentence mean? Why does Hurston use the phrase "extenuating circumstances"? Is she serrious about her non "Indian" heritage?

1. She explains that she is colored, and latter that she comes from a Black only town in Southern Florida. Meaning that there were no natives or white Americans around, except for the occasional tourist.

2. She uses this phrase because in the story she leads you to think she never really dealt with a lot of segregation. Due mainly because once again, she comes from a mainly black community. Extenuating cirrcumstances is used in a way to notify the reader that she didn't have a normal pre segregated society upbringing as a black American.

3. I would think she is. She never mentions it again in her story.

Rite of Passage

1. How is the relationship between Brandt's mother and grandmother analogous to the relationship between Brandt and his mother?

The relationship between his mother and grandmother turns around in the end of the writing. His mother tunrs to caretaker, and when she became to much for the family to bar, she took her to a few retirment homes. The relationship was mirrored with Brandt and his mother when age and diesease took its tool years later. The family was a close nit family, and so the responsabilities for child to parent were passed down between the two generations.

Ideas for task one

I have a few different expiriences from my time in the Marine Corps that I can use for task one. I think the one that sticks out the most is my first deployment to Okinawa Japan. It was my first time being out of the country, and the first major event of my military carrer. It changed me in a way, being in so foreign an atmosphere. A different culture as rich as any, and yet so difficult to adjust to.

I think the hardest part of task one for me will be the inability to use visual aid. Some of the locations I will describe are not so easily done without visual reference. The events I will describe are easy to convey, but selecting the few events to best describe my deployment is going to be the only other difficult part.