Villanueva

Pre-Reading:

2.) I used to judge kids who dressed goth in my school. I always thought they were scary. I came to realize that these people were really kind and nice after you talked to them. Although I didn't hang out with them or anything, I gained respect for them.

Summary:

In Victor Villanueva's article, "Memoria is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourses of Color" he discusses how important it is to write memorias. Villanueva says that it is very important for a person to discover their past and learn where they have come from. Villanueva discusses the past through stories and poems in his article. Villanueva also talks about the discourse of color and how racism has changed over the years.

Synthesis:

When I read this article I immediately thought of Malcolm X. They are both similar because they discuss how racism has affected the type of person they are and their writing. Another author that I found similar was Alexie. Alexie talks about how kids would discriminate against his Native American heritage. Both authors discuss the importance of knowing one's heritage and past, and using it to help benefit your writing. The final author that was similar was Malinowitz. The topic of gay and lesbian rights is very similar to the rights of people of color.

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because Villanueva shows how memory is very important and how it is a valuable resource when relating to discourses.	“Memory simply cannot be adequately portrayed in the conventional discourse of the academy” (Villanueva 172).
In this quote, Villanueva describes how the narratives of people are very significant and valuable, especially to places that do not have many people of color.	“The narrative of the person of color validates. It resonates. It awakens, particularly for those of us who are in institutions where our numbers are few” (Villanueva 174).
This quote is significant because it shows how racism has been pushed under the rug, and it isn’t as in-your-face as it used to be.	“I haven’t been called a “spic” in many years (except by others of color, perhaps, in fun, I hope)” (Villanueva 174).
Villanueva describes how important the use of memory is when writing and when it is used with voice, it can be a very powerful device, especially when you are trying to deliver a certain message.	“Memoria was the mother of the muses, the most important of the rhetorical offices. Now rhetorics of writing seem to go no further than invention, arrangement, and style; when delivery is still there, it’s a matter of “voice”” (Villanueva 175).
I like this quote because it shows how the voice of colored people is valued amongst society. Also, their words allow us to take step back into history and to remember the hardships that they have been through.	“The narratives of people of color jog our memories as a collective in a scattered world and within an ideology that praises individualism” (Villanueva 175).
This was my favorite quote because it describes how important our heritage and memories are. Knowing our past can help us relate to others and help us become a stronger and more diverse community.	“Looking back, we look ahead, and giving ourselves up to the looking back and the looking ahead, knowing the self, and, critically, knowing the self in relation to others, maybe we can be and instrument whereby students can hear the call” (Villanueva 176).

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

I think the assimilation idea has to deal with people accepting people of different ethnicities. I believe that the idea of "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" has to deal with working on your identity. When I googled it I got the result "improving oneself by one’s own efforts". This was similar to the article because we can all gain personal insight on the American culture.

Thoughts:

I thought this was a good article on culture and heritage. I liked the article because it was short. However, the stories and poems threw me off a bit. Villanueva did a good job of portraying the American society, as well as addressing the issues of racism. Overall, the was a good article.