Friday, September 7, 2012

Week 1

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/16/local/la-me-brown-taxes-20120816


1.       In my opinion maybe “Para Teresa” was written in Spanish because it was a note to Teresa and she indicated they were both Hispanic. I think maybe she was trying to show her that they were one of the same, that they came from the same place. I first read the poem how it was, not noticing the translation in the foot notes. After I read it again in completion, in English, I loved it. I completely related to the girl writing this. I was raised the same way as the author, sent to private catholic school by my Hispanic family, wanting me to go further in school than they were able to. I was also raised not allowed to wear makeup or dye my hair, I wasn’t allowed to paint my nails til I was 16! Also like the author, I never resented my family for it, I accepted my family for who they were and loved being apart of it. I think the author was trying to explain herself to Teresa, to make her understand that she understood her.

2.       This poem was written reflectively, much later than when the event in the bathroom occurred. Both girls were in elementary school, but it had a lasting impression on the author, for her to be writing about it when she was already 28. She says in her poem, in Spanish “Because I recognized a great truth then that made me a rebel” I think that “great truth” stuck with her, her entire life and she was just now expressing it. Now able to express what she couldn’t as a child. In elementary school she probably had no words to explain what education meant to her and why she was doing what she was, she was just a child being attacked in a restroom, but as an adult she not only understands herself and Teresa, she accepts her, and what happened. She ends the poem, in Spanish “And do you know what, I understand you. Even more, I respect you. And, if you permit me, I name you my sister.”

6.       The article I found on Proposition 30 was from The Los Angeles Times on August 16, 2012. The title was “Gov. Jerry Brown formally kicks off Prop. 30 tax hike campaign”. This article focuses on the governor of California Jerry Brown beginning his campaign for proposition 30, which is a 1 to 3 percent tax increase for residents earning more than 250,000 dollars a year, which in turn should give about 8 billion to public schools and universities. In Jerry Brown’s words about the proposition “It’s about taking money from the most blessed and giving to the schools”. The article goes on to describe an opposing proposition, prop 38, which vows to earn more money for schools than prop 30, but there is a tax increase for anyone earning more than 7,316 dollars a year. Which is everybody!  Concerns from the community, mostly local business owners, making more than 250,000$ a year, saying that this “presentation is a shell game” that the money won’t be used for schools. In my opinion, hiking taxes for the people who earn that much money a year, couldn’t be a bad thing.

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