Proposal

     Our entire country is in an economic crisis, and one of the most important public services is suffering the most. Public education and Higher education in California are suffering from an extremely low budget with only more budget cuts to look forward too. A Proposition focusing on business owners and citizens with an income over 250,000 dollars a year may be the solution to pull our public education system out of the plunge. As a college student myself it is hard to ignore the state of our economy. Our state budget has an effect on all of us, even a middle class average student in Santa Cruz. Besides students, this proposition will benefit everyone in the state since it also gives revenue to other necessary public services such as public safety. Young people in California need to make a decision on Proposition 30, it will undoubtfully shape our future as a state and country.

     Not only am I a student at a California communnity college, but I also rely on state funded financial aid financial aid to attend school. I have a background of attending Private Catholic schools from first to tenth grade and have also experienced public high school and community colleges. I can speak as someone who has witnessed and experienced alterior forms of education.
Any reader could trust my judgement on our state's school system because I can contrast it towards other forms of education.
  
     My mother was an  immigrant from Mexico, her entire family moving to this area to pick and handle produce. Since childhood my mother has engrained in me the importance of education. My saintly mother also worked very hard to send me to the best private college - prep schools in her area. I recognize my mother and her strength, and understand how important it is to seek out my degree, and go for it. My own mother, a graduate from Santa Clara University, makes alot more money than her mother before her, but not nearly enough to afford the tuition of a UC or California state school. Will all of my mother's hard work be for nothing? Will my dream of obtaining a degree be unobtainable without Proposition 30?

     We are experiencing a budget cut already here at Cabrillo College - 400 classes have been cut already in the last few years. Proposition 30 based on a income tax increase on anyone earning more than 250,000 dollars a year, and in turn provides funding for K through 12th grade and higher education in California. If Proposition 30 does pass not only does public education benefit, but 5.6 billion dollars in funding is freed up and available for other public services like health care.
 I would hope that with these facts I have presented, the public wouldn't be able to ignore the potential gain that could come from the passing of Proposition 30, and would see it is necessary for our state right now.

annotated bibliography

Bradley, William. "Jerry Brown: Gearing Up a Campaign at Last?" The Huffington Post. thehuffingtonpost.com, 22 Sept. 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.

This article was written by Bradley William and featured in The Huffington Post. This article was a good source because it explained in lamence terms the condition of proposition 30 and the effects it would have on people like me, while also providing video clips and information on other relating propositions. This article would be considered bias, because there was a sense of disproval on a proposition that would act as an "achilles heel" to the low income voter. He then goes on to explain how Jerry Brown will need to convince low income voters to "sacrifice for the greater good" in order for Proposition 30 to pass. Jerry Brown's past mostly being on the republican side of California's elections, this whole thing may be a move towards re- election.

York, Anthony. "PolitiCal." Business Group Endorses Proposition 30 Tax Measure. Los Angeles Times, 24 Sept. 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.

This article was a very short, too the point, easy to understand source by Anthony York in The Los Angeles Times. The articles describes a boost in Jerry Browns campaign when Proposition 30 became supported by a Bay Area Bussiness group. They describe this as a change after he lost substantial support when he abandoned his plan of extending a series of tax hikes set up by Arnold Shwarznegger. Now many of the groups that once supported brown remain neutral. This Bay Area Bussiness group plans on accepting the new financial burden in hope for California.

RR

I read "Para Teresa" by Hernandez-Avila in our English 2 textbooks. Para Teresa was a poem written by a Hispanic woman in her 40's, who was addressing an issue she had when she was a child with another child. In the poem this woman is trying to explain herself to the other woman. She is trying to explain her own feelings, and explain that she understood the other woman's feelings as well. In the poem she recalling an incident that happened on a particular day, but is also adressing the animosity that this woman named Teresa had towards her. She describes her life growing up in a world where Hispanic people were obviously not viewed as equal, and how that shaped her. She speaks of this social taboo, but never really explains it to us.

In the second question, of the questions prompted after the texts, it asks, "What attitudes toward school and the majority culture do Teresa and the speaker represent?". I think the speakers views on education are pretty clear, but what wasn't said and was expected was this idea that her high view on education wasn't shared by everyone around her. The speaker elaborates on how she works hard in school, and how her family who also works hard everyday still helps with school. She talks about how much school matters to her family, "I studied for my parents and for my grandparents who out honor roll lists whenever their nietos names appeared. But she also says, which I thought was so peculiar was "I did nothing for the teachers, I studied for my parents and my grandparents". As if Teresa was accusing her of being on the side of the teacher. There is some form of defiance from Teresa obviously in that she doesn't go along with teachers, or her school work, and attacks other little girls in the bathroom at school. The speaker also has some form of defiance because she is going against what her peers, other Hispanic girls her age think is right. When arguing on both sides of rebellion, its hard to understand Teresa's side, in that I was never taught to go against education, I was always taught it was a valuable tool. Although I believe the poem was not so much about Teresa not wanting education or school, but more of a cultural struggle of the times, that we wouldn't understand.

In this poem the author is obviously using pathos to form her argument towards Teresa, the argument that "she understands". Her first stance in the poem begins with, in Spanish translated "to you, Teresa, I dedicate these words that explode from my heart." She is not trying to hide the fact that this is an emotional letter, and is hoping to use emotion to show Teresa that she is empathic towards her. In this poem though, she is also using ethos to establish her credibility in proving that her in Teresa are one in the same. So that she'll listen to her. She also trys to establish her credibility by in a way excusing her self for working so hard in school, by saying she worked so hard only for her family.

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.