For my storytelling as a resistance project, I knew that there was a story that I wanted to share that was very impactful to me. For this project, I decided to focus on something close and personal to me which was health care in the United States. As a current healthcare worker, this is something that affects me not only because it is the field that I want to be a part of, but also because there are many flaws in our current system that are oppressing countless people. This was a topic where I feel like I am comfortable speaking back against it because I have seen injustice from the inside.

For my project, I wanted to share a story that was very impactful to me in my time working in the emergency department. It is a story of a woman, who despite desperately needing one, refused a CT scan because she knew that she could not afford one. I want to use this story to help illustrate my point that regardless of what people say, healthcare is a basic right, and should be accessible to all citizens. I chose to do this story because when I thought about the most impactful things, we have read this semester, it was always the personal stories that seemed to be the most impactful. I had originally thought to write a sort of allegory on this same topic; however, with this project, I wanted to be able to tell my own story which is something that I don’t often get the chance to do.

I am choosing the medium of writing because I feel like it is the best way to convey my story in a meaningful way. Aside from a podcast interview (however I’ll spare myself from the dozen HIPAA violations), writing is the most powerful way that I know how to tell this story. What makes the story so powerful in my opinion is the visual details. The sounds, sights, and feelings are what made this case so different from others. I truly do not think the I would be able to do this story justice in any other way that to write it out plainly.

The article “What It’s Like Being Black at a Predominantly White School”  written by Stephanie Tate, explains her transition from high school to college and the challenges that she has faced in college being a person of color. Stephanie Tate is a young African American woman who at the time the article was written attended North Carolina State University, a predominantly White university (PWI). From her article, we can see that she was very torn on attending a PWI because coming from a mostly white Christian school she wanted to explore her options at going to a school where she was surrounded by people more like her.

The purpose of this article was to share her story and her experiences with other people her age. I believe that her message was meant to be told to both POC and also white college-aged students. I feel like one of the messages of her article was to show other POC who were finding themselves in situations similar to her when trying to decide on a college, that these were the things that they may have to expect. But at the same time, she is trying to show that it is still possible. For example, at the end of her article, she describes that even through the hardships she faced at her PWI, she still holds that, At my PWI I have found a community of scholars who look like me, allies willing to stand in the gap, and a plethora of love. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” (Tate, Para. 8)  She is also speaking to white students at Universities to tell them that POC students are not being irrational and “crybabies” for having these concerns; they often face real discrimination and need to be treated better by their white peers. This can be seen in her multiple examples of discrimination on her campus. For example, Tate describes the response POC students received from White students on Yik Yak about their police brutality protests; these students called the POC students “nuisances and “cry babies” for protesting (Tate, Para. 5) 

The intended audience for this article is mostly for students who are currently in the process of deciding where they want to go to school. Tate’s story is about how she chose between a PWI and an HBCU and how that played out for her. SHe wants to speak to a younger audience that is also in the process of making that decision. It is for this same reason that she is writing this article in Teen Vogue as opposed to her college newspaper or even any other adult media outlet. She put this piece in Teen vogue because it will be seen by her target audience of teens most likely making the decision where they want to go to college. This medium is effective for conveying her message because it limits her audience down to people who would struggle to make her same decisions and could benefit from her insights.

WorksCitedTate, Stephanie. “What It’s Really Like to Be Black at a Predominantly White School.” Teen Vogue, Teen Vogue, 22 Feb. 2017, http://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-its-like-to-be-black-at-pwi.

In many of the texts we have read this semester, we have seen how the act of creating s narrative can be used to fight discrimination and injustice. Typically, these narratives tend to be personal narratives where someone recounts either their own story or the story of someone they knew dearly. These stories help to show the effects of injustice because they personalize discrimination and often put it in language that is very understandable. The article, “Critical Race Theory Counterstory as Allegory: A Rhetorical Trope to Raise Awareness about Arizona’s Ban on Ethnic Studies”, written by Aja Martinez does not give her narrative in a personal format, instead, she uses an allegory to help to explain the point she is trying to make. Allegories help to explain complex issues in the same ways that personal narratives help to explain issues; they take abstract ideas and ground them in something real. In the case of Martinez’s article, her allegory wasn’t so much “real” as much as it was a dramatization. It put her message in a way that could keep a lay audience intrigued and interested for an entire article. This type of allegorical presentation of the material is a powerful way to write against resistance because it puts it in a way that common people can understand.

I think one of the more powerful ways that Martinez makes her point in this article is by using the main character, Rosette, as part of the opposition to the point she was trying to make in the article. Dr. Rosette is a major supporter of the idea of the American dream and that everyone has the same access to becoming successful but they just have to want it as badly as she did (Martinez 3). In the article, this led her to be a proponent of issues such as affirmative action. In a way, Dr. Rosette becomes the person who American assimilators pictures as what they want people of different ethnic backgrounds to be. This was so powerful because she saw that the work she did and the people that she supported eventually led to the destruction of her people; and in the case of this article, it was the literal erasure of her people as the white immortals live on past her people. It was powerful because even though she was warned by her mother, she didn’t realize what she had helped create until it was too late. In this way, it shows the real-life consequences of supporting legislature such as the anti-ethnic practices in Arizona. I also think that one of the really interesting ways that she makes the story come to life and seem very real is by, in the beginning, having real sources of things that have really happened. In this way, she shows that while the latter part of the story is dramatized, the beginning part is often a real challenge that many people in her position deal with.

I think that this story is trying to make the reader realize that the erasure of cultural studies from schools will have a similar result to this. While it won’t lead to the erasure of heritage through immortals outliving them, it will lead to the erasure of a people by the loss of their history. As Dr. Rosette’s mother says to her, “A people without a history also have no future” (Martinez 6). If people are not exposed to and understand the importance of their heritage then they are much less likely to pass it down to their children and slowly but surely a heritage is lost. Martinez is trying to show the importance of allowing schools to continues to support the teaching of different heritages.

Works Cited

Martinez, Aja Y. “Critical Race Theory Counterstory as Allegory: A Rhetorical Trope to Raise Awareness about Arizona’s Ban on Ethnic Studies.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 10, no. 3, Aug. 2013. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url&db=eric&AN=EJ1116014&site=eds-live.

Min-Zhan’s story focuses on her struggle to transverse two different discourse communities that were at odds with one another. Min-Zhan grew up in China during a period of lots of political change. At home, her parents had taught her to speak english; which her family used as their primary language. At school, she was taught to only speak standard chinese or else she might be labeled as a non communist and looked down on. As Min-Zhan grew older, she had a harder and harder time trying to navigate her way around these two different discourses. The way that she struggled was that these two discourses were not able to be blended. She found that the two languages were at odds with one another and could not be mixed or else it would be at odds with the community she was addressing. When she was at school, her english, along with the western beliefs her home life developed,  conflicted with her identity as a communist. She was never able to express her authentic self because she was a mix of these two identities which were seemingly at odds.

By struggling to understand how different discourses could come together, as a college professor, Min-Zhan understands and advocates for the blending of discourses. I really liked one of her quotes, towards the end of “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”,  when she says : “Don’t teach them to ‘survive’ the whirlpool of crosscurrents by avoiding it. Use the classroom to moderate the currents. Moderate the currents, but teach them from the beginning to struggle.” . I think that this quote says a lot about how she sees discourses and their blending. In this quote, what she is arguing against is the “survive” mentality. This idea is common in a lot of the ways that we think about teaching academic english. We look at Academic english as a sort of “hat” or “badge” that is required for safe passage into certain communities and professions, and as a tool of survival. It’s thought of as something, even if you don’t plan on using it, you should know it because it is the standard. We see this idea with Garrard McLendon, in his video, he has good intentions in his heart. I believe he is trying to give kids the tools they need to succeed in the world as it is today. We also see this kind of rhetoric with Stanley Fish who also sees academic english as what needs to be learned because it is what is used today. Both of their reasonings have a certain amount of survival feeling to them. While we all know that no one actually speaks academic english in their home lives, we put on our hat because it is what allows us to get by with the least amount of friction. It reminds me of a disgruntled worker who knows that they hate their job, but continues to go everyday because their life is in a place of comfort and by going against that they risk the life they know. These two have the mindset of a performance, if everyone plays their part, everything will go a lot smoother. 

In contrast to these thoughts, Min-Zhan calls for the uncomfortable. In this case, the uncomfortable is bringing in one’s true self into the discourse and having to explore how that changes, shapes, redefines, and renegotiates the discourse itself. She is not preaching a “survive” method; instead, she is calling for a “struggle” method. In a real world example pertaining to the classroom, this may mean instead of getting rid of regional slang, language, or phrases, incorporating them into the discussion in a way that stays authentic to their user. Let that person navigate how to blend these two discourses, and in the process how it changes that person. Instead of putting on and taking off hats, in a way I think that she is advocating to leave all of your hats on at once and to be authentic to yourself and your feelings instead.

In my personal experience, I have never truly felt like I was out of place when I was at school. Lucky enough for me, I have always felt mostly continuity between my language at home and my language at school. But, looking back on it, there were many times where I “took off my home hat” to go to school. It was never drastic, usually just a few words or phrases that would just not be considered academic; but, I can remember my parents specifically saying to not repeat certain words at school.

My home language is, in reality, only slightly different from what I would be writing for a class or for an institution. I say this because I speak “somewhat” academic English; the ways that I differ from true “academic” English come from my background of living in New Jersey and my mom’s German heritage. My mom’s German background had a bit of an effect on the way I speak; not so much on my pronunciation or grammar, but instead, on the words and slang I use. For example, I didn’t know until middle school that saying words like “schnipsel” or “malca” were not normal things everyone said. My New Jersey roots, however, have more an impact on the way I say words, and the accent that I have. Due to my New Jersey accent, there are certainly ways that I say words, words that I omit, or ways that I enunciate that are not academic English. New Jersey language is known as “harsh” at best; As in put in the disclaimer before the famous Broadway show “Jersey Boys” – “Beware: this show contains authentic New Jersey Language”. There is just a way of speaking that is specific to being from Jersey. However, When I ask myself if I’ve ever been discriminated against because of the way that I speak, the answer is no; however this same sentiment is not shared by all. The Students Right to Their Own Language conference discusses the idea that dialects and ways of speaking do not devalue English and make it less “proper”; this conference aimed to ask the question  “Should the schools try to uphold language variety, or to modify it, or to eradicate it?” (Students Right to Their own Language 2). The conference aimed to disapprove the notion that certain dialects are inherently more valuable than others, or as they put it in their introduction: 

“We have also taught, many of us, as though the “English of educated speakers,” the language used by those in power in the community, had an inherent advantage over other dialects as a means of expressing thought or emotion, conveying information, or analyzing concepts. We need to discover whether our attitudes toward “educated English” are based on some inherent superiority of the dialect itself or on the social prestige of those who use it. We need to ask ourselves whether our rejection of students who do not adopt the dialect most familiar to us is based on any real merit in our dialect or whether we are actually rejecting the students themselves, rejecting them because of their racial, social, and cultural origins.” (Students Right to Their own Language 3).

This quote examines two separate ideas; First, it discusses the idea of giving more value to academic English. This quote shows that it is possible that we hold academic English to such a high standard because it is the language of those in power. Secondly, this quote also discusses why other dialects of English are often looked down upon. Is academic English truly better at conveying ideas and meaning in an efficient way, or, is it a tool of oppression that people in power use to demote members of other racial groups and socioeconomic statuses.

 I had never thought about my privilege in just being allowed to speak the way I normally would and not be judged for it. As a White male, I know that I have a lot of privileges in our society, however, this is one that never occurred to me. I know that I do not speak proper English, but generally, I would not be judged harshly for the way I speak. Until we discussed it as a class, and I heard testimony from my fellow classmates, it never occurred to me that this was a thing that normally happened. My classmates are so smart and have such great ideas and are so great with thinking through challenging topics; however, if they were on an interview and expressed themselves as they normally would, they might be looked at as uneducated for not speaking academic English.

Works Cited

“Conference on College Composition and Communication.” National Council of Teachers of English, Students’ Right to Their Own Language.

In his speech “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, Richard Pratt states the goal of the Carlisle Boarding School and its ambition to help the native peoples of America. As shown through Pratt’s speech, it was common by many Americans to think of the native’s way of life as savage; as it was so much different than that of the white American’s way of life. In this way, many people like Pratt were able to convince Americans that the natives should be pitied for having to live in the conditions that they do and that they would be better off adopting American customs. They thought that they were being quite charitable for freeing the native Americans from the way of life that kept them in such rugged poverty.

Contrary to this image painted by Pratt and the Carlisle Boarding school, Zitkala-sa, a former student of the boarding school, paints a different image of life as a native American; one that would have been quite startling to most Americans at the time. In Zitkala-sa’s account of her childhood, before her time in the Carlisle boarding schools, she did not paint a painful and struggling image. On the contrary, she describes a childhood that I believe many white Americans would have been able to resonate with as being normal and pleasant. In Zitkala-sa’s account, she describes her childhood memories as being filled with playing and often being at her mothers’ side. In the article, Zitkala-sa tells a story she remembers about her aunt and her mother and how they had a special relationship. While Zitkala-sa describes her mother as quiet and soft-spoken, she states that when her aunt was around, she “forgot her accustomed quietness, often laughing heartily at some of my aunt’s witty remarks” (Impressions of an Indian Childhood). This idea of a warm, friendly, household filled with laughter and jokes paints a much different image to the reader than what may have been expected at that time.

In her later articles, Zitkala-sa addresses her time spent in the boarding school, as well as its effects on her later in life. By doing this Zitkala-sa shows the lasting impact the Carlisle boarding school had on her life. One of the ways that Zitkala-sa’s narrative shows the long-term effects of this boarding school was through the experiences she had when the boarding school cut her long hair. Zitkala-sa uses her narrative to subvert the ideas of Pratt by showing the violent nature of how these boarding schools “civilized” native people. In the second passage, Zitkala-sa learns that the school is planning on cutting her hair as part of their process. Zitkala-sa feels terrible about this as in her culture she had been taught that it was a bad thing to have one haircut off by another and that only cowards have their hair cut off. In this way, she is seeing the school, quite literally, cut away her identity from her. I think this part of the passage sets the foundation for her feelings throughout the rest of the articles. It was when she was strapped to that chair and felt the cold metal blade of the scissors hit her neck that she understood what her life in the school was going to be like. It was at this point she realized that she no longer had her mother, that she understood that she was truly all alone. She was, as she describes, one of many little animals driven by a herder” (The School Days of an Indian Girl) In this quote, Zitkala-sa is showing that she realized this school had no intentions of letting her remain who she once was. This school was intent on transforming her and shaping her into what they deemed fit for a young native girl. This event changed the way that she looked at anything the school did and led her to question the school more.

One of the concepts that Paulo Freire examines in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed is how oppressed groups are supposed to deal with the knowledge of being oppressed once they are aware of their oppression. According to Freire, for the oppressed to be liberated from their oppression they must “perceive the reality of oppression as a closed world from where there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform” (Freire 49). In this quote, Freire lays out the groundwork for his ideas by first asserting that this kind of situation is one people can escape from. However, Freire goes on to discuss that even though a person or group may know that they are being oppressed, just knowing is not enough; as Freire states “this perception is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for liberation” (Freire 49) Freire asserts that it is not sufficient because no action is taking place. Freire holds that for the oppressed to become liberated this knowledge must become the “motivating force for liberating action” and that “The oppressed can overcome the contradiction in which they are caught only when this perception enlists them in the struggle to free themselves” (Freire 49). Freire is stating that for change to be made, this knowledge and motivation must be turned into action.

I believe that a concrete example of this would be the teacher strikes that we often see in America. Due to poor working conditions and subpar pay, teachers are often forced to take matters into their own hands and fight for better conditions. In my mind, the strike perfectly illustrates what Freire is trying to explain. A strike, and in the case of a teacher strikes, consists of people who know they are being wronged, and instead of waiting for change to come to them, they take action themselves.

I believe that this idea, at its most basic, is very accepted in our culture; and I believe it to be true as well. At its most basic, this concept very simply states that if you want something to be done, you cannot sit and wait for it to happen, you have to take some kind of action. This idea, and the idea put forward by Freire, reminds me a lot of one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King Jr, where he says that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”. I believe that oppressed peoples cannot wait idly by for their rescue from oppression, it must be taken with action. I also agree with Freire when he states that oppression is not like a closed world but instead that it is a limiting situation. I think that his idea may often feel wrong at times when institutions have so much control over oppression; however, they are not concrete and are still able to be changed. Admittedly, this is easier said than done depending on the size or historical foothold of the institution.