Re/Imagining Asian American
Welcome to APASS English!
Re/Imagining Asian American
201 AB: Preparation for Composition and Reading
Asian Pacific American Student Success (APASS) Spring 2014 College of Alameda
MW 01:00-02:50 pm
Room CV225
Students must also register for COUN 24 (21374)
Instructor: Mary Grace Roberts
Contact: emgee_roberts@yahoo.com
Phone: (415) 465-24XX
Class Blog: https://thisyellowperil.wordpress.com/
Learning Community Center (CV-124C) in Cougar Village
Office hours to be determined and by appointment
Course Description:
English 201A/B is a 4-unit course that is designed to improve your reading and writing skills. It is an introduction to college-level reading and writing of expository prose (a text that has the goal of explaining or informing, depending on your purpose, subject and/or audience, you could define expository prose as a traditional essay, a letter to the editor, a documented research paper, a Web document, or a press release). In this course, we will do the following: analysis of texts with an emphasis on non-fiction; expository writing including various modes of developing essays, essay organization; paragraph development; sentence development; and practice in editing/proofreading.
The content in this course focuses on Asian American cultural works (e.g., essays, poems, excerpts from novels, short stories, songs, film, and guest speakers) to showcase the contributions of Asians in America. Although the APASS learning community is “designed to support Asian/Pacific Americans in pursuit of academic success…(from Peralta catalog, pg. 39),” Everyone’s individual experiences will add to the collective learning experience within the classroom and beyond. Everyone interested in improving their reading and composition skills are welcome to join the class and learn about themes in Asian American literature. As your instructor, I am interested in your success–your success is my success. Just as in any college course, you will get what you put in, so do your best!
Student Learning Outcomes:
Reading and Writing:
SLO: Students will have the tools to approach different types of texts and media and be able to communicate their ideas effectively in their personal, business, academic, and communal life.
A proficient student plans and develops essays and other texts via prewriting and revision and has well-organized paragraphs; in reading, the student identifies key points and thoughtfully responds to texts.
A near proficient student has adequate understanding of prewriting and revision and understands organizational structures but has some difficulty in applying; in reading, the student identifies most key points and adequately responds to texts.
A student does not meet expectations when she or he does not use prewriting methods or adequately revise work and paragraphs are not unified; in reading, the student has trouble identifying key points and responses do not relate adequately to the text.
Critical Thinking:
SLO: “Students will have the tools to decipher the meanings and subtexts of diverse media as well as use evidence to support their own opinions.”
A proficient student is able to articulate and respond to the meanings and subtexts of diverse media and uses evidence to support their opinions in more than one form (e.g., written, oral, visual).
A near proficient student is able to articulate and respond to the meanings and subtexts of most material presented and uses evidence to support their opinions in more than one form (e.g., written, oral, visual).
A student does not meet expectations when the student is not able to articulate and respond to the meanings and subtexts of most material presented and has difficulty using evidence to support their opinions.
Diverse Perspectives:
SLO: “Students will have the ability to work cooperatively in a variety of settings with diverse populations and celebrate the value of their autonomous and unique experiences/intelligences. ”
A proficient student respects the differences of opinions, both within the classroom and the text, and is open to changing own perspectives.
A near proficient student recognizes the differences of opinion, but with some difficulty in being open to them.
A student does not meet expectations when there is difficulty in recognizing the validity of other perspectives.
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Pass/No Pass Option Students can take this class for a letter grade (A-F) or for a grade that indicates only passing or not passing. A “P” means that a student has passed the class. An “NP” means that the student did not pass the class. A “P” or “NP” does not affect one’s grade point average.
Formal Writing: The Composition Folder:
Unlike informal assignments, compositions require pre-writing, drafts, peer review, and re-writing before the work is ready to turn in. The composition folder includes all the work leading up to and including the final draft. After a conference, each formal writing assignment is then revised before grading.
Plan ahead: The composition folder is due at the start of class. Do not be both late with your folder and late to class.
Success Tip 1: Suffering from writer’s block? Life interfering with performance? Let me know before the paper is due.
Success Tip 2: Something is better than nothing—bring in the work you have written even if you have not completed it; stay after class and discuss with me how to proceed.
Formal Writing: The Portfolio
Your portfolio is a representation of the work you have done this semester including the notes you have taken in class and your favorite free writes. We will discuss what else to include as the semester progresses.
Informal Writing and Reading Responses
These are each explained in separate handouts. This work will be done both in class and as homework.
Grading
The formal writing assignment handouts will specify the skills being evaluated.
The first composition is worth 25 points—how many of those points should be for organization, for grammar, and for content? For each formal writing assignment, we will decide as a class how to distribute the points.
Informal writing should take place in your class journals. These journals will be periodically graded during the semester and shall be graded by the number of assignments completed and the quality of the work. Participation and preparation will be evaluated by engagement in whole class and group work, homework completion, and quizzes.
A Note on Plagiarism
Sometimes students use someone else’s words because they are fearful that their own language is not good enough, or they have not done the work and think it is best to copy someone else’s. Sometimes students are not aware that they are plagiarizing. Work which has been plagiarized in whole or in part will not be accepted.
Here are the basic rules: if a singer sang it, if the website posted it, if your friend wrote it, you have to put quotation marks (“”) around the words and let us know where you found them.
Moving a few words or replacing them with synonyms does not make the sentence yours. Give credit for ideas as well as words.
Think Outside the Box
Take advantage of the campus. Hang out in the F building. Join a club. Find out where the Library and Learning Resource Center are…and then make use of them. Programs and Services for Students with Disabilities (DSPS) is located in D-117 and offers instruction and support services. Check out the Career Center in P building and make use of financial aid and counseling services in the A building.
And don’t forget the Learning Community space! CV _______.
Dates of Interest for All Classes Spring 2014
January 21 Day and Evening Instruction Begins
February 2 Last Day to Drop Regular Session Classes Without a “W”
Appearing on Transcripts
February 2 Last Day to Add Regular Session Classes
February 3 Census Day – Instructors Verify Enrollment in Classes
February 7 Last Day to File for PASS/NO PASS Grading Option for Regular Session Classes
February 14-17 President’s Birthday – Holiday Observance (No School)
March 21 Last Day to File Petitions for AA or AS Degree/Certificate
March 31 Cesar Chavez Day – Holiday Observance (No School)
April 14-20 Spring Recess (No School)
April 26 Last Day to Withdraw from Regular Session Classes and Receive a “W”. All outstanding fees are due, even if classes are dropped on this day.
April 26 Attendance Verification Day – Instructors Verify Enrollment
May 16 Malcolm X’s Birthday – Holiday Observance (No School)
May 14 Final Projects Due
May 17-23 Final Examination Week
May 23 Spring Semester Ends
June 2 Grade Rosters Due
Essay Format:
If you do not know how to set up a page on a computer talk to me, or a classmate, or a Learning Resource Center (LRC) tutor for help.
Schedule: (TBA)
(Course Schedule and syllabus is subject to change.)
Note: Thanks to instructors Lily Chien-Davis, Edy Chan, Vanessa Lewis, Darlene Elasigue, and Teya Schaeffer for providing me with syllabi descriptions and other important information.
YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT
Your First Assignment
Please read the entire syllabus available via class blog: thisyellowperil.wordpress.com
Then write me a letter that is at least one-page, typed and double-spaced for next Monday’s class. Make sure to include your name at the top of the page.
Write from whatever place you’re currently engaged. This letter should be only as honest as you feel comfortable For next class, bring one typed paragraph speaking to this question: Why is writing is a necessary skill?
Paragraph 1:
- Describe your history of schooling, reading, and writing? Be as detailed as you can.
- Where are you headed? What are you trying to achieve for your future?
- What are two or three personal learning goals that you have this semester?
Paragraph 2:
- What is something you’re passionate about? What are things you’re good at?
- What is the most interesting part of this class? What are you most excited about?
- What segments of the class will be the easiest for you?
Paragraph 3:
- What parts of the class are you most worried about?
- What questions do you have?
- How can I best help you be successful in this class?
Please read the entire syllabus and then write me a formal/serious letter that is at least one page AND TYPED. Make sure to include your name at the bottom of the page. This letter should be as honest as you feel comfortable.
Interview Essay First Draft due Monday, Dec. 2nd
Interview Essay First Draft due Monday, Dec. 2nd
Essay Guidelines:
Interview essays can be written on many different topics which base on the revealing the personality of the interviewed person to the reader. Delicate approach to the choice of a topic or keen understanding of the one topic is the key element of good essay writing. Focus your essay around 1-3 questions that speak to you from Bhanu Kapil’s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers. Your essay should involve the interviewing of family members and or friends and two other forms of research.
1. You are going to interview someone, ideally an adult, in order to ask this person (your interview subject) to tell you a story about his or her life. More specifically, you will ask your subject to tell you about a time in his or her life when, because of a particular incident or event or experience or ordeal (etc.), his or her perspective on life underwent a shift or change. Another way of asking this might be:
Tell me about a time in your life that changed you, or changed the way you think about yourself or about life in general.
The change does not have to/have been traumatic or earth shattering (although it can be). The key is simply the word, change (i.e., a basic, if even subtle, shift in the way your interview subject now looks at the world as the result of a particular event or experience). The older the interview subject, the better, because the older you are, the more time you have had to reflect upon your experiences, and reflection is an important component of this narrative.
2. You are going to translate your interview subject’s story into a third-person perspective narrative (much like newspaper feature writers who tell other people’s stories all the time, and gracefully combine objective reporting with the thoughts and feelings of their subjects–they both “tell the facts” and also “tell a story”). In other words, if your interview subject’s name is Gloria Somebody, your narrative might begin, “Gloria Somebody will never forget the day her younger brother left for Vietnam. From that day forward, nothing was the same for her,” etc. Even if you are related to your subject, do NOT put yourself, in any way, shape, or form, into the story. For example, do not begin, “My Aunt Gloria’s life changed the day her younger brother left for Vietnam,” etc.
NOTE: In order to have the best possible material, choose a subject who is not shy about telling their story and with whom you can talk more than once. Get your subject to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk as much as possible, and don’t be shy yourself about asking for extra details. You might even want to record the interview (you can use your phone), so that you can listen to it more than once while working on your essay. And, after working on a first draft, you might discover that you need more details, and you will want to go back and talk to your subject again (as many times as necessary). I would even suggest letting your subject read a draft of the paper at some point (or: read it to them out loud), as he or she is most likely to notice places where something important has been left out. Remember: you are not just writing down what your subject tells you, word for word–it is your job to shape what they give you into an interesting story through research.
- The story must have a beginning, middle, and an end. Ideally, there will be a conclusion that is reflective upon the change or changes wrought in your subject because of his or her experience (this is where you share how your subject’s perspective on his or her life, or life in general, changed–how did they feel when everything was happening back then; how do they feel now?).
- The story must be as descriptive as possible, full of concrete and specific details that appeal to the reader’s five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell) and will help to create visual pictures in the reader’s mind—much like the details in The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers. Think of your subject’s story as a film that you are putting together “scene by scene.”
- The story must have a clear perspective, meaning that the reader never loses sight of the feelings, thoughts, and emotions of the person who is at the center of the story–your interview subject. Stories are not just about the things that happened, but are about the people to whom those things happen. Otherwise, there’s no meaning. Don’t forget that.
3. You must use research 3 forms total to inform your Interview Essay. All research must be cited in text through parenthetical references and through a Works Cited page. Shoot for a minimum of essay of 5 pages including your Works Cited page.
Also, your essay must have an interesting title!
*come to class with 2 printed MLA formatted copies of your essay
Part 1 of Pollution, Poverty, People of Color
Part 1 of Pollution, Poverty, People of Color
Pollution, Poverty, People of Color: The factory on the hill.
From the house where he was born, Henry Clark can stand in his back yard and see plumes pouring out of one of the biggest oil refineries in the United States. As a child, he was fascinated by the factory on the hill, all lit up at night. In the morning, he’d go out to play and find the leaves on the trees burned to a crisp. “Sometimes I’d find the air so foul, I’d have to grab my nose and run back into the house until it cleared up,” he said. During World War II, African Americans like the Clark family moved into the shadow of the refinery because they had nowhere else to go. Now they live within a ring of five oil refineries, three chemical plants, eight Superfund sites, dozens of other toxic waste dumps, highways, rail yards, ports and marine terminals. Low-income residents seeking affordable homes may save money on shelter, but they pay the price in health.
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| Robert Durell | |
| Low-income residents in North Richmond, Calif., live within a ring of toxic industrial sites. |
By Jane Kay and Cheryl Katz
Photos by Robert Durell
Environmental Health News
June 4, 2012
Part 1 of Pollution, Poverty, People of Color
NORTH RICHMOND, Calif. – From the house where he was born, Henry Clark can stand in his back yard and see plumes pouring out of one of the biggest oil refineries in the United States. As a child, he was fascinated by the factory on the hill, all lit up at night like the hellish twin of a fairy tale city. In the morning, he’d go out to play and find the leaves on the trees burned to a crisp. “Sometimes I’d find the air so foul, I’d have to grab my nose and run back into the house until it cleared up,” he said.
| Chevron refinery in North Richmond, Calif. |
The refinery would burn off excess gases, sending “energy and heat waves that would rock our house like we were caught in an earthquake,” recalled Clark, 68. When the area was engulfed in black smoke for up to a week after one accident, “nobody came to check on the health of North Richmond.”
With all of the frequent explosions and fires that sent children fleeing schools, parks and a swimming pool within a mile of the refinery, “we just hoped that nothing happened that would blow everybody up,” Clark said. “People still wonder when the next big accident is going to happen.”
For 100 years, people, mostly blacks, have lived next door to the booming Chevron Richmond Refinery built by Standard Oil, a plant so huge it can process 240,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Hundreds of tanks holding millions of barrels of raw crude dot 2,900 acres of property on a hilly peninsula overlooking the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. Five thousand miles of pipeline there move gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and other chemical products.
During World War II, African Americans like Clark’s family moved to homes in the shadow of this refinery because they had nowhere else to go. Coming to California looking for opportunity, they quickly learned that white neighborhoods and subdivisions didn’t want them.
| Henry Clark grew up in North Richmond. |
The people of Richmond live within a ring of five major oil refineries, three chemical companies, eight Superfund sites, dozens of other toxic waste sites, highways, two rail yards, ports and marine terminals where tankers dock. The city of 103,701 doesn’t share the demographic of San Francisco, 25 miles to the south, or even Contra Costa County, or the state as a whole.
In North Richmond – the tiny, unincorporated neighbor of Richmond – Latinos, blacks and Asians make up 97 percent of the 3,717 residents, compared with 82.9 percent in Richmond and 59.9 percent in California, according to 2010 U.S. Census figures.
The people of Richmond live within a ring of five oil refineries, three chemical plants, eight Superfund sites, dozens of other toxic waste sites, highways, two rail yards, ports and marine terminals.Most houses sell for below $100,000, among the lowest prices in the Bay Area, in the zip code shared with the Chevron refinery, and residents complain of a lack of paved streets, lighting and basic services. Short on jobs and long on poverty, there’s not a grocery store or cafe in sight. The median income in North Richmond, $36,875 in 2010, is less than Richmond’s modest $54,012 and less than half of Contra Costa County’s $78,385.
Low-income residents seeking affordable homes end up sharing a fence line with a refinery and a cluster of other polluting businesses. They may save money on shelter, but they pay the price in health, researchers say.
Decades of toxic emissions from industries – as well as lung-penetrating diesel particles spewed by truck routes and rail lines running next door to neighborhoods – may be taking a toll on residents’ health. The people of Richmond, particularly African Americans, are at significantly higher risk of dying from heart disease and strokes and more likely to go to hospitals for asthma than other county residents. Health experts say their environment likely is playing a major role.
While most coastal cities breathe ocean breezes mixed with traffic exhaust, people in north and central Richmond are exposed to a greater array of contaminants, many of them at higher concentrations. Included are benzene, mercury and other hazardous air pollutants that have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems and neurological effects. People can’t escape the fumes indoors, either. One study showed that some of the industrial pollutants are inside Richmond homes.
It’s the triple whammy of race, poverty and environment converging nationwide to create communities near pollution sources where nobody else wants to live. Black leaders from the Civil Rights Movement called the phenomenon environmental racism, and beginning in the early 1980s, they documented the pattern at North Carolina’s Warren County PCBs landfill, Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” Tennessee’s Dickson County, Chicago’s South Side, Houston’s Sunnyside garbage dump and other places across the country.
About 56 percent of the nine million Americans who live in neighborhoods within three kilometers of large commercial hazardous waste facilities are people of color, according to a landmark, 2007 environmental justice report by the United Church of Christ. In California, it’s 81 percent. Poverty rates in these neighborhoods are 1.5 times higher than elsewhere.
Those numbers, however, reflect a miniscule portion of the threats faced by nonwhite and low-income families. Thousands of additional towns are near other major sources of pollution, including refineries, chemical plants, freeways and ports.
| Click map to see full size. |
Richmond is one of these beleaguered towns, on the forefront of the nation’s environmental justice struggle, waging a fight that began a century ago.
Nowhere else to go
In the San Francisco Bay Area, African Americans didn’t move next to an oil refinery by chance.
Early black settlers came to California as part of a migration between 1890 and the 1920s, many following family and friends to emerging industry in the East Bay. They escaped Jim Crow traditions of the South, but “lived a tenuous existence on the outer edges of the city’s industrial vision, trapped at the bottom of the economic and social hierarchy,” according to Sacramento State University professor Shirley Ann Wilson Moore in her book, To Place Our Deeds.
During World War II, blacks again arrived mainly from southern states seeking jobs in shipbuilding plants built under government contract with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. Henry Clark’s father, Jimmy Clark of Little Rock, Ark., came seeking opportunity as the first town barber.
Richmond turned to segregated housing in the decade after its 1905 incorporation. When Kaiser got the war contract for shipbuilding in 1941, most of Richmond’s African American population was concentrated in and around North Richmond. Early records describe North Richmond as bordering a garbage dump with few streetlights, scarce fire and police protection and unpaved streets turning to “muddy quagmires in the rain.”
| Recreational boaters share harbor waters with a refinery, a General Chemical plant and Superfund sites. |
The Richmond Housing Authority, in 1941, was told by the federal government to provide low-cost housing to the shipyard workers who swelled Richmond to a city five times its earlier size. But by 1952, no African American had lived in any of Richmond’s permanent low-rent housing. There was nothing in rentals or sales available to blacks in the central city.
Nonwhites were pushed to unincorporated North Richmond and other neighborhoods dominated by the refinery, chemical companies, highways, rail yards and ports.
“It was the only land available to them when they wanted to purchase property. People don’t put themselves in harm’s way intentionally,” said Betty Reid Soskin, 93, who moved to the Bay Area with her family when she was eight. She lectures on the African American experience in World War II at the National Historical Park’s Rosie the Riveter project in Richmond. “Real estate developers could determine where you lived. The local banker could determine who could get mortgages.”
“Social policy determines history,” Soskin said. “We have developed sensitivities to environmental injustice, and those sensitivities did not exist during that time.”
The pattern of neglect continues today, said the Rev. Kenneth Davis, who used to come to North Richmond from San Francisco in the 1970s to visit friends and blues clubs.
“It’s like we’re on an island,” Davis said. “No grocery store to get fresh fruits and vegetables and meat. The only things you can buy are drink and dope. There’s nothing but old nasty rotten food on the shelves and plenty of beer, wine and whiskey.”
Davis, who moved to a senior apartment in North Richmond in 2006, said he can see the refinery from his third-floor window, and blames Chevron and other companies for his chronic cough since moving here. As a pastor, he wonders about the deeper effects of pollution and poverty. “I’m beginning to think there’s a correlation between the toxic fumes that we’re breathing and the violence that is so prevalent in our community.”
Joining the African Americans are newcomers from Laos, Latin America and the Pacific Islands, again seeking refuge and opportunity here amongst the factories and freeways in North Richmond.
| Sandy Saeteurn, a community organizer, stands at the end of street near where she attended Peres Elementary School in Richmond. A sign warns that there is an underground pipeline carrying petroleum. |
Tons of trouble
Sandy Saeteurn grew up in North Richmond, a Mien from Laos who came with her mother, five sisters and two brothers when she was three months old. Her family was part of the new wave of immigrants to the Bay Area, this time fleeing the aftermath of wars in Southeast Asia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By the time the Asian newcomers arrived, the black social clubs and much of the cultural life had pretty much disappeared as people with means fled the neglected neighborhoods. The pollution remained, though.
Some children have ocean views, some have pastoral, rolling hills. Here in North Richmond, children have chemical plants that look like magical Las Vegas, only to turn, without notice, into a stinking hellfire.
“At school, along with earthquake drills, we were practicing chemical explosion drills,” said Saeturn, who attended Peres Elementary School, across a parkway and railroad tracks from the Chevron refinery. It is one of two public schools within a mile of it.
“The teacher sent us indoors, and gave us paper napkins to put over our mouths and noses, then loaded us into school buses. We were driven around until it was supposedly safe to come back.”
-Sandy Saeturn, 27 “I remember once coming out and the playground was enveloped in smoke. The smell was really awful, a strong, sort of gassy smell, and you couldn’t see a couple of feet in front of you. We were all coughing,” said Saeteurn, now 27 and a community organizer.
“The teacher sent us indoors, and gave us paper napkins to put over our mouths and noses, then loaded us into school buses. We were driven around until it was supposedly safe to come back. When we got back, it was time to go home. Our parents were there waiting for us.”
One in four Richmond residents lives in areas of high air pollution from nearby industry or busy roadways, according to a city estimate based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory and the California Air Resources Board.
Violations of air-quality rules are more frequent in Richmond than in the rest of the region, according to city calculations. Over a 10-year period, there were 13.1 incidents per 100,000 people compared with 0.96 for the entire Bay Area.
In Contra Costa County, the Bay Area’s most industrialized county, businesses released more than 3.5 million pounds of toxic chemicals into air, water and waste sites in 2010, according to the EPA’s inventory, which is based on companies reporting more than 10,000 pounds of chemicals per year.
| The Chevron petroleum processing plant is next to a residential street in North Richmond. |
More than 80 percent of the county’s releases come from its four oil refineries within 20 miles of Richmond – Chevron; Tesoro Refining and Marketing Co. and Shell Oil Products in Martinez, and ConocoPhillips Refinery in Rodeo.
The Chevron refinery, which is by far Richmond’s biggest polluter, released 575,669 pounds of chemicals into air, water and waste facilities in 2010, more than the whole of Alameda County or Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley.
Included are several carcinogens released into the air and water – 3,807 pounds of benzene, 135 pounds of 1,3-butadiene and 606 pounds of nickel. The rest is an array of chemicals such as toluene, hydrocyanide, ammonia, sulfuric acid and ethylbenzene, that can have respiratory or neurological effects.
Chevron has cut its total toxic air emissions from the refinery’s stacks and equipment by 43 percent since 2004, according to the Toxics Release Inventory.
The company has made “significant investments in environmental controls and equipment over the past four decades,” said Melissa Ritchie, a refinery spokeswoman, in an emailed response to questions. Included are new burners that cut nitrogen oxides, a main ingredient of smog, and a 90 percent cut in emissions from a process called flaring to meet regulations adopted by the local air district.
“Our refinery has been a proud member of the Richmond community for more than 100 years, longer than the city of Richmond has been incorporated. We would like to be here for a long time to come,” she said.
“Our refinery has been a proud member of the Richmond community for more than 100 years. We would like to be here for a long time to come.” Melissa Ritchie, Chevron refinery But some toxic chemical releases, including benzene, lead, 1,3-butadiene, tetrachloroethylene and sulfuric acid, rose above the 2004 levels in almost every year since then.
For example, Chevron increased its air emissions of benzene, a known human carcinogen linked to leukemia in workers, to nearly two tons in 2010, up 420 pounds from 2004. In comparison, Alameda and Santa Clara counties have no industries reporting benzene.
It’s not just Chevron. All five refineries near Richmond, including ConocoPhillips and BP Richmond, reported discharging a total of 14 tons of benzene in 2010.
General Chemicals West also is a major source of emissions, including more than a ton of sulfuric acid, a chemical that can trigger respiratory problems, in 2010. Airgas Dry Ice put 16,884 pounds of corrosive ammonia into the air. Chevron’s research site, Chevron Technology Center, reported more than 6,000 pounds of N-hexane and toluene, solvents that can affect the nervous system.
Topped off with freeway emissions, a commercial port and other factories along most of its 32-mile shoreline, a vortex of pollution swirls around central and North Richmond residents from all directions.
The city also is pockmarked by dozens of abandoned sites bearing the poisonous vestiges of Richmond’s past. One Superfund site, a former pesticide distributor, continues to leak the banned insecticide DDT and other chemicals into a canal draining to Richmond’s harbor, where many of the city’s Southeast Asian and black residents fish for food.
Experts say any one of these toxic exposures could be cause enough for concern. But the picture is even more dramatic for Richmond residents when researchers consider the cumulative effects of all of them.
How much their health suffers, however, is largely a mystery.
Asthma and heart disease
Neighbors of Richmond’s toxic corridor experience some health problems measurably more than people living elsewhere in the region.
“Historically there have been significant health disparities in Richmond compared to Contra Costa County,” said Kinshasa Curl, administrative chief of Richmond’s environmental division, which designed an element in the city’s general plan to address environmental and health inequities.
The health gap is especially striking among low-income, non-white residents, whose homes tend to cluster around the industrial sites. “People of color in Richmond live on average 10 years less than white people living in other parts of the county,” Curl said.
Richmond residents overall are at significantly higher risk of dying from heart disease and strokes, according to the Contra Costa County Health Service Department’s Community Health Indicators 2010. African-Americans have it worst of all – they are 1.5 times more likely than the county’s average to die from these diseases.
The health inequities appear most acute for asthma. California Department of Public Health statistics show that residents of all ages in Richmond are 1.5 times more likely than those in the rest of the county to go to hospital emergency departments for asthma attacks. Again, African Americans are especially hard-hit, with asthma emergency visits and admissions about four times that of other racial groups in the county.
The same pattern holds true nationally. Blacks are much more likely to die of heart disease and stroke than their white counterparts, and black children are more likely to have asthma. The reasons include diet, stress, access to medical care and other factors. The role of environmental pollutants is unclear, but many health experts say they do contribute.
| Refinery storage tanks loom above homes in Atchison Village, an older community in North Richmond. |
Around the country, numerous health studies, including a decade-long study by the South Coast Air Quality Management District in the Los Angeles basin, have shown that people near major roadways and ports suffer more severe health problems than people elsewhere. Children have a greater risk of impaired lung function, and babies are more likely to be born prematurely or with lower weights. Near major transportation routes, the risk of cancer is higher due to diesel exhaust and other air contaminants. Around the world, fine particles generated by vehicles and industry have been linked to increased deaths from heart attacks and lung diseases.
Richmond’s estimated cancer risk is higher than nearby cities, based on a combination of pollution exposures and demographic factors, according to a 2007 University of California, Santa Cruz report on environmental justice in the Bay Area.
Eric Stevenson, director of technical services at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said his agency is often asked how it can let people live next door to a refinery. “The question is,” he said, “what is the impact and what is the danger of the impact?”
Health effects near industries in Richmond have not been well studied. It can be difficult for epidemiologists to prove a connection between exposures and diseases because of confounding factors, such as smoking and diet, and how frequently people move around.
Some people living near Richmond’s industrial backbone complain of problems like headaches, breathing difficulties and fatigue. Others see high rates of autoimmune disorders, such as psoriasis, among their family and friends.
“I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t have asthma,” said Johnny White, 58, whose family settled in North Richmond in the 1930s. “Out of my bedroom window, I could see Chevron flaring and fire coming out of the stacks. My mother and grandmother would go around and shut all the windows. We’d have to take my niece, Tracy, to the hospital and get her on a breathing machine.
“As kids, we used to play basketball in Shields-Reid Park, a few blocks from the refinery,” he said “We’d actually know what hour they would start flaring. Your nose would start running. We’d say let’s take a break and go inside.”
Outdoors, indoors, everywhere
But what starts outdoors doesn’t stay there. It moves inside people’s homes, too.
A team of scientists came to Richmond in 2006 to conduct a new kind of study, one that would try to answer residents’ questions of which outdoor pollutants were coming indoors. At 40 homes in Richmond and 10 in nearby Bolinas, which has no heavy industry, equipment monitored pollution levels outdoors and indoors.
The results were striking. The outdoor levels around Richmond homes were almost double the levels around Bolinas homes, and the chemicals moved indoors. Vanadium and nickel in outdoors air were among the highest in the state.
“In Richmond, we see high correlations indoors and outdoors for pollutants that come predominantly from industrial sources,” such as sulfates and vanadium, said Rachel Morello-Frosch, an associate professor in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and an author of the study.
Combustion byproducts such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, were found at higher levels inside Richmond homes than in Bolinas homes. Fine particulates exceeded California’s annual air quality standard in nearly half of Richmond homes.
Vanadium can irritate the upper respiratory tract lungs, eyes and skin and lead to chronic bronchitis. Sulfates can be inhaled deep into the lungs. Some PAHs are potent carcinogens, and they have been linked to neurological effects, such as reduced IQs, in children exposed in the womb.
“Toxic pollution from oil refineries doesn’t stay outside; it seeps into homes, where people spend most of their time.”
-Julia Brody, Silent Spring Institute “We found that living near an oil refinery adds exposures that may be hazardous to your health,” said Julia Brody, the study’s lead author and executive director of the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, Mass. “Toxic pollution from oil refineries doesn’t stay outside; it seeps into homes, where people spend most of their time.”
Standing in her yard in Atchison Village, a World War II Richmond housing development, Sylvia Hopkins looks out on the pink tanks of the Chevron refinery less than two miles away. She let scientists monitor her home in the indoor-outdoor study just to find out what she was breathing.
“Why do we live here?” she asks rhetorically. “Poor people live here. People don’t move here if they have a lot of money. That’s the way it is in industrial towns.”
Poor and minority families such as Henry Clark’s have been pushed into the path of pollution in Richmond for 100 years, says Clark, who founded the West County Toxics Coalition. So if there is any justice, he said, Richmond shouldn’t bear any new toxic burdens for the next 100.
“We already are disproportionately affected. We’re talking about not adding fuel to the fire.”
The above work, by Environmental Health News, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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For next class: Nov 13
Greetings Class,
Reminder, no class on 11/11. Why.? It’s Veteran’s Day. What does that mean? Perhaps, Google search. Perhaps you will picnic with your family along the Alameda shore, eating pancit on a windy day. Perhaps you will begin again.
For next class:
- Final Drafts of Essay #2 are due
- Bring in your copy of The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers by Bhanu Kapil (available in the COA bookstore and online) so we can begin our final project: the visual essay and interview.
Until then,
Mg
Nov. 4 class Cancelled
Greetings Class,
Unfortunately, I’m still under the weather and need to cancel class today. So sorry for this inconvenience and look forward to seeing you on Wednesday when I’m in better health. Please take a look at the Literary essay Rubric (posted below) and come to class on Wednesday with a self assessed rubric of your own essay to share with the class. Again, I’m so sorry to have to cancel class. You guys are such hard workers, keep it up!
Rubric for Literary Analysis Essay
Rubric for the Evaluation of a Literary Analysis Essay
Levels of Proficiency
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5 Strong |
4 Proficient
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3 Developing
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2 Emerging
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1 Not yet
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Name___________________________
Date___________________________
Teacher________________________
Title___________________________
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5 |
__Ideas and Content: The paper contains an insightful and/or sophisticated thesis (argumentative or expository in nature) that fully addresses the prompt and is fully supported by relevant, accurate and specific evidence from appropriate sources. The writer always explains how evidence communicates what it does and justifies inclusion.
__Organization: The paper follows a clear and logical train of thought set by the thesis. The paper’s introduction and conclusion are effective and the writer always uses topic sentences and effective transitions
__Style: Tone, voice, and point of view are always appropriate to the audience and purpose. Diction and sentence fluency are excellent throughout and the paper is rich in accurate and specific words choices. __Conventions/Presentation: The writer uses perfect citation format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, fonts, and layout
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4 |
__Ideas and Content: The paper contains a clear and intelligent thesis (argumentative or expository in nature) that fully addresses the prompt and is supported by relevant, accurate and sufficient evidence from appropriate sources. The writer explains how evidence communicates what it does in almost all instances thus offering justification for inclusion.
__Organization: The paper follows a logical train of thought related to the thesis. The paper’s introduction and conclusion are functional and the writer always uses topic sentences but less effective transitions.
__Style: Tone, voice, and point of view are appropriate to the audience and purpose. Diction and sentence fluency are good and the paper contains many accurate and specific words choices. __Conventions/Presentation: The writer uses correct citation format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, fonts, and layout.
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3 |
__Ideas and Content: The paper contains a thesis (argumentative or expository in nature) that addresses the prompt and is supported by some relevant evidence. The writer provides a superficial explanation of how evidence communicates what it does offering limited justification.
__Organization: The paper follows a train of thought related to the thesis. The paper has an introduction and conclusion and the writer uses some topic sentences and adequate transitions.
__Style: Tone, voice, and point of view are usually appropriate to the audience and purpose. Diction and sentence fluency are inconsistent and the paper contains some accurate and specific words choices. __Conventions/Presentation: The writer uses generally correct citation format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, fonts, and layout.
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2 |
__Ideas and Content: The paper contains a thesis (argumentative or expository in nature) that attempts to address the prompt, but the writer provides little clear, relevant evidence. The writer fails to explain how evidence communicates what it does and/or justify inclusion. __Organization: The paper does not follow a train of thought related to the thesis. The paper is missing an introduction or conclusion and the writer uses few topic sentences and/or transitions.
__Style: Tone, voice, and point of view are sometimes appropriate to the audience and purpose. Diction and sentence fluency are poor and the paper contains few accurate or specific words choices. __Conventions/Presentation: The writer uses poor citation format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, fonts, and layout.
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1 |
__Ideas and Content: The paper contains no thesis or a thesis (argumentative or expository in nature) that does not necessarily address the prompt. The writer fails to provide accurate, relevant evidence. The writer fails to explain how evidence communicates what it does or justify inclusion.
__Organization: The paper does not follow a train of thought related to the thesis. The paper is missing an introduction and conclusion and the writer fails to use topic sentences and/or transitions.
__Style: Tone, voice, and point of view are not appropriate to the audience and purpose. Diction and sentence fluency are poor and the paper does not contain accurate or specific words choices. __Conventions/Presentation: The writer uses incorrect citation format, grammar, spelling, punctuation, fonts, and layout.
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Instructor Comments: |
10/30 class cancelled
Greetings All,
I have a family emergency and will not make it to class tomorrow. First Drafts now due Nov. 4th!
Essay #2: Writing a Literary Analysis Paper:
Essay #2:
Writing a Literary Analysis Paper:
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
The Purpose of a Literary Analysis:
A literary analysis is not merely a summary of a literary work. Instead, it is an argument about the work that expresses a writer’s personal perspective, interpretation, judgment, or critical evaluation of the work. This is accomplished by examining the literary devices, word choices, or writing structures the author uses within the work. The purpose of a literary analysis is to demonstrate why the author used specific ideas, word choices, or writing structures to convey his or her message.
How to Create a Literary Analysis:
Read the text closely several times. Focus on the ideas that are being presented. Think about the characters’ development and the author’s writing technique. What might be considered interesting, unusual, or important?
Brainstorm a list of potential topics.
Highlight important passages in the text and take notes on these passages. Later, when writing the paper, these notes should help a writer to remember which aspects of the story caught his/her attention. The topic chosen should always be based on a writer’s interpretation of the author’s message. Here are some things a writer may want to consider when brainstorming for a literary analysis.
Character:
What observations might a writer make about the characters? Are there discrepancies in what they think, say, or do? Are the observations a writer makes different from what other characters say? How does the author describe the characters? Are the characters “dynamic” (a dynamic character is a character that undergoes important changes throughout the work)? Are the characters “static” characters (a static character is a character that stays the same throughout the work)?
Are the characters “flat” characters (a flat character is a character that does not have vivid character traits) or “round” characters (a round character is a character that has vivid character traits)? Are the characters symbolic or representative of some universal quality? Is it possible that two characters in the text might be compared or contrasted?
Setting:
Is there a relationship between the work’s setting and its mood? Does the setting reflect the work’s theme? How does the setting impact the characters? Does a change in the setting affect the mood, characters, or conflict?
Plot:
How might the beginning of the work be interpreted? How does the plot build suspense? Does the author use techniques such as foreshadowing or flashback? Are there patterns of cause-effect relationships? Do events occur in a logical order? Examine the events that lead to the climax and determine how the work ends?
Theme:
What is the major idea or theme of the work? How does the author relay this theme? Is there a greater meaning to the details given? How do the characters’ moods affect the theme? What allusions are made throughout the work? Are there repeating patterns or symbols? What does the title say about the theme?
Dialogue:
What is the purpose of the dialogue? Is the dialogue appropriate in terms of word choice or sentence length? How does the dialogue impact the characterization? How does the author use the dialogue to show the mood of the characters? How does this aid the author’s message? How does the dialogue impact the plot?
Imagery:
In what way might a specific image or series of images be analyzed? How might the development of images throughout the work be explained? Are the images important to the meaning of the work? How are images interrelated with other literary elements?
Figures of speech:
How are figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, and hyperboles used throughout the text? How are these figures of speech important in relation to the meaning of the text? Are figures of speech interrelated between other literary elements?
Tone:
How might describe the attitude of the author or the tone of the work be described? Is the tone serious, playful, casual, formal, or somber? How does the author achieve this tone? How does the tone impact the author’s message? Does the author say one thing but mean another? Does the author take the subject seriously or treat it lightly?
Rhyme/Rhythm:
Do the author’s words, sentences, or paragraphs seem to share a similar rhyme pattern? What type of rhythm does the author seem to be creating? How is this rhyme/rhythm impacting the author’s message? Does the author use the different rhymes/rhythms as a sound device for the literary work? How does the author do this?
Point of View:
What point of view do the characters display? First, second, or third? How does this point of view affect the theme, plot, or conflict of the work? How might the author’s point of view impact a writer’s analysis? Might the character’s first person point of view draw a writer to feel as though he/she is hearing a personal account and cause him/her to feel an intimate connection with the character? Might the author’s third person account cause a writer to feel as if the author is acting as the narrator of the story? Or might it cause a writer to believe that the narrator is an omniscient being who is distant but knows the character’s thoughts and feelings?
Think about what the author is trying to say. Why is this important? When viewing this work as a piece of art, what might a writer’s response be? What might a writer’s reactions be to the ideas presented in the work? Are these ideas truthful or relevant to today and how? If a writer were asked what they thought of this work how might they respond? What points might a writer make?”
Select a topic that has sufficient supporting evidence. A writer should make sure to include specific details to support the topic. Use highlighted sections of the book as evidence to support the topic that has been chosen.
Write a working thesis:
The analysis will need a strong thesis that states a writer’s perspective but also allows it to be debated. The thesis should state a writer’s opinion, but it should also allow readers to arrive at their own conclusions. Example of a debatable thesis:
Pride and Prejudice is about Elizabeth Bennet’s effort to overcome her own proud behavior and discrimination towards Mr. Darcy, as well as how her family is affected by the haughtiness and preconceptions of the society around them.
(This is a debatable thesis because it asks the reader, “Does Elizabeth actually exhibit haughtiness and preconceptions? Is this why she doesn’t get along with Mr. Darcy? How is Elizabeth’s family affected by the haughtiness and preconceptions of the society around them?”)
Avoid a non-debatable thesis:
Pride and Prejudice is about five sisters and their journey to find love.
(This thesis is non-debatable because it is undisputable. The paper is framed as a summary rather than as a literary analysis.)
Make an extended list of evidence.
Find more evidence from the text to support the working thesis. Then select the evidence that will be used in the paper.
Refine the thesis.
Make sure the thesis fits with the evidence that has been presented.
Organize the evidence.
Match the evidence to the order of the thesis. Delete any of the original textual supports that may no longer follow the thesis, and gather new evidence if needed.
Interpret the evidence.
When writing a literary analysis, it is very important for writers to make sure they express their own personal interpretation of the work. Be careful that the literary analysis is not a summary.
Create a rough draft.
When writing a rough draft, there are several methods that may aid a writer in creating a strong final draft. Here are a few methods:
Outline:
An outline will help a writer to organize his/her thoughts and ideas. It will remind a writer of the order of the thesis, as well as the supporting points he/she would like each topic sentence to have.
Free-write:
A short, ten minute free-write will help to get all of a writer’s thoughts on paper. It will allow a writer to focus on the content, rather than the punctuation and spelling. Once the free-write is complete, a writer can read through it and circle the points that are strong, as well as omit the ones that are not.
Clustering:
A bubble map will allow a writer to draw connections from one idea to the next. It will give a writer a visual idea of the direction of the literary analysis, as well as help a writer to see the connections between the topics. This can help a writer transition from one topic to another more fluidly.
Revise the Analysis
After completing the first draft, revise the analysis by considering the following questions:
Is the thesis clearly stated in the first paragraph?
Is the sentence structure varied?
Does the structure of the analysis emphasize the main ideas?
Is the third-person point of view used throughout the entire essay?
Has the present tense been used to discuss the work and past tense to describe the
author’s background?
Have quotation marks been used around direct quotations?
Have the sources been cited correctly according to MLA style?
Has extraneous information that does not support the thesis been eliminated?
Have clear transitions been used between sentences and paragraphs?
Proofread.
Once the content of the essay is well-developed, it should be proofread for grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It is often helpful to read the paper slowly and clearly out loud. If possible, another person should listen and read along as the paper is being read. The paper should be printed and proofread several times until an accurate final copy is created. Be alert to common grammatical errors such as sentence fragments, comma splices, or run-on sentences. Remember to consult a style manual for grammatical or citation questions, and if further assistance is desired, group workshops and individual appointments are available free of charge through Tutoring Services her at College of Alameda.
MLA Citation
For tomorrow’s class come with two typed pages:
- 3 quotes about the author Lois-Ann Yamanaka and or the book Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers using parenthetical references
- A Works Cited Page that cites where you found the 3 quotes
Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) & Kundiman Panel
https://www.facebook.com/events/485460398218986/
Writing Workshops: Kundiman and VONA | Fil Book Fest II
LIKHÂ NG LAHI. WRITING OUR WAY HOME:
SHAPING TRADITION, HISTORY AND CULTURE
FIL BOOK FEST II
October 19, 2013
San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch
100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) & Kundiman Panel
Paley Conference Room, 3rd Floor
1:45–2:45pm
Writing Workshops: Kundiman (http://kundiman.org/) and VONA/Voices (http://voicesatvona.org/)
Informational panel about Kundiman, a New York-based organization offering annual writing workshops for Asian American poets and VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation), dedicated to the nurturing of writers-of-color through their writing workshops in the East and West Coasts.
Panelists: Elmaz Abinader (Director of VONA) and Kundiman fellows Jason Bayani and Mg Roberts
APAture 2013
APAture 2013 : A Window into the Art of Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists
October 4 – 26, 2013
For more info: click here
thisyellowperil 