My basement

Alan Marx

September 25, 14

Professor Young

English 1100

            Walking into my house is already cool. You get to see my father’s cool cars in the garage that he loves so very much. You can smell all of his car-care products along with the laundry that he does in there. You open the door to my house and our alarm system goes off, beep, beep, beep. My dog is usually there to greet you at the door with her tail wagging and a look of happiness to see you. Right in front of you, you can see my sisters bedroom that was just re-done because she wanted her room to be downstairs. My mom loves to cook, its what she does when she is bored, so when you open the door on the days of her boredom you can usually smell something delectable, like a pie or a fresh plate of brownies. Then you walk right into my room where I can truly call my favorite place to be.

            (Room is usually clean; mom is throwing a garage sale this weekend). In this room I first show you the door with a glass door connected to it. Usually when it is a weekend or summer time, the door is left open and the glass door is there so people can just walk in and out. The sound of that door opening on those weekends puts a smile on my face because you never know who can be showing up. My friends who usually come don’t even tell me when they are coming; they just come on the random. Then I show you the couch, which we just purchased this spring. It’s a tan L-shaped couch and it’s very comfortable.. Picture in your head, that couch is filled with a bunch of guys laughing uncontrollably having a good time. That is what you would be walking into if they weren’t all at college. Underneath the couch lies the carpet, which is a maroon colored carpet that has been there since we bought the house back in 2002. You can usually smell food all around the house, because that’s all we do, we sit there until we are all starved and then we will go on a road trip to McDonalds or WAWA. Moving forward you look around the room and you can notice probably the most random artwork you could ever see. There’s a picture of a tree, a leaf, New York City, and Yankee Stadium. Only one of those pictures is something that I can relate to, which is the Yankee stadium picture, I am a die hard Yankees fan You can also see the TV where hundreds upon hundreds of movies have been watched and thousands upon thousands of hours of games have been played.  You also get a quick glimpse at my Xbox 360 and my PlayStation 3. Then we walk over to the bathroom. In this bathroom lies the most unique artwork around the entire house and most of it was brought back from a Punta Cana trip that me and my family went on about 7 years ago. It is tiki themed, and there are masks and statues of tikis. There are also numerous amounts of reading material.

            This was my favorite place to be. Not only is it my favorite place but it is also my home. It’s where I have grown up for the past 18 years. The memories in this home I will cherish forever.

Essay 1

Alan Marx

September 11, 2014

Professor Young

English 1100

Identity Essay

            Growing up I never knew what path I would fall to or what roads I would take. In my teen years I struggled to find the right group of people that I could sincerely call true friends. It took years of confusion, sitting at home alone on weekends wondering why I couldn’t maintain a successful friendship, and it made me wonder. Where would I fall by the end of high school? In the memoir “The Color of Water” by James McBride his life and his struggle with identity is what the story falls under, finding who he is and why. Identity can be a hard thing to understand and the question is, is identity important? And I for one can strongly say that it is. Because of my identity I have a clear understanding of who I am as a person, I am more confident, and outgoing with the things I do and the things I am going to do moving on.

            Many people do not have a clear understanding of what identity really means. It is not something that you can physically sense it is being who you are as a person. People tend to change their identity in certain situations, for example if you are with your family you would use words that are completely different to the ones you would use lets say around your friends. When you are with your friends more slang and curses tend to come out and when you are with your family it is all about respect and using polite words. You may not notice it but different characters come out of you when different situations are presented to you. Another example would be if you were in a place that was conducting business, like a job, a side of you would come out sounding more professional and your words would be more helpful and less slang would be used. And that is the definition and some examples of what identity is.

            The memoir “The Color of Water” by James McBride shows how identity is important in our every day life. The narrator of the novel James is very confused with his own identity as throughout his entire childhood his brothers and sisters taunted him and made him feel like he wasn’t part of the family. His mother was “Light Skinned” and James was black, and in his 8-year-old mind this was very confusing to him. “When I asked her if she was white she’d say, “No I’m light skinned”, and change the subject again” (McBride 21). James’s mother was a tough lady; throughout the reading you can see all of the hardships they encounter, yet his mother brushing it off as if nothing ever happened. Her focus was to get her kids through school and make sure they went to church. She did not want them to be taken back by what they saw going through this era. James notices how tough of a woman she is and realizes that he now needs to protect his identity which she has shown him.

            At the end of the memoir when James encounters with a “Black Panthers” child he punches him in the face. Even though his mother may be different than him he realizes he needs to protect the ones he loves. James realizes that in this world it is not about what race you are or what other people think about you, its about you, your family and nothing else has to matter. This is all again tied back to what he saw in his mother all of those times where she was stronger than the other. And that is why I feel identity is shown to be very important in this memoir.

            During the last few years my friends and family have had a huge impact in my life and have helped me find and understand my true identity. First my friends, the way we came together is a very long story but lets just say that two groups combined to make one very close group of twelve. The memories and stories could go on and on and we are such a close group that I am certain that there will be more to come. We all share a certain kind of humor so when we are together it makes it easy to talk to them and fun at the same time. We all call my basement home, whenever we are bored or tired we all seem to fall on my couch and just make each other laugh until we cannot laugh anymore. They have been there so many times that they call my parents “Mom and Dad”, and I have to say that over 90% of my summer consisted of being with them before college.

            Connecting James Mcbride and myself is very easy, Racial is what is on the outside of someone. But the true identity of a person is what is on their inside and that is what James sees and figures out when he watches his mother be stronger than the other person, and that’s what my friends saw in me. I wasn’t the most popular kid, or the best athlete in the school I was a normal kid with a good sense of humor and I am proud to say that.

            And then there is my family who has been there with me through the good times and bad. They have raised me to be kind and caring person that I am today, and I couldn’t thank them enough. On my 18^th birthday my mom and my sister created this book that was a memory log for me, everyone who was close to me including my friends wrote something in the book, whether it was funny stories or advice they all said something that touched me. When reading this book I realized one thing, my identity, who I really was, which is an intelligent, loved, caring human being who has barely any hair. So as you can see identity is very important to me, my friends and family who I love very much have shaped me to be the person I am today, I love who I have become and I wouldn’t sell it for the world.

            Identity cannot be seen by just looking at someone, you are the only one who knows who you truly are. In my life it is very important to me and as you can see in “The Colors of Water” it is important as well. James, after all he went through with his siblings, he stuck through it at a young age and paid attention to the woman that raised him since day one. And for me all of those weekends on the couch alone have paid off and now every weekend the couch is full of who id like to call my brothers.

            

Mcbride questions

Alan Marx

September 11, 2014

Professor Young

English 1100

McBride Questions

            The Main concept of black power that James is trying to explain in his story is that even though in this time black power was an overpowering movement, it wasn’t going to let nor the mother or anyone else in her family down. I find this to be an identity, their family was a strong family, and the mother was the reason behind al of it. No matter what was happening she was focused on things like getting her children to church and made sure they did good in school. I find it also very strong of her, when she was mugged by those men she fought to keep that purse and even when the purse was taken, she took her sons hand and walked away like nothing ever happened and she says “Its only a purse”. A lot of people in this time had to accept the fact that they were going to be treated differently every where they went whether it was on the train or just walking around, they were looked at as different. After growing up all of his life learning that ones life is their own private life and no one else should have a say. The scene on the bus really shows everything that James had seen and learned in his life, he punches a kid in the face, a kid that was a son of a father who was known as “Black Power”, he was tired of being seen as different and wanted to make a stand for him and his family that he was here to stay and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. That’s why I feel that this story was based on identity

Anzadula questions

Alan Marx

September 1^st, 2014

Professor Young

English 1100

How to tame a wild tongue questions

1.     The opening scene in Anzaldua connects to the overall theme because in the reading it shows of how free her mouth tends to flow, and the frustration of the dentist connects with everyone else’s frustration with trying to help her to stop being so free when she speaks.

2.     Anzalduas Spanish throughout her writing did make sense at some points when she explained it, but when she didn’t it was a little confusing, her purpose was to show how big of a mouth she actually has, and putting in her Spanish frequently shows what her teachers, her mother, or even her dentist had to deal with

3.     Yes because in both cases whether your English or Spanish you need to learn how to speak in a professional manner unordered to succeed in the real world. Chicano Spanish can be described as non-standard because it comes naturally.

4.     Speaking and writing academic English is an identity because how you speak and how you act around other people defines you as a person and shows what your true identity is, when your around your friends it’s a whole other world because a whole different language is created

5.     The various types of English I know are basic, slang, British, Canadian, Australian

6.     The language I use around my friends compared to the language around my parents, or people of business are completely different. When im around my friends more slang tends to come out of my mouth, along with curse words. When I am around my parents I am very polite and I tend to use good words, and when im around people of business I tend to talk in the most professional way as possible, my voice tends to become lighter and you can tell that I am trying to be helpful and work with them

7.     When I am with my friends I use non standard English because more slang tends to come out, when im with my mother, I use standard English because she doesn’t like slang she likes for me to be respectful so when I am around other parents I do the same

8.     “I am my language” means that the way you talk identifies you as a person, whatever language you speak usually can identify you as say an America or a Hispanic

9.     The introduction and conclusion connect because even though she has a big mouth there’s no changing who she is, people are who they are and their identities are not going to change no matter how many rulers hit them. And her not changing means that they are going to continue not to change until she is as equal as the other person

10. No the language I speak cannot be apart of my identity because it depends on the setting, your language tends to change pending on the people you are around, between friends and family, there are two different types of you

11. Identity is very important to me it is essential that I have close friends in life that I can have fun with and say whatever I want, but then there is my family that I love and want to respect. In Anzaldua’s case she believes in identity very much in her closing she adds, “When other races have given up their tongue, we’ve kept ours”. She is saying this defending her identity as a Hispanic and is proud to tell the world that no matter how badly they are treated they are not going anywhere they will fight till the end

Alan Marx

September 1^st, 2014

Professor Young

English 1100

Object that describes me

            Throughout my entire life I have always loved cars I give my mother, my father, and my brother all of the credit, It all started when I was 3 years old and my father put me on his lap and let me steer down our street and into the driveway, who would ever let their child do something like that at 3 years old. My mom did something a little less extreme but she would take me around the parking lot at her work and I would name all of the cars in the lot, I got really good at it all I needed was to see the emblem and I would know it. And then there was my brother that let me watch a PG-13 movie at the age of 5 called The Fast and the Furious, which was all about tuner cars and has been my favorite movie of all time ever since the first day I watched it. My friends always ask me why it is my favorite movie because it isn’t by any means a well shot movie, and it isn’t anywhere near the top 100 movies of all time but to me it is very special and I still watch it to this day With all of that said my automobile that I own today best describes who I am as a person. I have a black Honda accord coupe, which is a tuner car. The car is clean, fast and furious which fits my personality in a direct way. I am a very neat person all of my rooms stay clean and of coarse my car stays clean as well, I am a very fast person, meaning a run very fast, my mom said that I run like a bullet around the base path when I am playing baseball and my coach’s say the same, and lastly furious. Do not mistake this last word I am not a furious person by any means, I am loyal to my friends and family and whenever they need me I am there, but one of my friends once said to me that I always seem to have this grin on my face that I am angry and all I can say to them is that, that is the way I always am, I am a very serious person that wouldn’t be afraid to stick up for myself or anyone else, and that’s what the movie fast and the furious taught me to be fast and protect the ones that I love in my life.