The End Is Near. The Beginning Is Here.

Such A Great Video.

Thank You MIRANDA NILLO




And Now Go Forth...

"STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH" -Steve Jobs

REMEMBER...that this is water

AND DON'T FORGET

"The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race."

 -Unknown

In the spirit of remixes...

Modern...

Classy....

Reuniting With Myself

Marquez 1

Erica Marquez

Dr. Preston

AP English Literature and Composition

31 March 2014

Reunited With Myself

When I came into this world and took my first breath of oxygen I stunned many and became a special case for the doctors. I was premature and unable to eat without assistance. As I see it, I just could not wait to start living. As I grew older I found things that I liked, people that I loved, and experiences I wanted to go through. As I kept existing in this world I forgot what it meant to live. I forgot what it really meant to enjoy life. I got so wrapped up in what life and my education should be that I forgot what I loved about these things. I lost an essence of who I was and this course helped me reunite with that person.

When I began this course I was slapped with the big question. I thought and thought, and I wondered should I strive to impress or should I be truthful? I went with truthful and there my journey began. I felt like I took a fresh breath of oxygen.  I took this course to heart because then is when I knew that it would benefit me. Working with others, making connections, and sharing my ideas allowed me to become interactive in class. It allowed me to enjoy the course and I would definitely say that we as students deserve that opportunity. We deserve the opportunity to finally breathe a breath of fresh air; a breath of a new system.

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Literature is about learning and reading, and writing, and loving, and feeling, and emotion. It is so many things in so little pages. Part of our experience in this course was literature. My favorite pieces of work from this year are “The Kite Runner”,  “A thousand Splendid Suns” and, “In The Time Of The Butterflies”. These were my favorite because I am very passionate about justice for all. I like to think that we all have voices and that they should all be heard. These novels have many injustices embedded in the story lines. They are so raw and are based on the reality of two countries, Afghanistan and the Dominican Republic. Reading about these events reminded me about my life, it reminded me of how grateful I should be, and about how I want to change the world.

I could breathe since day one, but I did not know how to live or what I would live for. Connecting with myself allowed me to realize that there is so much to be done in this world and for the world. I could be a change. I could be passionate again. (I lost that in school) I could express my feelings and share my concerns in this course. I could talk about the campesinos and their injustices. I could hear about

other peoples passions like teaching, releasing stress through blowing fruits up, inspiring others through films, creating websites to help and entertain others, etc. The list of passions and interest goes on…The fresh air is breathed, it is contagious in this environment.

            I like oxygen and breathing this type of fresh air, but what really made me inhale and exhale lots of it were Javi’s and Izamar’s In Loco Politico post. The

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sarcasm and truth to their post was the freshest of air. Also, the class readings of plays like Macbeth, and Hamlet. They were very fun and entertaining.

            In that class we all breathe the same cool air. We all have a passion or something we care about and want to share with others. Kristen, Jacob, Kendall’s, Kylie’s, Maria’s and Javi’s and Izamar’s presentations were all connected and unified in two things. I felt like their presentations were focused on identity and change. They all put something on the table, something that they liked or could identify with and they talked about changing it, being innovators, trying to understand it and making a contribution to it. They all let us have a breeze of their wind.

            This year I not only stunned many…I stunned myself. I fought many battles, and I struggled to breathe the fresh air. Despite these gust of winds that seemed to tumble me and shake me once in a while I became aware of when I needed to hold my breath and when I could breathe. And finally I could breathe…            

Voices Without A Voice/ Voces Sin Voz

This is for you my dear campesinos

As you read this think of yourself as a farm worker...

YOU came into this huge and "rich" country at a really young age. YOU came on your own, YOU came with your family, or your parents brought you here. The only thing you came here for was to survive. Your beautiful country did not provide you with the resources or opportunities you needed to survive. You had no choice...You had to leave your home and you had to say bye to your mom and dad, your spouse, your aunts, and uncles, and cousins, but worst of all your children, your babies, your everything. You had to leave them. You left with absolutely nothing and came with absolutely nothing. YOU are nothing...

Oh and by the way while you were on your journey to survive you had the cross the border, but before that you were faced with Mexican and American assailants and kidnappers after your money, you were faced with heat, the sun, snakes and cacti, after your body and American vigilantes after your freedom, and border patrol after your records. Then you had to stay in a small dark and damp room with about 20 others oh and by the way you are dehydrated, and eating rotten food. You are unshowered...but wait the fun does not end there...You also had to go under a 7 foot barbed wire fence run across a sand road run across another barbed wire fence and keep running until you cannot breath...And then maybe you will make it through. Oh and by the way you had to pay for this 3 day vacation trip... (source Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies by Seth M. Holmes)

You see, YOU are opressed and your dignity is squandered therefore like Che Guevara said in his Motorcycle Diaries  "they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life and, consequently a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community."

Guevara also says " The lives of the poor, unsung heroes of this battle, who die miserably in one of the thousand traps set by nature to defend its treasures, when all they want is to earn their daily bread." 

Voices Without A Voice Video 

Cesar Chavez Movie Trailer :)

I Strongly dislike (hate) school

I have been going to school every year. Every year gets a bit more complicated.

Same equations...just an added letter or number maybe
Same routine...just different building and/or city
Same personalities...just different faces
Same classroom setting...just different rooms
Same rules...just different places
Same material...just more detail
Same projects...just different rules
Same stress...just growing increasingly fast
Same content...just in a different order
Same as yesterday...just today is a new day

That is the problem... school is stuck on yesterday
BUT I want to learn about today!

I'm stuck on this fenced campus full of classrooms called school...It is practically a jail.
I move from one cell to the next but at the end of the day I am still stuck there.
I was done learning when I realized it was all too similar. Every year was full of stress and things I would never use in life. These things I would only use in the next cell, but never outside the jail. 

I want to learn...actually there are only 2 more weeks of school and all I want to do is graduate. The thing that really ticks me off is that teachers think "Oh what the heck let me just try to get through the whole damn book in 2 weeks, let me just assign massive projects out this week, so that during dead week my students could actually be dead" 

Being a student is great in highs school -_- ...

you are killing me!

Dear school,

I hate you and your dumb education system that has been around far too long!

Disgustingly,

Erica

and...

 Dear Education,

I love you. You allow me to be creative and free! I wish I could be with you all the time, but unfortunately school jailed me in. Come and get me!

Eagerly,

Erica

WHY I HATE SCHOOL AND LOVE EDUCATION VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI

Our silence is a crime...

Are we human?

Muslim

Spoken word

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE FRUIT. IT IS ABOUT THE PEOPLE!

Photo Essay: Farming on the Frontlines in Gaza: http://www.newsweek.com/photo-essay-farming-frontlines-248321

By Jošt Franko/VII Photo Mentor Program

Farmers install an irrigation system in Beit Lahia, near the Erez checkpoint.

In Gaza, with the Israeli border within sight, Palestinian farmers lead worn-torn lives, dealing farming fields on the frontlines. Trying to make a living cultivating crops like strawberries, oranges, grapefruits and olives, their task became even more difficult after a military blockade in 2007 made it impossible to export their products. Up to 80 percent of agricultural yields from Gaza and the West Bank used to be sold abroad, but a ban on exports has devastated the Gazan economy. At the same time, essential supplies including fuel and electricity are strictly regulated by Israel. Farmers are most likely to be settled in small communities like Rafah, Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun, which are now known as frontlines, where missiles most likely to be fired and lives taken. In these struggling farming towns, the Israeli army has bulldozed land and sniper fire is a familiar occurrence.

More than 35 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land is in so-called buffer zones. Officially, these restricted-access areas extend 300 meters into Gaza. In reality, they can extend up to 1,500 meters from the border fence and are enforced with lethal means. In addition to declining agricultural production here, existing water shortages are exacerbated by heavy pollution, leaving just 10 percent of the water supply potable. (All images from October and November 2013.)

Khalil Zaanin works at his farm in Beit Hanoun. His land was bulldozed several times by the Israeli army.  

 Workers gather products and load them on a car in Khan Younis.

A white flag leans on the ruins of a farm in Rafah.

Geese at Medhat Hamad’s farm in Beit Hanoun. He and his wife work on the field during the day. After school, their children and grandchidren come to the farm to play. Their land was bulldozed several times by the Israeli army.

Medhat Hamad’s grandchild lies on the ground on their farm. 

A donkey eats from a bucket on a farm in east Rafah.

Remains of a rocket following an Israeli air strike lie next to the shadows of Eyad Qudaih’s two daughters, as they stand near their house in Khan Younis. The children ran to their fathers just before the projectile hit their bedroom, Eyad remembers: “If they stayed in the room, they would have been all dead.” He says his wife was pregnant with twin boys, in her sixth month, and had a miscarriage the night of the bombing.

A wife of a farmer makes bread in the area of Rafah.

Tomatoes are transported to market in a pickup truck in Rafah.

Mohammed Abu Daqqa’s farmland in Khan Younis is in the buffer zone. Abu Daqqa cannot hire workers because the land is considered to be too dangerous, so he has to work on the field on his own. Foreign activists accompany him from time to time as human shields, to protect him from Israeli army sniper fire.

Left: Abu Tareq Wahadans’s son unloads fertilizer in Beit Hanoun. Because of the fuel crisis, many farmers use horses and carts to transport their goods. Right: Medhat Hamad’s wife peels an orange on their farm in Beit Hanoun. The family says their farm was bulldozed several times by the Israeli army.

Baby of the Al Roomi family sleeps in her mother’s lap on a farm in Rafah.

Palestinian children and a man gather near a greenhouse at the farm in the Msabbah area in Rafah.

A farm in Rafah.

Daughter of Mohammed Abu Daqqa plays on the roof of their house in Khan Younis.

Ghanma Jbara, prepares tea on the ruins of her house in Rafah. In June 2006, one day after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, the Israeli army invaded the area, and her land and house were bulldozed. The farm was surrounded by tanks and soldiers for more than two weeks, and food and water had to be provided by Red Crescent. She refuses to leave her land and move from the ruins of her house and now lives in a shelter home next to her former house and land.

The Abu Daqqa house in Khan Younis. In the last war in 2012, their house was occupied by the Israeli army. They detained their father Mohammed for several days while their mother Jihan and their kids were forced to stay in the house with Israeli soldiers.

A man holding a cabbage, stands next to his son in Rafah.

Abu Daqqa's farmland in Khan Younis.

My opinion: The injustice of the farm laborer is not only a problem for the Latinos. It is a epidemic faced in many countries. I will repeat what Cesar Chavez said until we understand that the problem is not about the fruit it is about the people and about humanity. "The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people"