CITYTECHWRITER
Volume 8 2013

Outstanding Student Writing
From All Disciplines
Jane Mushabac, Editor in ChiefCover by Irina Samkova
Art Director: Lloyd Carr

New York City College of Technology
City University of New York

Preface

A boy plays soccer on a hot summer night in South Africa, a young couple
moves into a railroad flat in Brooklyn, two children play by the sea in Iceland,
and a teacher protests in Greece.
In City Tech Writer 8 we hear stories and proposals, address anguish andhope, analyze rituals and meaning, ask questions. Above all, we study—the vastpotential hidden in the human genome, the limits of artificial intelligence, thepleasures of Bandcamp, and our assumptions regarding our protected right toprivacy in a world of social networking.
As we go to press, I have many people to thank: the faculty throughout
the College who have inspired their students to be fine writers, and who havesubmitted almost two hundred pieces of remarkable writing from their courses;
Prof. Mary Ann Biehl, Advertising Design and Graphic Arts Department Chair,and Prof. John McVicker and Prof. Peter Fikaris whose ADV 4700 students
produced seventy appealing cover designs; Prof. Lloyd Carr, the journal’s Art
Director since its inception, who as always has been stellar in coordinating thegraphics and preparing the cover for production; the Reprographics Center’s
Lubosh Stepanek who did a handsome job of printing the cover, and Director ofCampus Services Jeff Novak who coordinated this support; and Chief Laboratory
Technician Steve Caputo, and printers George Pompilio and Peter Pompilio, who
produced the volume with care and competence. I’m grateful to President Russell
Hotzler, Provost Bonne August, and Dr. Stephen Soiffer for their invaluable
support and encouragement from the top; and the President’s Executive Assistant
Marilyn Morrison and Assistant to the Provost Imelda Perez for their great help
and thoughtfulness. Professors Armando Solis, Rebecca Devers, Caroline
Hellman, Kate Falvey, Laura Westengard, Costas Panayotakis, Carole Harris,
Maura Smale, and English Department Chair Nina Bannett graciously thought
through questions and provided assistance of many kinds; Avril Miller in the
Faculty Commons helped also; and English Department Office Assistants Lily
Lam and Laura Kodet have been wonderfully generous and resourceful.
But most of all, I thank the student writers who make teaching a great
pleasure, and whose writing focuses with clarity and spirit on things that matter.

Jane Mushabac, Editor in Chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Each listing provides the title and author of a work, and the professor and course
for which it was written

Bending
Melissa Hughes
2012 Charles Matusik Fiction Contest First Place

1

So Much “Junk”?
The Complexities of the Human Genome
Luis Loor
Professor Solis, Biology 3350

8

The Music Matrix:
Proposing A New Discovery Tool
For Bandcamp
Tim Durland
Professor Sucre, Library 1201

13

The Williamsburg RenaissanceJessica Guerra
Professor Miller, English 1101

18

Eminent Domain
Lupita Escamilla
Professor Espinoza, Law 1202

23

Carrying Oli
Kristel Assa Adolfsdottir
Professor Mushabac, English 1141

26

Women Breaking Free
Anne Antoine
Professor Ferrell, English 2000

28

A Will Unbroken
Denis Petras
Professor Alexis, English 1121

32

The Next Wave of Austerity Incites Anger and Desperation
Thalia Cabrera
Professor Leston, English 1151

34

Face the Truth
Fabio Gonzalez
Professor Panayotakis, Sociology 3402

41

Everyday Struggle
Chovair Graham
Professor Rodriguez, Psychology 2402

45

Where Art Thou, Black Dads?
Tamatha Hines
Professor Maynard, African American Studies 1466

50

Islamic Rituals,
A Pillar in Bengali Culture
Abir Khan
Professor Pope-Fischer, Anthropology 1102

55

The Religion of America Is Capitalism
Leah Braithwaite
Professor Pope-Fischer, Anthropology 1102

59

An Interview:
The Immigration Experience
Jose Rivera
Professor Bardallo-Vivero, Sociology 1101

65

Who Will Say 520?
Xiao Yan Wu
Professor Standing, Speech 1320

66

The Story Behind My Name
Jacqueline Henry
Professor Harris, English 090W

68

An Interview:
The Immigration Experience
Carmen Hume
Professor Bardallo-Vivero, Sociology 1101

70

Texting and Driving?
Viviana Medina
Professor Berger, Speech 1330

71

Schnitzel to Syringes
Maria Serena Bartha
Prof. Kolchenko, Biology 2311

73

Invisible Army
Hadassa Francois
Professor Berger, Speech 1330

75

New Approaches to Old Disasters
Husaan Iqbal
Professor Brahimi, Mechanical Engineering Technology 2335

76

Law, Privacy, and Technology
Fanny Gerloven Chico
Professor Moran, Emerging Scholars Program

78

A Hostel Take on City Regulations
Rebecca Karrin
Professor Hobart, Hospitality Management 3502

83

Prize-Winning Video
Chin Sheng “William” Hsieh
2011 New York Fed Video Competition,
Second Place Co-winnerProfessor Terao, Entertainment Technology

91

A Rough Ride: No One Seems
To Care How You Get There
C. Daniel Thomas
Professor Westengard, English 1101

93

On Happiness: Aristotle and EpicurusOrion McCaine
Professor Park, Philosophy 2103

97

Hope
Juhair Mahtab
Professor Mushabac, English 1101

100

On Being Human, andArtificial Intelligence
Liza Luboa
Professor Lansiquot, English 1773

103

Bending
Melissa Hughes

It was a balmy night, even for summer in the northeastern province of South
Africa. Sbu stood between the rocks-cum-goalposts, hoping the other boys would
keep the soccer game to the other side of the lot. It was too hot to hustle. Dume,the big kid with knock-knees broke through the cluster with the ball. He dribbled
fast, snorting like a bull as he barreled towards Sbu.
Sbu’s hands started to shake. He’d only taken goalie so he wouldn’t haveto run. Now it didn’t seem like the best idea. His teammates scrambled behind
Dume.
“Focus!” Sbu’s father called out as he walked by. “You’ve done this athousand times before!” Sbu felt the rest of the world dissolve. The other boys
fell away. His feet took root. No different than any other game. He’s just a bit
bigger Sbu told himself.
Dume faked left. Sbu cut right. His foot caught the ball square on,
bending it back to the far side of the lot. The boys spun around and ran the otherway.
And then they collided. It was like hitting a wall at full speed. “Punk,”
Dume said kicking some dirt on him before he ran after the others.
Sbu rolled onto his back. From the corner of his eye he could see hisfather wave. Sbu waved back as he ducked down a narrow path to where
neighbors were playing dice a row of shacks down the hill.
The township smelled like roasting meat and earth and sweat. Sbu took adeep breath in and felt the earth spin under him. “Good on ya,” Simpiwe saidtrotting past, back to the game. “He’s a BIG boy.”
Pop-pop-pop. The boys hit the ground and scattered as gunshots tore
through the lazy night. The shots were close. One row of houses away, where
Sbu’s father had gone. Simpiwe was face down with the ball pulled over his head
like a helmet. Sbu belly-crawled over to him, grabbed his elbow and led him into
his house. They slipped under his parents’ bed and giggled at Simpiwe, stillclinging to the ball. He bit Sbu’s shoulder who squealed like a piglet. Theylaughed until it cramped their sides.
The front door clapped open and slammed shut with the weight of a bodyfalling against it. There was no more laughing. From under the bed Sbu could see
his father’s boots brace in the dirt floor. Outside gunshots stuttered around thespinning of tiers. Simpiwe had his face under the ball again. The black leather of
Sbu’s father’s boots darted past them to the back of the room where he kept a gun
hidden.
“Da…” he whispered.

1

“Shh! Stay under the bed!” he hissed back. There was the creak of thedoor’s rusty hinges and then shots from his father’s gun, loud and immediate.
Sbu nudged Simpiwe with his shoulder to make sure he was ok. He rolled hiseyes and shook, pretended it was to tease him for being scared. The door
slammed shut, his father dropping to all fours. “Stay here,” he said. He winked
before he jumped up. Fast heavy footsteps. The window rattled open. “I’ll beright back for you,” his father said climbing out. The shack felt frail and mutable
though they’d lived there for as long as he could remember. Sbu’s heart punchedin his chest. The air seemed thicker. He couldn’t get a full breath. He had to getout. Simpiwe held him back as the gunshots started again, punctuated by thescreeches of trucks forcing their way down too narrow streets.
The front door flew open. “Sbu!” his mother’s voice was sharp. He’dheard it like this once before; when his grandmother’s farm got caught in a
mudslide. He climbed out from under the bed as fast as he could. She reached
down and pulled Simpiwe out by the scruff. The gunshots stopped and the threestood motionless for a moment, holding onto the silence and each other. “Da
said,” Sbu started. His mother covered his mouth with her hand.
There was a tinkling of breaking glass, the whoosh of flames andscreams. Close and stomach churning. His mother grabbed the boys by the wrists
and yanked them behind her out the window. All around them fire crackled up
the sides of groaning metal walls that curled in their heat. They ran hunched over,ducking behind bins and into corners. They followed his mother to the south sideof the neighborhood and up through the hole in the fence to the sugar cane fields
above.
They dove into the shadows between rows and watched as others
escaped into the field and the woods beyond. Simpiwe pointed to a collapsed
house, “I think that’s my aunty’s,” he said. Sbu’s mom broke off pieces ofsugarcane and handed it to him.
“Don’t say such things,” she said. “Eat.”“Ma,” Sbu said tugging at her sleeve. “Da said he would be right back.”“He came home?” She looked surprised.
“He told me to stay put. He was coming right back. We have to go get”
“Oh no you don’t.” She pulled Sbu back down into the dirt. “He’s agrown man.” She narrowed her eyes at a group of people stealing through thehole in the fence. “He left you there?”“He was coming right back,” Sbu mumbled. She had that far away look
she got sometimes. She wasn’t listening anymore.
Dawn brought quiet and a light ash filled rain that stuck to their skin andran grey beads down their arms.
They walked home through the ravaged township. Fresh white placards
were fixed to broken doors and posts. “If you want to live,” it said, “join the IFP.
Freedom in 1992.” The Ikatha Freedom Party had been pasting them up forweeks though until now Sbu’d never given them much weight. His father used totear them down and say “We’re African National Congress. If it’s good enough2

for Mandela, it’s good enough for us.” Without his father the signs had spread
like lice over a sleeping dog.
“Ma…did you see those posters?”“Hush. I don’t care for politics,” she said.
A heavy smell of strange burnt meat scathed their nostrils. Small crowds were
forming around collapsed shacks. People lifted bent iron sheets to see if anyone
was left inside. The body of a woman was pulled from one as they passed.
“No Malusi,” a man in a torn shirt said, rubbing his forehead.
“He might have been taken,” the man helping him said. Sbu scanned thecrowds for his father. Maybe someone took him too, he thought. Maybe theybrought him somewhere safe like the cane field. He pictured his father, still
asleep, snorting when a fat fly danced around his nostrils.
On Sbu’s street two houses were flattened. Their own house hung at aforty-five degree angle, but it still stood. Sbu took it as a sign. His father had
built the house. If it stood, he had to be standing too.
“Ma,” Sbu started. She shushed him with a wave of her hand.
“There will be a meeting this afternoon in the Hall. We’ll go and see
from there. We’ll see.” Sbu inched closer to her and took her hand.
“I’m scared Ma.” He’d only said it so she didn’t have to.
“Don’t be.” She squeezed his hand. “We’re together. So long as we haveeach other, we’ll be ok.” A rock and rusted gas canister blocked their door. She
pushed them aside with her foot. The house was empty and hot. The thickening
miasma followed them in, creeping under their loosely fitting door and throughthe still open window.
The Community Hall was teeming. People packed tight into corners andtoo many to a row.
Something in Sbu felt different. It was the opposite of full. The way
darkness feels when someone turns off a very bright light in the middle of thenight.
A soccer ball struck the side of Sbu’s knee. A few feet away Simpiwestood grinning. Behind him a group of boys scrambled, small feet with spindly
legs jostled each other to get closer to the trashcan goal posts. For the first time in
his life the game seemed silly. Sbu tossed the ball back. Simpiwe kicked it at him,
nailing him in the chest. He smiled even wider and waved. Sbu sighed andlooked inside the hall. His mother and grandmother were sitting at the edge of thethird row. Beside them he vaguely recognized his neighbor Ayize’s cousin. The
podium was filling with stern-faced men. At either end, bored looking cops
played cards and read papers. Unease crept under his skin and wiggled throughhim, like a big man in a too small overcoat. There was nothing he could do. He
was still a boy; his coming of age ceremony wasn’t even scheduled yet.
“Kick the ball, Sbu!” the kids shouted in an off-beat chorus. He kicked
the ball back and ran out. “You’re with me!” Simpiwe shouted after him.
The meeting in the hall outlasted the game and the heat of the afternoon
that ushered the boys into the shade of a nearby tree. Those that could went home.
Sbu sat outside the entrance and waited. The sinking afternoon sky snared on3rooftops and drying lines. Soft breezes rippled over his bare arms. Somewhere a
dog barked. Everything looked as it always had. Intertwining dirt roads, heavily
pot-holed and littered with bits of tire and empty packets stretched out before him.
Quilted together pieces of metal made up houses that hid full living rooms withquieted radios and well swept rugs.
Sbu leaned his head against the threshold and listened to the meeting
inside. “They leave us no choice,” “My wife is gone,” “This is not politics,”
people shouted out of turn at the now tired looking men on the stage. Sbu tried tosee between the bodies and arms, craning for a glimpse of his grandmother’s
scarf. He couldn’t find them. Sbu’s heart started racing. He looked around theempty square. All his friends had gone. For the moment, he was alone.
Three hours later a crowd stiller than a funeral procession trickled out
onto the street. Sbu’s mother and granny walked whispering to one another. Sbu
followed them, knowing better than to interrupt. His grandmother had unhooked
the ANC badge from her shirt collar and was turning it over in her hand. “Truth
is subjective, particularly in war. This is war.” Sbu’s mother opened her mouth as
if to speak, then bit her breath and nodded. Granny played her fingers around thebadge’s pin, “Your husband is not here Mbhali. He has left you to fend foryourself. You must make a choice. And the choice is clear. Not even he would
argue.” Sbu’s father always argued. Sbu had heard him debating the color of thesky and the taste of chicken. An uneasy feeling latched to the roof of Sbu’s
stomach. He glanced around patting his pockets. He was losing something.
“Life isn’t always what you planned for,” his granny said. “Sometimes
you have to recognize the path you were on was the wrong one, be humble
enough to admit it and strong enough to change. There are no promises. Yourhusband has made his choice, he’s not coming back.” Sbu’s mother stopped andshook her head.
“Don’t say that Ma. He’s coming back. He just went into hiding.”“Not anymore,” Granny clapped her hand over her mouth. She shook herhead and looked away.
“Ma?” Mbhali touched her arm. Granny closed her eyes.
“I saw him this morning. He couldn’t find you. He accused me of turning
you in…” Sbu’s mother took her hand away and touched it to her mouth. “Thesemen from the party came by. I was angry. He’d called me a traitor.”
Mbahli’s face went slack. “Oh Ma, what have you done?”
Granny tisk-ed and waved her hand. She squinted at something far off.
“They just wanted to ask him some questions.” Mbhali gasped. Granny looked up
at her daughter with small eyes. Mbahli couldn’t move. “He’s a stubborn man.”
She placed the A.N.C. badge in Mbhali’s hand and closed limp fingers around it.
“You have to be soft like a sapling, or when the north-western wind comes itpulls you up by the roots.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand closed into a fist.
“Do with it what you like. I have no use for it anymore.” She forced a smile andwaddled down her empty street, lifting her skirt daintily around litter to where
her house stood, untouched.

4

Sbu’s mother swayed. She looked at the badge her mother had worn
every day for the past sixteen years. The pin was loose and came off its clasp.
She pushed her finger into it, bending the skin, but not quite breaking it.
“Ma?”“Hush boy. I’m thinking,” she said, her legs wobbling a little as she
walked away.
Sbu followed silently behind her, counting twenty-three IFP posters on
their way home. One had been attached to a spigot, the trickling water boring its
way through the poster, leaving only ‘Join’ and ‘live’ legible.
Back in the shack there was no sign of his father. His mother stood in thecenter of the room, her eyes searching every crevice of their home.
“Ma?” She didn’t answer. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked
down at his feet for what seemed like much too long.
“Come,” she said, grabbing a blanket and a bag of sliced bread. She led
him without hurry back up to the sugarcane fields where they picked another row
and settled in for the night. The pop-pop-pop and sour meat smell drifted up fromthe township below, lulling Sbu into fevered sleep filled with dreams he didn’t
want to remember.
Sbu woke in the stillest point of the night. He scooted over so he could
feel his mother next to him. She seemed small and easy to lose. The field that had
once been so familiar was vast and infinite, like a sea that could reach out anddrag his mother away at any moment. He wriggled even closer to her. She
murmured and pulled away. The inch between them was huge. Sbu pressed hishands into the same ground he and every member of his family had been born on.
Once upon a time he felt bound to and cradled by it. A breeze passed through thesugar cane leaves, rushing like water. The wave had come. It was he that was
drifting out into infinity.
Mbahli woke him when it was barely light out. She looked grey like themorning. Sbu followed her back down through the hole in the fence. Three men
waited outside their house. Sbu ran, thinking one might be his father. None ofthem was. It was his neighbor Ayize, an uncle and a man who said he worked in
the navy yard with his father. Mbhali invited them in and told Sbu to fetch somewater.
When Sbu came back, the front door was closed. He hesitated. Inside hecould hear Ayize asking about a list. “I don’t know what you mean,” Mbhali said.
“Did you go to the meeting yesterday? People are saying they saw your mother
there,” he asked.
“No I was afraid,” she said. “I looked for my husband all day.” Her voice
was tight and high-pitched. The way it was when his father had caught her hiding
half her pay in her sock drawer. Sbu slipped into the shadowed house andtowards the back to build a fire. He didn’t understand why she was lying. Ayize’s
own cousin had been there. The men stood up before the coals had settled. They
nodded quietly and left.
Mbhali sat back down and rubbed her face with her palms as if she were
washing it. “Ma?” Sbu said. “Must I still make tea?”

5

After a heavy sigh she said, “No, leave it.”She sat silently staring at the door. Maybe she’s still waiting for him too,
Sbu thought. He felt bad for her. He knew his father wasn’t coming home. It wasa feeling he had in the pit of his gut as clear as the shack around them.
A woman screamed next door. Sbu looked to his mother. She snapped
her fingers and pointed under the bed. Sbu crawled under, his head still far
enough out that he could see her creep to the door and peer out. She jumped backand shut the door quickly. Sbu crawled out from under the bed to peer through a
gap in the wall as Ayize’s cousin ran by, his hands dripping red. Mbhali opened
the door again, just a crack and peered though. Other neighbors were running by.
She followed hesitantly. So did Sbu. Neighbors collected around Ayize’s door.
Sbu wiggled his way through tightly packed bodies. Face down in the dirt of his
living room floor was Ayize, a large kitchen knife sticking out of his back.
Maroon stains formed strange polka dots on his shirt. Mbhali kneeled by his face,slapping his cheek and saying his name a bit too loud. Ayize’s second wife waspassed out in an old man’s arms, mouth open, arms splayed out and heart turned
up to the sky. Before his mother could notice, Sbu slipped back through thecrowd and under the bed.
The front door creaked open. Sbu could make out his mother’s bare feetwalking by. “Ma?” he called out from under the bed. She stopped where she was.
Sbu peeked out. She looked older. Her eyes drooped, her chin quivered and she
shook her head. “What happened?” Sbu asked.
She rubbed at a dark stain on her skirt. “You can make that tea now.”
Sbu’s mother sat staring out the window, the tea now cold in her lap.
There was a knock at the door. Sbu opened it and jumped back: three men
wearing IFP t-shirts stood in the threshold. The tallest one, with a cleanly shavenface and a scar on his right cheek, smiled and bent down. “Afternoon, little
Comrade. Is your mother home?”
Mbhali pushed Sbu out of the way and ushered them in. “Go out andplay,” she said. Sbu didn’t want to play. He wanted to run. But he couldn’t leave
her in there alone. Instead he crouched by the back window and listened.
“We want to say how happy we were to see you at the meeting on
Thursday. The movement could use a few strong women like you and yourmother. Mrs. Florence has become an integral part of the movement. Yourhusband must be very proud.” There was a pause and no answer. “We couldn’t
help but notice, your brother wasn’t at any of the meetings.” Again, a pause withno response.
“Sister Comrade, he’s only a man. All men have faults to be forgiven.
We must unite to be strong and weed out those that make us weak. This is for thegreater good, for the future of your country. Think of your son.”“He lives by the north entrance.” Mbhali’s voice was hollow.
That night they stayed home. No trucks came, no shots rang out. Yet in
the morning twenty-seven bodies were found in their own homes, stabbed withsharpened bicycle spokes, screw drivers, and kitchen knives.

6

Days turned into weeks filled with funerals and digging. The faces allaround him were heavy with grief and guilt. Neighbors and family members kept
close eyes on each other, waiting to be denounced. No one and nothing looked
the same. His grandmother whispered names and people were found limp in theirbeds. He wondered about the God she had taught him to fear and if she
remembered to fear him too. He answered every question she had with as fast a“Yes, Madam,” as he could spit out. She didn’t seem like a granny anymore.
His mother seemed different too. No matter how hard he tried, Sbu wasalways in her way. He did his chores and homework as quietly as possible. Still
she screamed and cried more than he had ever seen her do. He wondered if he’dfollowed the wrong lady home from the sugarcane fields.
At night Sbu slept on his side, his back to the wall hugging a metal trey
under his shirt. In his dreams he was inside a tight wooden box. Dirt and pebbles
were thrown on top. They made the sound of rain on a tin roof as they trickled
down the sides. He couldn’t breathe or move.
One morning Sbu woke with a start, a single thought running through his
mind: I’m all alone. It was him against the future barreling down on him. His
father was gone. His mother was paralyzed between a past she didn’t want togive up and a future she didn’t know how to maneuver. His heart started to race.
His throat closed up the way it did in his dreams. Sbu closed his eyes and pulled
in a shallow breath.
“Focus,” Sbu heard his father say. “You’ve done this a thousand times
before.” He opened his eyes. It was still the same shack. He was on the same bed
he’d always slept on. His arms and legs and hands were all the same. Focus hetold himself. It’s no different than any other game, just a bit bigger.
He sat up and looked around the darkness. In the far corner his motherwas sleeping. Outside a breeze passed and shook the leaves in the trees. He felt
his mind sway and bend into it. Sbu swung his legs over the side of the bed andpressed his feet into the ground. It didn’t matter what wind blew, he was taking
root.

7

So Much “Junk”?
The Complexities of the
Human Genome
Luis Loor
Why do you look the way you do? What determines the color of yourskin and eyes? What about your resemblance to your parents? In order toanswer these questions, biologists have spent decades studying human genetics
and the very intricate instructions that are located inside each of our cells. Safely
stored inside the nucleus of cells lies the set of instructions that makes each andevery one of us different, and also fundamentally the same: deoxyribonucleic
acid, otherwise known as DNA. DNA are long, double-stranded molecules thatlook like twisted ladders. These molecular ladders are made from four types ofnucleotide base units, called adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine(T). When these nucleotides are combined in sequence, they form our genome
which contains instructions to direct all the processes in the cells and make itpossible to build the components of our bodies and maintain them throughout life.
Naturally all of our cells maintain function and regenerate. In order to do
this, all the cells follow the instructions encrypted in the DNA to undertake twovery important processes, replication and transcription. During replication, DNA
is copied in a very complex process. First enzymes called DNA polymerase
attach to specific parts of the DNA. As the enzymes advance through the long
DNA double helix, they split the DNA into two strands. The enzymes take bothof those strands of DNA and use them as templates to create complementarystrands, thereby replicating exactly the original DNA containing the same genetic
information. The second process, transcription, describes how DNA is “read” tocreate proteins, which are the worker molecules that build cellular structures andmaintain function. First the DNA is unwound, and then one of the strands passes
genetic information to another molecule called ribonucleic acid (RNA). The
RNA carries the information encoded in the desired gene, exits the cell nucleus,
and, with the help of another enzyme system called ribosomes, processes the
instructions on how to build complex protein.
Now you may ask, how is information organized in our DNA? To better
visualize this we can say that each gene in our genome is a long series of codons,
or a set of three-letter DNA words. Scientists have found that each gene contains
on average 27,000 letters. If we compile a large set of long sequences of genes
and the non-gene sequences between them, we get one chromosome. Humans
have a total of twenty-three pairs of chromosomes where we find the complete
genetic data about a human, also called the human genome.
A genome can be compared to a “book” that holds the entire genetic
information about an organism. This genetic information varies from one

8organism to the next. All told, the human genome is made up of about threebillion nucleotide base pairs1. This sounds like a lot of genetic data and indeed it
is! Imagine a large book like a dictionary with over a thousand pages. The
human genome will fill 428 of those books! Now another question arises, onethat scientists have asked themselves for a while: is all this information useful toour body?
The reason this question arises is because biologists are still trying tofigure out where all the genes are and what they do. Science has made it evident
that only about two percent of the human genome consists of DNA that codes forproteins2, and as mentioned above, these proteins are essential to the creation oforgans, tissues, and cells. Yes, protein-coding genes only make up a small partof the DNA. What about the other ninety-eight percent of genetic data that does
not contain genes and does not code for protein? For some time scientists havecalled those parts “junk DNA,” but recently they are changing their stance. They
are finding that those parts considered useless actually control how and to what
extent the genes are used.
How did the term “junk DNA” come about? In 1972, the geneticist
Susumu Ohno came up with the term “junk DNA.” In his paper “So Much
‘Junk’ DNA in our Genome,” he used this term to describe “all noncoding DNA
sections, most of which consist of repeated segments scattered randomly
throughout the genome”2. He was referring to the content of the human genomethat does not contain functional genes. He compared the human genome to ourplanet: just as the earth contains many fossils of extinct species, our genome too
is filled with the remains of extinct genes. His point of view greatly affected thestudy of genetics. Many biologists turned their backs on junk DNA and focused
their research on the coding part of the human genome, which seemed more
important. It wasn’t until the 1990s that many scientists became interested injunk DNA and its repetitive elements. One can view these sections of DNA likeadvertisements in a magazine, which break up an interesting article. For instance,
an article may start on page 5 and be followed by an ad on page 6, continue on
pages 7 and 8 and then be followed by another ad on page 9. Even though theads and the article are different types of information, both are important to the
make-up of the entire magazine. In short, even though some genes don’ttranscribe for protein, it does not mean that they are rendered useless. This idea
began to grow among scientists and led to many of them calling these sections of
DNA “noncoding” instead of “junk.”
As interest started to grow among biologists to try to understand thefunctions of the noncoding DNA, they noticed that these sequences “increase theability of a species to evolve by serving as hot spots for genetic recombination
and by providing important signals for regulating gene expression”3. Indeed
these elements are components integral to our genome and can hardly be calledjunk anymore. Many scientists like John Rinn, professor at Beth Israel Medical
Center, have put a lot of time and effort into studying noncoding DNA. In an
article in Nature, he explains that he “was not interested in looking at the map ofknown protein-coding genes on the chromosome, but rather everything else”4.

9

He says, “We wanted to see if we could find biologically active molecules in thehuman genome that no one previously knew about”5. Because of his efforts andthose of many other biologists, we are beginning to address the mystery of thefunction of noncoding genetic material. The way they see it is that, sincenoncoding sequences exist within the DNA, and since it makes up a large portionof the genome, it has to have a purpose. To illuminate this further, biologists
have compared the human genome to a factory. Just as a factory has somedevices that assemble parts and others that serve as controls and regulators, thegenome has parts that encode for RNA and proteins, and other parts to control
the process and serve structural roles. This is where noncoding DNA comes in:even though it does not directly code for protein products, it serves a purpose
because a “substantial amount of noncoding DNA contributes to genome
function”6.
Scientists have now been able to classify certain noncoding sequences.
First, we have the segments of DNA that exist within a gene itself because this is
the area that has been most studied. In molecular biology the parts of the genethat code directly for protein are called exons, and the parts that don’t are called
introns. When the RNA is ready to be transcribed for protein, introns are
removed and exons are linked up together in the process called splicing. This
doesn’t mean that introns are useless. The presence of introns in some genes
allows for the gene expression enzymes to decide which introns to exclude fromthe final gene product. This process effectively increases variability of geneproducts without having to depend on mutations. Increasing variability meansthat the gene allows moderate changes done to itself by re-arranging the positionof introns and therefore exons which results in the gene producing slight alternate
versions of itself that can have positive benefits. Thanks to research like this it
has become clear that the “changes in gene expression—primarily changes innoncoding DNA—have a tremendous impact on an organism”7.
Another noncoding factor that is important in regulating gene expression
is known as RNA interference. One known factor of RNA interference is the
microRNA. This small RNA molecule made up of twenty-two nucleotides isknown to be a post-transcription regulator. This means that its regulatory
capabilities are used during translation of RNA into protein. MicroRNA
originates from already transcribed RNA in the nucleus, and enters the cytoplasm
along with the rest of the messenger RNA which will be translated. The
microRNA’s bind to a specific targeted part of the messenger RNA in order toregulate the amount of protein to be produced. This process is called alternative
gene silencing because a specific part of the gene will be turned “off” or not used.
It has taken almost thirty-five years to clearly identify this type of RNA.
Recent studies reveal that these microRNA’s “suppress initiation of proteintranslation, promote messenger RNA degradation and turnover, and initiate
transcriptional silencing”8. This is an important discovery because, as somescientists imagine, microRNA’s can act as tumor suppressors by regulating
cellular replication of cancer cells.

10Other types of regulatory sequences are located either close to a proteincoding gene or far away from it. These sequences that sit next to the gene arecalled cis regulatory sequences and they serve as markers by guiding thetranscription enzymes by signaling where it can start the process of making RNA.
The regulatory sequence itself does not get transcribed. The specific sections of
DNA onto which the enzyme attaches are called transcription binding sites, and it
is here that transcription of DNA begins.
As we can see, noncoding sequences do have important function, andthey are required for many important cellular processes. Since some of thesesequences regulate protein production, biologists use them to study variation in
genetic sequences, like those that the introns are responsible for. In the past it
was thought that “protein-coding variation was most likely the main source ofdisease susceptibility, mainly because most known genomics disorders are due tosuch mutations”9, but now scientists are turning around and expanding theirresearch to examine the vast amount of genetic data in noncoding sequences.
Discoveries made in this area could help examine regulation of genes in a more
precise and well-coordinated way. Heading in this direction could help uncover
patterns of genetic sequences that may actually cause some genetic diseases.
One way to illustrate the role of noncoding sequences is the following. Imagine
holding in your hand a microchip that you want to insert in a computer. The chip
itself can’t do this task. It will require the use of one’s arm muscles, bones andfingers to precisely place the chip in the right place. The same can be said about
noncoding DNA sequences. Their mere size and complexity helps to support,
manipulate and regulate the protein coding genes, which is represented by the
microchip, in order for it to work properly. Damage to the supporting structure
can therefore lead to malfunction, and in the case of the human genome, todisease.
Research on noncoding genes continues to this day, and it probably will
for years to come. In the past it was challenging to analyze these long sequences
due to the lack of computing power. With the advance in technology and inbioinformatics, it is now possible to study this part of the human genome ingreater depth. It is becoming clearer that there exist complex interactions andfunctions between various elements of the human genome. Understanding theimportant connections between coding and noncoding sequences can help
scientists discover new ways to prevent diseases, apply treatments, and perhaps
even create cures. It is only when all genomic data is used that we can get aclearer picture of our complex genetic nature.
Notes
1. Bioinformatics Methods in Clinical Research, edited by Rune
Matthiesen, 2010, p. 49.
2. A. Khajavinia, Ishafahan (May 2007). What is “junk” DNA, andwhat is it worth? Scientific American, p. 104.

11

3. Aria Pearson (July 11, 2007). Genomics: Junking the junk DNA.
New Scientist. Retrieved from:http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/078ns_005.htm
4. Rethinking Junk DNA (March 2009). Nature Magazine vol. 458 p.
24o.
5. Svetlana A Shabalina and Nikolay A Spiridonov (March 2004). The
mammalian transcriptome and the function of non-coding DNA sequences.
Genome Biology vol. 5, issue 4, article 105, p. 105.2.
6. Emmanouil T. Dermitzakis (2008). Regulatory Variation and
Evolution: Implications for Disease. Advances in Genetics, vol. 61, p. 195.
7. Cristian I. Castillo-Davis (October 2005) The evolution of noncoding DNA: how much junk, how much func? TRENDS in Genetics Vol.21
No.10.
8. Aaron T. Willingham and Thomas R. Gingeras. (June 2006). TUF
Love for “Junk” DNA. Cell 125, p. 1215.
9. Emmanouil T. Dermitzakis (2008). Regulatory Variation and
Evolution: Implications for Disease. Advances in Genetics, vol. 61, p. 303.

12

The Music Matrix:
Proposing A New Discovery Tool
For Bandcamp
Tim Durland

Introduction
Bandcamp.com was launched in 2008 as a free web-publishing platform forindependent musicians, providing a venue where they could present and sell theirmusic directly to listeners (Baio 2008). As the number of diverse groups using
Bandcamp grew into the tens of thousands, a problem became clear to thecompany’s founders: “...every Bandcamp-powered site is still an island, and notsurprisingly, one of the most frequent questions we now get is ‘How do I find out
about other (industrial mariachi l new-age horrorcore l death ragtime l etc.) artists
on Bandcamp?’” (Diamond 2010). To address this, they implemented a tagging
system which lets artists describe their music with keywords and short phrases.
People interested in a certain style of music can browse by tag to discover new
artists that they will enjoy. While the company’s owners have no desire forBandcamp to become a social network (Diamond 2010), providing all users theability to add tags could create a richer, more dynamic picture of the music on thesite. In this paper, I propose a model for a new discovery tool based on social
tagging which I have dubbed “The Music Matrix.” I will describe possible
features and how it could encourage accurate, meaningful tagging of songs,
discourage inaccurate and malicious tagging, and in turn help direct users to newmusic that they will enjoy and bring much-needed exposure to artists.
Some Background
Tagging is a form of information management that has become
increasingly popular in the last ten years. Tagging systems take a wide variety offorms, but they all share three essential components: users, who create tags,
usually in order to make something easier to find again later; resources, which
are what users apply their tags to, be it a photo, website, book, or any other itemthat can be found on the web; and tags, keywords that describe some aspect of a
resource that users consider distinctive (Smith 5). This tagging can be done in asocial fashion, with users sharing and aggregating their tags for certain kinds ofresources on a publicly accessible site. The user-generated system ofclassification that emerges was dubbed “folksonomy” by Thomas Vander Wal in
2004, a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy (Vander Wal 2007).

13

Social tagging is far more flexible than traditional taxonomies and thus
better suited to the classification of contemporary music. New genres areconstantly emerging and evolving, and social tags can rapidly respond to thesechanges. Also, musicians are mercurial creatures who dislike being pigeon-holed,and jump from one style to another between songs or fuse elements of different
genres to create their sound. With social tagging, there is no need to assign asingle, “correct,” label to a song—any number of labels can be assigned to createan accurate, detailed description (Lamere, “Social Tagging” 102).
Encouraging the Use of Tags
Tags on Bandcamp are currently displayed as small lists of words which
can easily be overlooked, and tagging itself is an activity which can be hard forless technically-savvy users to grasp (Rainie 2007). However, Web-based
applications like Foldit (which asks users to fold protein structures into stableconfigurations) have shown that even high-level science problems can appeal tonon-experts if they are presented in the form of a game (Markoff D3). Luis vonAhn and Laura Dabbish used this approach with their ESP Game for labelingimages. It pairs two players and presents them with the same image; both players
suggest tags for the image without knowing what the other player’s suggestions
are. Points are earned if both players suggest the same tag before time runs out(2). This system has shown the ability to rapidly gather accurate tags (4-6), andgames with similar structures have been developed for tagging music, such as
Tag a Tune and Major Miner (Lamere 110).
However, Liz Lawley points out the flaws in these competitive, timebased tagging systems. In her own experiences playing the ESP Game, she
noticed that tags that resulted in a “win” usually described broad, formal
characteristics such as shape and color, while distinctive, contextual labels wereunlikely to be agreed upon by two players. She gives the example of an image ofa Greek coin, which was given labels like “coin” and “round” but received notags for “Greek” or “Greece,” let alone any tags describing the era or city that thecoin was from, which would be much more meaningful (Lawley 2007).
Requiring agreement between players, although ensuring “correct” tags, does notallow the nuance that tagging systems are capable of. Perhaps it would bepossible to make tagging feel like “play” without the element of competition, by
creating an interface that is simply fun to use. I propose a stand-alone applet thatprovides an intuitive, fun-to-use interface for exploration and discovery.
The Interface
The central feature of the applet interface is “The Music Matrix,” adynamic visualization of the genre tags in the system. The initial inspiration for
the Matrix is Paul Lamere’s “Map of Music Styles” which uses statisticalanalysis to visualize over a thousand genre labels culled from Last.fm, anothermusic-focused website that extensively uses social tagging. Genres are presented
as “Nodes,” sized according to how frequently they are used, and clustered into
“Neighborhoods” of similarity according to how frequently they appear together

14

(Lamere, “Map” 2012). This is an ingenious and intriguing visualization, but it is
only a one-time “snapshot” of the tag structure which does not update as the tag
database is modified. Furthermore, it presents all of the hundreds of tags at once,
which demands a lot of computer processing power and makes navigating
through the map feel awkward and sluggish.
The Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus provides some hints for designing abetter interface. A user types in a word, which is then displayed at the center of acluster of “meaning” nodes, which each link to other words with similar
definitions. When any meaning or word node is clicked, it is dynamically moved
to the center of the display, and a new configuration develops (Thinkmap Visual
Thesaurus 2004). While the process sounds confusing on paper, using theapplication is highly intuitive and the dance of the nodes as one travels fromword to word is fascinating, making the mundane act of using a thesaurus anentertaining, addictive activity.
Lamere’s method of clustering genre Nodes that occur together
frequently (and can therefore be regarded as similar) is analogous to theclustering of synonymous words in a thesaurus. The Matrix could combine
elements from both of these systems. Instead of presenting all the Nodes at once,
only the broadest, most frequently used genres would initially be displayed.
Selecting one would center it and it would sprout new Nodes for less frequently
used but related genres. Selecting a sub-genre Node would reveal sub-sub-genres,and so on. A zoom slider would let the user pull back out and hide the smaller
Nodes, and a search bar would let users quickly find and focus a specific Node.
The Matrix would be accessed from individual band pages. As a user
listens to a song, a prompt would be shown: “Want to find more music like‘[song name]’? Try the Music Matrix!” When the Matrix opens, the user would
be asked to enter a genre they think the song belongs to, thus tagging the song.
Since users would be seeking more music they actually want to listen to, theywould be less likely to enter derogatory or misleading tags. An auto fill function
could suggest existing tags as the user types and help avoid the spelling errors
which frequently plague social tags (Lamere, “Social Tagging” 111). If a user
entered in a recently coined genre term which is not yet present in the Matrix, heor she could create a new Node for it, associate it with existing Nodes, andsuggest other bands it would apply to.
Once a genre is selected, the Matrix would zoom into the corresponding
Node and its related genres. Hovering the mouse over a Node would present a
pop-up window with a description of the genre, a list of bands frequently
included in that genre, the option to add a band to the Node and the option to starta Playlist. This last option would open a player window that cycles through songsin the selected genre, showing cover images, links to band pages, and a list ofsongs that have played. Options could be provided for playing the most popularsongs in the genre, the newest songs, or randomly selected songs. Other genre
tags that have been applied to the playing song could be displayed, as well as abox for entering another tag to describe it. There could also be options forbanning songs or artists that the user does not want to listen to.

15In order to weed out inappropriate and malicious tags, the Matrix should
operate on two levels: The “Master Matrix” that everyone begins with, and a“Local Matrix,” unique to each user, which is instantly updated as they add newtags or assign tags to songs. Data on individual tagging behavior could begathered from the Local Matrices and automatically analyzed and evaluated bycomputer algorithms before changes are made to the Master Matrix. For instance,
if an artist is frequently skipped or banned by many users listening to a certain
tag, that would be evidence of a misleading tag. Tags applied by users to bands
they never listen to would be given less weight. New Nodes would only be
added to the Master Matrix after being used several times by unique users.
Individual users would have the convenience of organizing and classifying musicin the Matrix as they see fit, and the Master Matrix would respond to thechanging music scene without becoming muddled by inappropriate tags.
Further Questions
In my model I have chosen to focus on tags for genre. However, Last.fm
users frequently use tags related to mood to describe songs (Milne 21). Is there a
way to combine tags for mood and genre, as well as for other factors like tempo
and location, within the same Matrix? Should there be separate Matrices for eachfacet? This model also does not incorporate the combining of multiple tags,
which would be a powerful tool for music discovery. Is there a way to implement
this? Finally, could Node color be used to convey information, perhaps therelative intensity or aggressiveness of a genre?
Works Cited
Baio, Andy. “Oddpost Co-Founder Launches Bandcamp, Publishing Platform forMusicians.” Waxy 16 Sept. 2008. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
“Bandcamp.” n.p., 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.bandcamp.com>
Diamond, Ethan. “Oh No, Not Another Music Community!” Bandcamp 11 Feb.
2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. < http://blog.bandcamp.com/2010/02/11/ohno-not-another-music-community/>
Lamere, Paul. “Map of Music Styles.” Music Machinery 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 25
Nov. 2012. http://musicmachinery.com/2012/04/22/map-of-music-styles/---. “Social Tagging and Music Information Retrieval.” Journal of New Music
Research 37.2 (2008): 101–14. Print.
Last.fm. 2 Aug. 2012. CBS Interactive Music Group, 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.last.fm/>
Lawley, Liz. “Social Consequences of Social Tagging.” Many 2 Many. Corante,
20 Jan. 2005. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
<http://many.corante.com/archives/2005/01/20>
social_consequences_of_social_tagging.php>
Markoff, John. “In a Video Game, Tackling the Complexities of Protein
Folding.” The New York Times 10 Aug. 2010 late ed. : D3. Web. 28 Nov.
2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/science/05protein.html>

16

Milne, Andrew. “Folksonomies and Music Classification: Sourcing Controlled
Vocabularies from the Crowd.” Catalogue & Index 168 (2012): 19–22.
Print.
Rainie, Lee. “28% of Online Americans Have Used the Internet to Tag Content.”
Pew Internet and American Life Project. 31 Jan. 2007. Web. Nov. 29,
2012.<http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2007/PIP_Tag
ging.pdf.pdf>
Smith, Gene. Tagging : People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web. Berkeley,
CA: New Riders, 2008. Print.
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus. Thinkmap, Inc., 2004. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.visualthesaurus.com/>Vander Wal, Thomas. “Folksonomy Coinage and Definition.” Vanderwal.net. 2
Feb. 2007. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. <http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html>
von Ahn, Luis, and Laura Dabbish. “Labeling Images with a Computer Game.”
CHI2004: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems. Vienna, Austria: New York : ACM, 2004. Print.

17

The Williamsburg RenaissanceJessica Guerra
The year is 1990. A newlywed couple has just moved into the railroad style onebedroom apartment across the hall. They’ll like it here—the street is quiet, thebuilding is clean. Your morning stroll down the block brings you to the corner ofRoebling and North 7th Streets. But don’t turn on North 7th just yet. Look down
Roebling. See the factories? They’re perfectly lined up on the left side, on theright side… all the way down to McCarren Park, to those large, looming trees inthe distance. Pretty soon they’ll be turning yellow, orange, red, then the colors
will fall, spread themselves over the grassy patches and bumpy asphalt leaving
the naked branches to prepare for the heavy snowfall ahead. Smell the breadbaking? It’s that factory right there. Now turn on North 7th. Walk past the threestory walk-ups. Greet the old man sitting on his stoop and his granddaughter
riding her tricycle. Tell her how fast she’s growing up, as if that matters to a twoyear old. Walk briskly past the L train. Turn left on Bedford Avenue and headover to Pedro’s Grocery Store. Go in, ask him how his wife is, buy a gallon ofmilk, some eggs… wish him a good day. Walk home perfunctorily—almost
without looking, you cross the streets. Think about introducing yourself to the
new neighbors. They seem nice.
Williamsburg in the 1990s was simply that, an industrial and residential
area whose inhabitants were mostly of European and Hispanic descent.
Affordable housing was in abundance and, although the apartments were small,the rent never surpassed $500 a month. The couple you read about are my parents.
That railroad style apartment was their first place together after their honeymoon,and the place they would call home for the next eighteen years. Their ’83 Buick
Regal was parked in front of the narrow building; plenty of space available down
the block and across the street as well. Little did they know that in just a few
years, parking would become almost impossible to find.
Condos Cutting Corners
Fifteen years later, the couple has two daughters, one ten, the othertwelve months. You hear the baby crying in the distance. Must be hungry. See
the sunlight coming in through the fire escape window and decide to go jogging
in McCarren Park. Go down two flights, through the two metal doors, down thesteps. Walk past the bread factory and stop for a while. Hear a bulldozer in the
distance, look toward the construction workers across the street, the bright blue
scaffolding on the next block, the new traffic light at the corner. You know, that’s
one of the last factories left. They’ve been replaced with tall buildings. Condos,
they call them. Spanning Kent Avenue from North 5th to North 10th, the brandnew luxury condominiums hover around $1 million. The apartments start at$2,400 a month. You only paid $485 a month when you first moved in! The18

biggest of the waterfront complexes is called EDGE. You’ve heard some of theapartments are designated for lower income residents. The family across fromyou has already applied—maybe you will too.
What sparked all the change? Developers noticed the proximity ofWilliamsburg to Manhattan. The L and J trains, which span the North andSouthside neighborhoods, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick areas, provide easy
access to Manhattan, making the area attractive. By constructing luxury housing,
Manhattan residents looking to spend less for equal luxury and still be close towork are instantly driven to Williamsburg. But it is not a coincidence that abunch of developers suddenly noticed Williamsburg’s potential. This issomething the city had been planning for years. Expecting the population ofManhattan residents to increase, they had to prepare for the overflow of New
Yorkers into the surrounding neighborhoods. Williamsburg, of course, was thechosen one. So developers not only bought factories, but three- and four-story
buildings as well, paying sky-high prices to landlords and tenants so as to havethe buildings vacant. Why? To demolish them, of course, replacing them with
luxury apartments, co-ops, and condominiums. And the factories not worth
tearing down are turned into lofts. These new developments are strictly designed
for the incoming Manhattanites. They are mostly from the East Village, single
women and single men—artists, they call themselves. Some are couples looking
to start a family, yes, and that’s what the two-bedroom condos are for, but there
are very few of those. However, EDGE is not the only new development. In
recent months, high-rise buildings such as the Northside Piers, 80 Met, 568
Union, 88 South 1st, and 29 Montrose Avenue have seemingly popped up. And
most recently, the Domino Sugar factory project was resurrected, an eleven-acreproperty bought by the Walentas real estate family for $185 million. The plan is
to create 2,200 apartments, 70% being what we call “luxury” (Bagli).
Booming Businesses, Not Bodegas
The year is 2008. You cross Metropolitan Avenue looking both ways andsubconsciously realize this is the boundary between the North and Southsideneighborhoods. It seems as though Southside residents have somehow managed
to keep their Hispanic culture alive. Maybe this condo thing hasn’t hit them yet.
But keep your eyes peeled. Remember that beverage distributor across the street
from Kellogg’s Diner? It says Sunac Natural Food. Nice building, big glass
windows. Go in. Grab a cookie. Gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, and fat-free.
Price? Two dollars. Without so many ingredients, shouldn’t it cost less? Leave
the cookie on the shelf, walk out slowly. Take Havemeyer Street. Certainly CTown hasn’t changed. Wrong. Notice the new floors, bright lighting, and wide
aisles? Pick up a jar of peanut butter. Organic, it says. Pick up another. Organic
again. Desperately look on the top shelves, bottom shelves. Isn’t there any Jif?
Oh, look. Skippy. Turn the jar over. $5.99. Almost drop it. Look behind you to see
if anyone noticed. Put it back on the shelf carefully. Leave the store looking
confused. Decide to pay a quick visit to Pedro’s Grocery Store. Stand on thecorner of North 8th and Bedford Avenue and look up. Where’s the bodega?

19Quick, pretend you’ve lost your way from the train station, blend in with thecrowd. Make your way back to Roebling Street without tripping over all the bikes
parked on the curb. Wonder why Hub’s Pub is where Pedro’s Grocery Store used
to be? Almost walk into a woman walking her three Labrador Retrievers on aleash. Jump when they all bark at you, blush at the woman’s laughter. Find thefamily across from you bringing boxes down the steps. Ask them if they need help
and put the boxes in the trunk of their Toyota Sienna. After wishing them the best,
go up the stoop, but turn around to watch them leave. Catch the landlord crying.
Jog up the stairs fighting back tears, put the key in your lock with a heaviness on
your shoulders. Look across the hallway and notice the empty apartment. Let thetears roll down.
After developers provide new housing and entrepreneurs establish theirorganic stores and “cute” little pubs in Williamsburg, residents are no longer
oblivious to the change. In fact, many residents feel fear and helplessness. Who isgoing to be shopping in these places anyway? Cue the hipsters! An article fromthe Village Voice, popular among Northside residents, references a British
newspaper that calls Williamsburg “the national capital for young hipsters” anddepicts these new residents as having “beards, piercings, lots of tattoos, andbelong[ing] to at least one band” (Coscarelli). A simple stroll down Berry Street
and North 6th would provide sufficient evidence. But these hipsters, as they arecalled, have slowly made their way into the Southside as well, specifically GrandStreet, converting a small food distributor into an expensive T-shirt shop, a DVD
rental store into a candlelit café, and causing Key Food to be completely
unaffordable for most residents of the area. An article published last year in the
Daily News, very popular among Southside residents, spoke out for those who
feel their neighborhood has been taken over. It starts off with “Hey hipsters, keep
your skinny jeans out of my Southside Williamsburg neighborhood.” The article
goes on to interview many residents who share the same fear of being evictedfrom their own neighborhood. One man sums it up pretty well: “You wake up
one morning and you see the corner bodega is now replaced by a fancy café orrestaurant and you see your neighbors being pushed out because they can nolonger afford the rent… You begin to wonder ‘Am I next?’” Another gentleman
who was interviewed grew up in the neighborhood years ago and remembers
nostalgically a bodega that used to be on South 4th and Driggs Avenue. Today asmall cardboard sign hangs behind the window with “Pies ‘N’ Thighs” written inblack marker (Nelson and Morales).
From the Outside Looking In
The family who moved out of the small apartment on Roebling Street
four years ago is my family. When we moved out, rent was under $800, but the
new tenants in the building were paying way over $1,000 a month. Fortunately,that wasn’t a problem for them. Of course we would miss the area: the proximity
to the L train (not that you could find your way to the train station anymore—
bike racks and long lines for dollar pizza blurred it from view), the Mexican
bodega where we always bought fresh tortillas (not that it would be there much20

longer—the sign on the window said “For Sale”), the convenient laundromat on
Driggs Avenue and North 6th, Northside Pharmacy on Bedford Avenue, the Deli
Mart a few blocks down, Vinnie’s Pizzeria, and Brothers Cleaners… but who
knows how long they’d be there? And our landlord did cry. She begged us to stay,
but finally settled for a nice dinner sometime in the upcoming months. We
hopped in the minivan on our way to Maspeth, Queens. It’s not that we hadn’t
tried to apply for those nice apartments on the Northside. We did. Even in
Bushwick there were new developments. But it was always a matter of waiting.
And frankly, we could not wait any longer. The people from EDGE finallyreplied, but it was too late. We were already enjoying our new apartment.
Although I live in Maspeth, my grandma still lives in the Southside andmy sister goes to school across the street from her house. I have seen more andmore of these hipsters going in and out of the brick six-story buildings that neatly
line up her block and their new businesses on Grand Street where I wait for thebus. But, most importantly, I have taken note of the new elementary school thatis gradually replacing the one my sister attends. It is the same school I went to:
P.S. 19 Roberto Clemente. Back when my parents first moved in together, there
were over 1,000 students in the school. Now there are only about 300. Aftercontinuous poor performance, the Department of Education decided to phase out
the school, leaving only grades 3 - 5. This year they introduced P.S. 414
Brooklyn Arbor, where all the kids wear green shirts and khakis, and the entire
faculty is white, with the exception of one paraprofessional who is AfricanAmerican. P.S. 19, on the other hand, had a vastly diverse group of teachers, andgood ones at that. Sadly, the Department of Education waited until it was too late
to fire the person responsible for the school’s downfall: the principal. Believe it
or not, this has all been part of the plan. A church on Union Avenue and Stagg
Street, for example, has recently been demolished to make room for a new luxury
building and, surely, the people who will move in, along with all the newresidents on Keap Street, will have children of their own looking for a “good”
school to enroll their kids in. P.S. 19 Roberto Clemente brings an air of Hispanic
pride, what the Southside used to be about, while P.S. 414 Brooklyn Arbor has amore modern, eco-friendly feel to it. Appealing to whom? To those hip, young,fresh-from-across-the-East-River newcomers who have already infiltrated all of
Williamsburg.
It’s almost funny, actually. These new residents walk around with 100%
recycled bags, shirts that promote saving the environment, and loads of groceries
from their favorite organic, natural, and health food shops. Yet, if you stop by
McCarren Park any weekend in July, you’ll find yourself face to face with 6,500
men and women scurrying about the streets looking for the park’s entrance,
anxious to see a not-so-famous band blast their acoustics across the East River,leaving trails of trash behind them like an evil Hansel and Gretel. An article in
the New York Times looked at these summer concerts through the eyes of a longtime resident in the area: “the rivers of trash strewn along the street and on her
stoop, the thunderous noise, [and] the drunken revelers using the street as atoilet” (Leland). To make my point simple: How could a group of people so

21

determined to “save the Earth” (think 1960s hippies with a more snobbish flair),
be so inconsiderate as to litter the sidewalks, relieve themselves in the street, andwalk around the residential areas of Williamsburg late at night completely
intoxicated?
Calling It Gentrification
Instead of working to provide lower-class residents with better structures,lighting, green areas, and security, the city has simply pushed them to poorer
areas, conglomerating already overpopulated neighborhoods like East New York,Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. It’s almost as if they are too undignified tolive in neighborhoods near the city, as if Manhattan residents coming in mightfeel uncomfortable with them around. This is not the case. In fact, if anything,it’s the other way around. It’s not that Williamsburg residents are intolerant ofthese vibrant young artists, but to kick residents out by making them feelunwanted with the intention of making the area entirely upper-class is simply
unacceptable. This type of gentrification is not a mere displacement. It’s about
rebirthing Williamsburg, a renaissance if you will, transforming the environment
into one that ostracizes the very people who gave birth to it in the first place, whoworked tirelessly in the factories, who took care of their neighbors, who opened
up delis and pizzerias and bakeries, and planted those beautiful trees that line
Roebling Street.
Maybe we should’ve seen it coming. Maybe that summer night my nextdoor neighbor’s daughter and I bought ice cream while watching the fireworks on
North 6th, we should’ve realized those beautiful views of the Manhattan skyline
would one day be blocked by high-rises and organic cleaners. Maybe while
walking from the train station to my grandma’s house one afternoon, I shouldhave noticed the new sketchy-looking pub on Broadway and Hooper Street andrealized it was the first of many. Maybe. But I didn’t. And now it’s too late. Let’s
just hope I can still find my way around Keap Street and Borinquen Place—solong as my favorite Caribbean food isn’t replaced by another Duane Reade.

Works Cited
Bagli, Charles V. "Developer to Revive a Project in Brooklyn." New York Times
21 June 2012. Web.
Coscarelli, Joe. "Williamsburg, Brooklyn Is the 'New Front Line' ofGentrification." Village Voice 12 Dec. 2010. Web.
Leland, John. "In Williamsburg, Rocked Hard." New York Times 28 May 2011.
Web.
Nelson, Katie, and Mark Morales. "Brooklyn Gentrification Meets Resistancefrom Longtime Latino Residents in South Williamsburg." Daily News
16 Sept. 2011. Web.

22

Eminent Domain
Lupita Escamilla
Eminent domain is the power the federal and state governments have totake private property for public use. The last clause of the U.S.
Constitution, 5th amendment, states that no person shall “….be deprivedof life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private
property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” In a recent
case, “public use” was broadened to include “public purpose” when an
action was brought against the City of New London in the Supreme Courtof Connecticut, after condemnation proceedings. The privately owned
property in an “economically depressed” area of the City of New London
was to be used as a redevelopment site; the defendants claimed “that the
taking of their properties would violate the "public use" restriction in theFifth Amendment” (Kelo v. New London, 545 US 469 (2005) pg. 476).
The Supreme Court’s decision was in favor of the City of New London; it
was later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which affirmed the previous,
lower court’s, decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court dissent written by Justice O’Connor
states that, because of the majority ruling, “all private property is now
vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so longas it might be upgraded—i. e., given to an owner who will use it in a waythat the legislature deems more beneficial to the public—in the process.”(Id at 494). Furthermore, she wrote, “To reason, as the Court does, thatthe incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use ofprivate property, render economic development takings "for public use," isto wash out any distinction between private and public use of property—
and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from theTakings Clause of the Fifth Amendment” (Id at 494). The City of New
London was going to have a privately owned company build in an“economically depressed” area, but because thousands of jobs and over a
million dollars in tax revenues per year would benefit the city, it was seen
as being a “public use.” In the dissenting opinion Justice O’Connor argues
that the words “public use” in the Fifth Amendment are intended to
distinguish between a public and private use of property. If the words“public use” cannot distinguish the two, then they should be removed fromthe amendment.

23

Occupy Wall Street protestors representing “the 99%” would agreewith the O’Connor’s dissenting opinion. These protestors have focused on
the greed of corporations, the impact they have on the government, and theresulting inequality corporations achieve1. Occupy Wall Street protesters“occupied” Zuccotti Park arguing that with large corporations taking overlarge amounts of space and not allowing small businesses to thrive, theAmerican dream is slowly fading2. The Declaration of the Occupation of
New York City lists twenty-three “facts” they believe these corporations
are at fault for, including illegal foreclosure processes and giving
excessive amount of bonuses to executives3.
By allowing the use of eminent domain in Kelo v. New Englandand further redefining “public use,” the Supreme Court is giving theselarge corporations an easier way to plead their case when wanting toredevelop an area and allowing them a higher chance of success.
Meanwhile families are forced to leave their homes, homes that some ofthem have lived in for decades. In the end, Pfizer never went through with
their redevelopment plan of the area in the city of New London. It
abandoned the project and now the area is used as a dump by the city.
The areas targeted, where eminent domain was approved, weresaid to be “blighted,” or deteriorating, forcing low-income families tomove so the wealthy could become wealthier. Atlantic Yards is a more
recent case where eminent domain was approved and the ruling in Kelo v.
The City of New London was applied. The defendants in the Atlantic
Yards argued four things “(1) the Project will generate no or minimal
economic benefits, (2) the Project will not create jobs, (3) the area to becondemned is not blighted, and (4) the Project will not materially increaseavailable affordable housing.” Goldstein v. Pataki, 488 F. Supp.2d. 254Dist. Court ED New York (2007) pg. 286. The U.S. Court of appeals
opinion said the “Plaintiffs have not set forth facts supporting a plausible
claim of an unconstitutional taking. Nowhere in the Amended Complaintor their briefs do Plaintiffs sufficiently allege any purpose to confer aprivate benefit. In other words, Plaintiffs attempt to satisfy the "merepretext" test solely by alleging that the purported purposes of the Projectare dubious, but Kelo requires them to allege that the "actual purpose" ofthe Project is "to bestow a private benefit" (Id at 288).
This opinion states that the plaintiffs have never alleged that the
purpose of the Atlantic Yards is for private benefit, and it would have tobe shown that it was intended for private use by the defendants; thedefendant had not met the threshold. In applying Kelo v. the City of New
London any argument that showed the “benefit of the public” wasacceptable. From the four previously mentioned arguments, “Counts One,24

Two, and Three of the Amended Complaint are dismissed with prejudice.
Count Four of the Amended Complaint is dismissed without prejudice….”(Goldstein v. Pataki at 491). For the fourth argument, The Ratner Groupargued that affordable housing would be built in the Atlantic Yards but it
was later seen that over half of the housing units they were going toprovide were not for low-income families as they had originally said but
were for wealthier individuals; these “affordable houses” were luxurious
apartments. The development of the Atlantic Yards is now in progress andprotestors from Occupy Brooklyn have marched through the project4.
They feel the project represents corporate greed, and that those who
sponsored this project should instead have put the money to better use byhelping small business owners or struggling neighborhoods rather than
forcing families out of their homes.
By redefining “public use,” it is now easier for the government toseize privately owned land for public use. Justice O’Connor wrote in thedissent “…..the government now has license to transfer property fromthose with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot haveintended this perverse result” (Kelo v. New London, 545 US 469 (2005)
pg. 505).

Notes
1. Taylor, Alan. “Occupy Wall Street Spreads Worldwide.” The Atlantic. Atlantic
Monthly Group Inc. 17 October 2011. Web. 19 May 2012.
2. Smith, Paul W. “The American Dream works best for the super-rich.” The
Voyager. The Voyager. 01 November 2011. Web. 19 May 2012.
3. New York City General Assembly. “Declaration of the Occupation of New
York City.” NYCGA. NYCGA Tech Ops Working Group. 29 September
2011. Web. 19 May 2012.
4. Clark, Amy Sara. “Occupy Brooklyn Marches on Atlantic Yards.” Prospect
Heights Patch. Patch. 13 November 2011. Web. 19 May 2012.

25

Carrying Oli
Kristel Assa Adolfsdottir

She lost her first son when he was only five years old. She and her husband were
living in a small fishing town. Only about a hundred people were living in thetown, so everybody knew everybody. The children were good friends and theadults were as good friends as they could be. Her husband and she had decided tomove to the small town because it was safe. Safe for their little son and their
future children to play there. They could just run around during the day and playwith sticks and roll around in the grass. It was safe. Olafur, or Oli, their son had abest friend who was a little bit older. Both of them knew that they were notallowed to play near the sea—all the children in the town knew this rule.
It was on a Friday that Gudrun got the call that her son had been found.
The whole town had been looking for him the entire afternoon without any luck.
The friend who had been playing with him told everybody that he had no idea
where Oli was. Oli was found in the harbor—he had drowned there two hours
earlier. The whole town was devastated. How could this have happened? In sucha small town, how could a five-year-old get past everyone’s eyes and drown intheir harbor?
Gudrun, especially, never got over Oli’s death. Thirty years and sevenchildren later, she still carried the sorrow of losing her first son when he was solittle. She didn’t carry her sorrow on the outside, when she went to the grocery
store during the day or met with her girlfriends. Nobody knew the heavy load she
carried with her every single day, except for her children. Every single morning
the children woke up to go about their day, either to school or work, and the firstthing they saw in the kitchen was empty beer bottles and pieces of paper with thename Olafur written on them over and over and over again. Sometimes the piecesof paper were replaced by pencil marks on the kitchen table itself.
Gudrun had been drinking a lot through the years, and her husband had
left her for it. Even though he left her, he didn’t go far. They were living in a big
house now, so he decided to move into the basement, because he did still love his
wife, but her load that she kept dragging around with her was destroying her. He
could no longer sit and watch his wife of many years destroy herself like that.
One afternoon the phone rang. It was Magnus, Oli’s best friend who had
been playing with him that day when he died. He sounded afraid and tired. He
wanted to meet up with Gudrun and her husband to talk. Gudrun didn’t know if
she wanted to go meet him and talk about this terrible thing that happened thirty
years before, but her husband told her that she, more than anyone, needed to meetup with him and talk about what happened.

26

When they met Magnus, he looked exhausted. He didn’t look good at all.
Actually Gudrun and he looked equally tired and sad. Magnus started to cry andtold them that he had to talk to them about what happened the day their son died.
Magnus said he had been carrying this around since he was a child, and that hecould not do it anymore. He asked them to forgive him, he asked them over andover to forgive him, and then he told them that when they were playing by thesea he had accidentally pushed Oli into the sea and was so afraid that he ran awayand didn’t tell anyone. He told them that when he had been asked if he knew
where Oli was, he had lied because he was afraid. He told them that he could notstop thinking that if he had not lied, Oli might still be alive.
All of them started to cry, but then Gudrun told him that they forgave
him. She told him that he was only a child when this happened and even though
things could have gone better and that maybe if he had done the right thing thatOli would be alive, he should not waste his life thinking about this over and over.
Oli was in heaven. He wasn’t coming back. She thanked him for telling her thetruth and hoped to see him more often and that perhaps they could together let goof what they had been carrying for all those years.
Magnus and Gudrun met each other every month and talked. Gudrun
stopped drinking and with the beer bottles gone, so were the pieces of paper with
Oli’s name on them. She and her husband started having a much better
relationship and the entire family starting talking about Oli. Now the memory of
Oli was not just a load Gudrun was carrying but an angel that was a part of thefamily again.

27

Women Breaking Free
Anne Antoine

At what point will women be able to break free from their roles and be able topursue their great work without worrying about society’s norms? Historically,
women have been expected to grow up and be obedient housewives; despite thesexual revolution, women are still considered the weakest link in society. Womenare supposed to focus on being the best mother they can be and take care of theirhusband and family. If they break away from this work, they are judged andrejected. This is why Marilyn from the Twilight Zone Episode Number 12“Looks Just Like You” and Babli from “A Father” struggle so hard in defending
what they want to be and perceive themselves in opposition to what their families
want for them; in the end they fall short of their objective like many people who
defy and challenge society’s norms.
Babli and Marilyn are victimized and pushed aside because of theirstrong will. They want to change the way people view women but fail miserably;
they cannot convince others to accept their beliefs. As Ralph Waldo Emerson
said in his essay “Self-Reliance,” it takes great strength and character to be able
to stand strong while everybody is against you. Marilyn sees herself as her
father’s daughter, a thinker, a non-conformist who believes that beauty is morethan a matter of appearance. Marilyn asks, “Is that good being like everybody? Is
it the same as being nobody? How does anyone know me? I don’t want to look
like everybody else. I want to look like me.” This young woman does not caremuch about being attractive and refuses to tolerate her family’s definition of
beauty. Marilyn wants to develop herself with knowledge, not what doctor Rex
proposes, and she desperately wants to explore the world. For Marilyn, being
beautiful means being capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation andsharing with others her thoughts and life experiences. She needs her father’s
support, but he is no longer present in her life.
Babli is as shrewd and resilient as Marilyn and does not want to be likethe typical Indian housewife. She wants to free herself from all the traditions that
hold women back from freedom and change. Like Marilyn, Babli stands alone
against the world. She is one small voice in this wide and noisy world. She isultimately consumed and pushed aside like Marilyn.
As Naomi Wolf asserts in “The Making of a Slut,” “It was very
important to stay in the game, if always nervously moving; but finding yourself
suddenly singled out was nothing short of fatal….. One thing was certain: if you
were targeted, no matter how randomly, whether you had moved not fast enoughor too fast for the music, in some sure way your exclusion was your own fault”

28

(72-73). Wolf explains that women are already in a box: bad or good girls. It istheir role to navigate this complex world without being labeled. Wolf notes that it
is very dangerous to stand alone without some sort of support because eventually
you will be ostracized and fall. Anything can happen to a person in this situation.
It seems to be especially important for women not to become targets. They mustget along with people around them because there will be grave consequences ifthey choose to do otherwise. While Emerson preaches and encourages men to
fight for their rights and think independently, women do not have that luxury
because of numerous rules and standards they’re expected to uphold. Beinghemmed in by a dominant crowd, Babli and Marilyn are left to fend forthemselves.
Change takes time and does not occur overnight; when a society is used
to functioning one way, people may feel threatened when new ideas appear.
Marilyn is surrounded by people who firmly believe that beauty is strictly
physical. Her mother, uncle, and best friend applaud her transformation anddoctor Rex reinforces it as an expected step to becoming normal. Everybody
around her thinks the same. Imagine being the only one who thinks differently! “I
am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large
societies and dead institutions,” Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us (13). Society
tends to dictate. Marilyn’s family and friends want her to be beautiful and happy.
But she wants to be like her father and to be an independent person. How can you
communicate with millions of people against you? Marilyn does not stand afighting chance if she wants to live freely among her family. The only way forher to live the way she wants to is to go far way and become an outcast. I believethat she is not ready for such a big change.
Babli is facing a similar situation. Her father and mother want a dutiful,
soft-spoken, traditional daughter. But Babli wants something different and isappalled by her parent’s marriage. She does not want to be like them: “Whoneeds a man? Babli hissed. The father of my baby is a bottle and a syringe. Menlouse up your lives. I just want a baby.” Babli is afraid of being trapped in aloveless relationship like her mother. She wants to be independent and notworry about people’s opinions.
Here are two strong-willed young women who believe in something
different and are totally on their own against their family, friends, and society.
How will they survive? As Emerson posits, “It is easy in the world to live after
the world’s opinion; it is easy to live in solitude to live after our own; but thegreat man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps the perfect sweetness in the
independence of solitude” (12). In Emerson’s world, a true man speaks his mind
and disregards others’ viewpoints; but, in Wolf’s mind, a woman must at all costs
avoid being caught in a compromised situation. Babli and Marilyn were behaving
like men in Naomi Wolf’s real world. They wanted to be different but they were
too small to fight back and stay in the game.
A small fish among predators is eaten alive. Marilyn really wants tocultivate her intellect and does not believe in smiling all the time; she wants tocry, laugh, or frown depending on her emotions. Emerson argues that complying

29

with society’s norms is dangerous because then we lose sight of our own genius.
Both Babli and Marilyn feel they have been born to accomplish a greater work,
but they are up against those who want them to play a pre-scripted role. They arebaffled and disappointed. In the words of Emerson, “To believe your own
thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all
men—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal
sense…” (13). Babli and Marilyn perhaps have not found that inner strength
which would allow them to stand against the people around them.
In fact, both our characters have some weakness that prevents them fromachieving their objective. Marilyn is just a child, eighteen years old. She is still
young and has had no real life experience. She has big ideas yet she still looks forher mother’s approval. She wants that maternal touch, her mother’s love. Perhaps
if her father were still alive, she might have been more tenacious about her
convictions. Whenever she sees her mother, she wants to stay by her side.
Marilyn is afraid of being alone.
Unlike Marilyn, Babli is a full-grown woman with experience, educationand financial means. Yet, Babli has no confidence about moving out of herparents’ house and having her own apartment. As autonomous as she is, she is
not ready to live on her own. Babli decides to have a child without being married
despite knowing what Mr. Bhowmick and his wife might think. Emerson argues“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connectionof events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike tothe genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy
was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating all in their
being” (12). God has purposely placed every individual on earth to accomplish
his or her great work. It is up to us to give all our energy and defend our opinion
no matter what. Most famous artists, musicians, and scholars have been ridiculedby others because they have the courage to be unique. Small-minded people
simply cannot think for themselves and desperately hold to what they are familiar
with.
Recently we’ve learned that a courageous young girl was gravely hurtfor her courage to advocate for equal rights for women. Malala Yousafzai, afourteen-year-old Pakistani girl, was assaulted on her way to school by armed
rebels because she believed that every girl has the right to be educated and play
an active role in society. Ms. Yousafzai became an activist for equal rights andfor women when some rebels forced her father to close down his school.
Outraged, Malala voiced her desire to be a doctor and to see equal opportunity
for men and women. Unfortunately, Malala lives in a place where women or
independent thinkers are targeted and where society dictates expectations. In
such an oppressive environment, it is extremely difficult to be self-reliant, to beassertive without being targeted. In essence, those who lay out rules and norms
expect everybody to abide by them and severely punish others who dare
disrespect them. Nicholas D. Kristof, in the New York Times article, “Her Crime
Was Loving Schools,” explains, “They shot Malala because girls’ education30

threatens everything they stand for. The greatest risk for violent extremists inPakistan isn’t American drones. It’s educated girls. This is not just Malala’s war.
It is a war between two ideologies, between the light of education and darkness”(A31). How unfortunate, when education is the path for progress and growth!
Although this incident happened in the Middle East, women in the U.S. are stillup against many barriers. It is not easy to pursue what Emerson called “yourMagnum Opus” when almost everybody thinks very differently from you and has
severe punishment in mind for you. As Wolf states, being alone against theworld is dangerous because you are vulnerable and defenseless. Anything canhappen to you.
One is generally expected to follow the crowd. Conformity andconsistency seem to be the winning formula. As we all know, invention anddevelopment do require people to think outside the box. Copernicus and Galileo
would not have been renowned and symbols of genius if they did not dare to bedifferent. It takes courage and extreme strength of character to be oneself among
the crowd. Despite failing to achieve their objective, Babli and Marilyn areadmirable for their courage in challenging the status quo. They inspire me tostand for what I believe in and to do so amidst disapproval. Living life to thefullest entails risks. As Emerson teaches, it does not matter if you change yourmind different days of the week; nonetheless, be yourself, do your work, and theworld will recognize you. I intend to practice self-reliance and inculcate thisprinciple in my daily life. We all have one life to live; why not live it the way wewant?
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” Lead, Follow, or Move out of the Way!
Ed. Monique Ferrell and Julian Williams. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt, 2006.
11-30. Print.
Kristof, Nicholas. “Her Crime Was Loving Schools.” New York Times 11 Oct.
2012: A31. Print
Twilight Zone: Number 12 Looks Just like You. Dir. Abner Biberman. ImageEntertainment,1964. Netflix. Web. 27 September 2012.
<http://movies.netflix.com>.
Wolf, Naomi. “The Making of a Slut.” Lead, Follow, or Move out of the Way! Ed.
Monique Ferrell and Julian Williams. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt, 2006. 7177. Print.

31

A Will Unbroken
Denis Petras
Written by Sophocles in approximately 441 B.C., Antigone is arguably one of theoldest and most well known tragedies in literature. While chronologically thethird of the three Theban plays, the other two being Oedipus and Oedipus atColonus, it was the first to be written. Taking place after the tragic downfall ofKing Oedipus, former ruler of the plagued city of Thebes, Antigone follows thetrials and tribulations of his daughter Antigone. King Creon, as the new ruler ofThebes, places an edict over the city, prohibiting the burial of Antigone's brother,
Polyneices, a law which his sister is not willing to follow due to her religious
beliefs. Throughout the play the actions of both Antigone and other charactersreveal many underlying themes, including ones of religious faith, arrogance, andindividualism, but all come together to portray one concept: the concept of theindividual versus the state.
The conflict between individual and state in Antigone is first seen in
Antigone's first defiance of Creon, the king who embodies the state in the play.
Because Polyneices led a rebellion during the civil war in Thebes, Creon places
an edict over the city preventing Polyneices' body from being buried and given
the holy rites which all dead deserve. In this way Polyneices and his legacy are
publicly shamed; he is branded a traitor undeserving of even proper burial, andhis corpse is left to rot on the battlefield. Given her faith in the gods and theirlaws, not the laws of man, Antigone defies Creon by burying her brother andsanctifying his body with the holy rites. "Antigone considers the god's decrees
and her own family duties towards her two brothers more important than any of
man's laws or decrees, even if such rules come from not only the most powerfulruler of Thebes in her time, but from the man who is her own uncle" (Brandt). It
is through her religious faith that Antigone finds the will and reason to defy
Creon and his decree. When asked by Creon how she "had the gall to break thislaw" even after publically hearing his edict, Antigone replies, "It wasn't Zeus, notin the least, who made this proclamation—not to me." Be they the words of a
beggar or the man in the highest position in the state, Antigone follows her
beliefs as an individual and refuses to acknowledge anyone who challenges her.
Even after Antigone is revealed to have defied Creon's edict, she refuses
to bend to his will. Faced with death, she does not deny her actions but rather
accepts her fate with pride and dignity, believing that what she had done wastruly the right thing. Brought before the king to face his justice, she speaks words
that consistently only insult and defy Creon, and this interaction in my opinion is
the prime, quite literal example of an individual versus the state. She challenges
Creon's will directly to his face, while her own will remains unbroken. "Antigone,
who in her own way also refuses to 'yield,' images more fully the greatness ofman" (Segal 74). Even the guard overhearing the dialogue between the two

32

acknowledges her unbroken conviction, stating, "Like father like daughter,passionate, wild...she hasn't learned to bend before adversity." Between her
defiance and her unwillingness to deny her will even in the face of death,
Antigone embodies the heart and soul of an individual defying the state.
While Antigone's actions may be the main example of an individual
standing up to Creon, one finds another case when a guard must face theexceedingly stubborn and arrogant king. Here we find one of the first literaryexamples of heavy consequences being brought upon the bringer of bad news, as
the guard is faced with possible death for informing Creon of the defiance of his
most recent edict. "Indeed, the play is the source of the modern cliché, 'shooting
the messenger'" (O'Toole). Despite pleading for his life in a feeble attempt toprove his innocence, the guard is desperate as Creon sends him off in search of
the true criminal. One may find it ironic that a guard of the state had foundhimself at the edge of his ruler's sword, but such is the will of the mad, arrogant
King Creon, turning even his own men into enemies of the state without reason.
As the guard himself says, "It's terrible when the one who does the judging
judges things all wrong." Only after the guard had brought Antigone to face the
king's justice had he been redeemed of the crimes he had not committed, andrelinquished his status as an individual against the state in exchange for once
again joining it. While the guard had never willingly chosen to turn against thestate, his own king forcefully placed him in a situation which made it so.
The events in Antigone and the actions of the characters revolve aroundthe concept of the individual versus the state. Whether we’re considering thehuge plot points like Antigone's burial of her brother and her direct defiance of
the king, or seemingly minor events such as a guardsman being wrongly accusedby an arrogant king, the characters in Antigone are all faced against the state,
manifesting itself in the form of Creon. Through its plot, Antigone became one of
the first examples of literature expressing the concepts of civil disobedience andindividualism. Antigone is known as one of the finest examples of individual
expression and defiance of power in literature.

Works Cited
Brandt, Georgina. "Sophocles' Antigone: A True Tragic Hero?" Helium. 22 Nov.
2007. Web. 24 Nov. 2012. < http://www.helium.com/items/712725Classical-Lit-Mythology>.
O'Toole, James. "Speaking Truth to Power: A White Paper." Markkula Center
for Applied Ethics. 2012. Santa Clara University. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/business/truth-topower.html>.
Segal, Charles Paul. Sophocles' Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone.
Boston: Trustees of Boston University, 1964. Print.
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus atColonus. New York: Penguin, 1984. Print.

33

The Next Wave of Austerity Incites
Anger and Desperation
Thalia Cabrera
What if the United States were a country with a government that allowed
widespread corruption in the form of tax evasion? Wouldn't you worry about
your future? More importantly, what if our economy inevitably collapsed?
Wouldn't you feel angry? This is the reality for millions of citizens in the countryof Greece. Why is there social and economic unrest all over Greece? People inthe streets of Athens are protesting for their rights and for the end of austerity(“Austerity Protests”).
The main problem is the European Sovereign Debt Crisis which started
in 2009 when Greece declared that its national debt was 300 billion euros whichis equivalent to 113% of the Gross Domestic Product and 60% over the euro zone
limit (“Timeline: The Unfolding Eurozone Crisis”). Unable to sustain itself,
Greece sought financial assistance from abroad to lower its debt. It found refugein the “Troika,” which consists of the European Commission, European Central
Bank, and the International Monetary Fund and is comprised of the foreign
lenders who have decided to bail out Greece and other affected European
countries such as Portugal, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Belgium through the strict
regulation of their economies (Fekete). In order to receive bail-out packages fromthe Troika, the Greek government was required to impose austerity measures
along with selling its own public and state assets. This process has proven to be
counter-productive and highly controversial.
The foreign lenders will only provide the bail-out if Greece shows that itis trying to stabilize its economy, for instance through austerity measures.
Austerity, which comes from the Greek word: “austeros” means strict or severe.
In Greece it translates to salary and pension cuts (Alderman and Kitsantonis), as
well as cuts in the health and military sectors. In order for Greece to secure a 31.5
billion euro bail-out loan, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is pushing to initiate
an 11.5 billion euro austerity package (Alderman, “Push for Cuts”). Thistransaction, if it is approved, could help lower Greece's debt, but at the same timeit incites anger.
Greek citizens oppose the austerity measures because they say the plan iscrippling their society, further depressing the economy instead of helping it.
Austerity has taken a huge toll through people’s loss of their jobs and their homes.
On September 19, 2012, Liz Alderman interviewed Gregoris Skouros in “As
Economics of Everyday Life Erode, Some Greeks See Little Hope.” Skouros
gives us the perspective of a person facing the economic crisis in Greece; he had
to leave his home in Athens to save money, and is currently living in a cargocontainer, working as a snail farmer—it took him eighteen months to obtain his
permit to farm snails. Another surprising fact is that the government has allowed34

food to be sold beyond its expiration date, at discounted prices (Donadio). Greek
citizens are unable to find stable jobs, are forced to pay more taxes when they
don't have the money to do so, and what’s more, could be susceptible to foodpoisoning. This issue has sparked so much anger that people are expressing theirviews in extensive protests.
In the New York Times article, “Markets Falter In Europe Amid Protests
On Austerity,” Liz Alderman and Niki Kitsontonis quoted Anna Afanti, a fiftyyear-old teacher who attended the protests and said: “They (Greece's foreign
creditors) just want to impoverish us, to bring our salaries down to the level in
India and swoop in and buy everything on the cheap, ” referring to the plannedtransfer of Greece's state assets to private sectors (privatization). In “Greeks Taketo the Streets, Some Violently, in a Strike Over Austerity,” Alderman discusses
the protests in Athens after the European Union leaders met in Brussels. Forty
thousand people protested in Athens and the police detained 103 demonstrators.
Greeks are fighting against their government's austerity plan because they knowthat the bail-out money won't help them at all since it will instead be largely
given to the failing banking sector (Alderman, “In Greece”). The money
accumulated is primarily used to cut debt from banks because banks sustain agreat majority of national debt, but at the same time to pay back the loans
received from foreign creditors. Barely any of the money that is gained fromausterity will be given to the people who are suffering from the overwhelming
wage cuts and tax increases.
Nevertheless, the austerity plan is not the only challenge Greeks arefacing now. There is the growing interference of privatization. Why do people
oppose this strategy? Privatization shifts an industry from government or public
ownership or control to private enterprise. The Greek government is planning on
selling its state assets and businesses to foreign investors to pay off its debt. This
seems like a good idea initially because it does cut national debt. But Greeks
argue that they are selling off their country to strangers, and at artificially low
prices. Those in favor of privatization, the political elite, point out that by selling
assets to private firms, these firms will invest in Greece by creating morebusinesses which creates more jobs (Alderman, “Privatizing Greece”). But Greek
citizens vigorously disagree. A decision on further privatization is pending.
With all these problems, why is the Greek government choosing to
implement austerity? Greece’s Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, is pushing for
more austerity cuts. Liz Alderman interviewed him in her article, “Greek PremierSees Hope, But Only if Europe Helps.” Alderman says Samaras is responsible for
the Greek future since the country now has a 25 percent general unemployment
rate, and a 50 percent rate for young people. Samaras says, “Keep the faith; betterdays lie ahead....That is all I can offer.” This message, instead of helping isfurther inflaming people, because Greece is facing its sixth austerity package
within the past five years, which shows that things are not getting better(Cockburn). Samaras said the Troika's help is necessary or else it could be the“end of Greece, ” hinting at the possibility of an exit from the European Union.

35

Prime Minister Samaras’s austerity package of 11.5 billion euros, had tobe approved by the Greek parliament in two separate votes, one on the national
budget and another for the approval of the austerity measures (Staff, et al). On
November 8, 2012, Parliament agreed to implement the austerity package at anincreased value of 13 billion euros, saying it would come in the form of wage,
pension and welfare cuts during the next two years. The decision was close, 153
parliamentary leaders for it, and 146 against (Yannopoulos). Massdemonstrations in Athens' Syntagma Square occurred with the police using watercannons and tear gas against the protestors (Clancy and Trotman). The AegeanParliament is not voting on just an austerity package, but also attempting to keep
its economy functioning with the new bail-out loan at the expense of its people.
To analyze this issue more closely, the perspective of the Troika and Chancellor
Angela Merkel's role must be considered.
The Troika's decision to bail-out troubled European countries requires
difficult discussions about the European Union's future. After speculation that theEuropean Union is facing a serious decline and that Greece may leave it, theforeign creditors have assured their critics that there is no need to worry. Mario
Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, has secured the stability of theeuro, for instance, by lowering Spanish and Italian yields to normalcy while atthe same time overseeing Greece's economic situation (Erlanger). The
International Monetary Fund stated that, to protect itself from loss, it would only
continue to lend money to Greece, if it keeps its debt under control. If Greece
doesn’t improve, why keep helping them? (“Greek Government, Troika
Optimistic”). The European Commission's goal is to establish a financialtransactions tax in ten European countries; Jose Manuel Barroso, EC president,
stated, “This is about fairness—we need to ensure the costs of the crisis areshared by the financial sector instead of shouldered by ordinary citizens." Itseems like a valid plan, but will it work? Other European countries are skeptical(“Majority EU Backing”). The Troika aims to help the European Union; however,
the methods they impose are often criticized.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany works constantly with the Troika
because Germany provides the majority of the “bail-out” money to the troubled
EU states. Merkel is criticized in both Germany and Greece. On October 9, 2012,
she spoke with Prime Minister Samaras over the state of the Greek economy. Her
visit to Greece was not welcomed, and protests erupted. Protestors’ banners read:“Merkel, you are not welcome here.” She supports austerity. Merkel has said
“Much has been achieved, much has been demanded of the Greek people.....I am
deeply convinced that it’s going to be worthwhile.” (Donadio and Kulish). One
notable critic of Ms. Merkel is the Finance Minister of Bavaria, Markus Soder,
who opposes Germany's continuing role in Greece and affirms that Germany
should let Greece leave the EU, instead of wasting tax-payer's money. Soder
compared it to "pouring water into the desert" (Paterson). Chancellor Merkel
wants to save the European Union by helping Greece, but she does notunderstand the price that Greeks are paying for it and that their opinions arebarely considered.

36

How did Greece end up with this economic disaster? Greece entered the
EU in 2001 relinquishing the Greek drachma for the newly established euro.
Prior to joining the EU, Greece was facing high levels of debt, inflation, andbudget deficits. The EU accepted Greece believing that as a member, its
economy would improve.. The euro was meant to help Greece not to make itworse (Bohlen). Once the euro was introduced, the Greek standard of living
improved with higher salaries and government spending, for example Greece
spent huge sums on construction for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, butthen abandoned the new structures (Saunders).
Corruption is an important factor in Greek society. Tax fraud andproperty mismanagement increased Greece's out of control debt. Although Greek
citizens are facing the difficulties of austerity, they are also responsible for its
country's problems. Corruption starts with a bribe for a service such as obtaining
a driver's license or hospital admittance, or creating a business; it escalated to tax
evasion. Prime Minister Skouros has stated that civil service workers planted
tomato crops worth 25,000 euros a year in certain areas in order to gain a profit
without paying taxes (Alderman, “As Economics”). The government has failed to
implement critically needed tax reform.
Property mismanagement, meanwhile, is a grave issue that can bringprivatization to a standstill. In order for the government to sell its public and state
assets to private investors, legal documentation must show title. However, land in
Greece owned by Greek citizens often is not registered with the government.
Alderman notes “Property registries are almost nonexistent in Greece, a curiositythat dates back to the Ottoman Empire. Ownership was almost never recorded, so
investors could face potential lawsuits from people claiming land as theirs”(“Privatizing Greece”). But acknowledging both tax fraud and government
failure to register land use, one asks if the methods used to lower debt havehelped the economy recover?
After the introduction of austerity and privatization, the economy of
Greece has improved, but not as quickly as expected. In 2008, Greece's budget
deficit as a share of G.D.P was equal to 10%. This has changed steadily and now
in 2012, its budget deficit is less than 9%. The budget deficit has decreased. The
opposite is true, however, for its government debt. According to a report from theInternational Monetary Fund, Greece's government debt as a share of G.D.P has
increased over 50% from 2008's 100% plus to 2012's 150% plus (Thomas, Jr. and
Jolly). Austerity and privatization are counter-productive because the results are
not sustainable. When there is a decrease in one area of its overall economy,
there is also an increase in its debt.
Greek society is in constant turmoil, with regular protests in all Greece's
major cities. Greeks mistrust their political leaders, and with reason. A recent
scandal is described in Donadio and Alderman's New York Times article, “List of
Swiss Bank Accounts Turns Up the Heat in Greece.” It says that many politicalfigures are rumored to have transferred their money out of Greek banks to avoid
taxes. The Greek Magazine, Hot Doc, has named around 2,059 people who have
Swiss bank accounts including the speaker of the Greek Parliament, finance and37

business elites and civil workers. The Finance Minister of Greece, Yannis
Stournaras, is investigating the allegations (Donadio and Alderman, “List of
Swiss Accounts”). This scandal shows that the socio-political ties in Greece aretense.
What lies ahead? The problems described will not change overnight.
While Greece unlocks the 31.5 billion euro Troika bail-out package, it is
implementing a tighter austerity package on Greek society (Kanter). EU leaders
discuss the health of the overall economy. Nowadays, banks are hesitant to lendmoney, fearing they will not be paid back. EU member states with economic
problems may slowly introduce austerity into their own countries. The role of the
EU remains clear, “A whole generation of political leaders want this project tosurvive, and they have the economic resources to make it do so if they choose to
use them” (Norris). Being part of the EU comes with economic implications, butwhat is important is the sense of unity of the member states despite cultural andlanguage differences.
How does this affect us in the U.S.? The choices that the Greek
government has made at the expense of its people are very harsh, but do themeans justify the end? This is an issue that concerns us just as much as it
concerns Europe. Our economic prospects can shift if the EU continues todecline since it has been proven that U.S. shares fall in the stock market when
European markets are suffering (Reuters). Our economic alliance with the EU isconnected to our own economy. However, far from this being only an economic
issue, this is also a socio-political problem. Are austerity and privatization truly
necessary for Greece to recover? If the introduction of the euro led to these
problems, should the European Union continue or falter and let everyone fend forthemselves? These are questions we should ask ourselves. The Euro crisis is notending; and we should not close our eyes to it. Americans might not feel entitledto voice their opinions on European issues but Americans can understand theemotions of anger or desperation that many Greeks feel.
Works Cited
Alderman, Liz. "As Economics of Everyday Life Erode, Some Greeks See Little
Hope." The New York Times 19 Sept. 2012: B1. Print.
---. "Greeks Take to the Streets, Some Violently, in a Strike Over Austerity." The
New York Times 19 Oct. 2012: A10. Print.
---. "In Greece, Restlessness Amid a Push for Cuts." The New York Times 18
Sept. 2012: B3. Print.
---. "Privatizing Greece, Slowly but Not Surely." The New York Times 18
Nov.2012: BU1. Print.
Alderman, Liz, and Niki Kitsantonis. "Markets Falter In Europe Amid Protests
On Austerity." The New York Times 27 Sept. 2012: A4. Print.
"Austerity Protests." The Sunday Times [London]. 18 Nov. 2012: 92 words.
LexisNexis Academic. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

38

Bohlen, Celestine. "Joining Euro A Dim Hope For Greece." The New York Times.
2 April 1998 Late Ed. Final: 771 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 26
Nov. 2012.
Clancy, Rebecca., and Andrew Trotman. "Debt Crisis: Greek Parliament Passes
Austerity Bill, As It Happened, November 7, 2012; The Greek
Parliament Has Voted Through Austerity Measures with 153 Yes Votes,
As Protesters Clash with Police in Athens' Syntagma Square.."telegraph.co.uk. 7 Nov. 2012 10:59 pm GMT ): 5392 words.
LexisNexisAcademic. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
Cockburn, Patrick. "Greeks Rage at Erosion of Sovereignty While Leaders
Haggle Over Deal; Resentment of Ruthless Austerity Programme May
Not Be Enough to Prevent Bailout Package." Independent.co.uk. 17 Feb.
2012 9:58 am GMT ): 895 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 24 Nov.
2012.
Donadio, Rachel. "Amid the Echoes of an Economic Crash, the Sounds of Greek
Society Being Torn." The New York Times 21 Oct. 2012: A6. Print.
Donadio, Rachel, and Liz Alderman. "Greek Premier Sees Hope, But Only IfEurope Helps." The New York Times 29 Sept. 2012: A8. Print.
---. "List of Swiss Accounts Turns Up the Heat in Greece." The New York Times
28 Oct. 2012: A8. Print.
Donadio, Rachel, and Nicholas Kulish. "Official Warmth and Public Rage for
Merkel in Athens." The New York Times 10 Oct. 2012: A4. Print.
Erlanger, Steven. "Talks on Euro Zone Approach, This Time Under Calmer
Conditions." The New York Times 17 Oct. 2012: A4. Print.
Fekete, Anne."Eurozone: Greece: Troika Negotiations Rumble On.”
Europolitics [daily in English]. 5 Nov. 2012. 637 words. LexisNexis
Academic. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
"Greek Government, Troika Optimistic about Final Agreement." BBCMonitoring Europe: Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring. 18 Oct.
18, 2012 Thursday. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
Kanter, James. "Assurances from Berlin as Greece Awaits funds; Solution Can
Be Expected Next Week, Chancellor Tells Parliament." TheInternational Herald Tribune 23 Nov. 2012. LexisNexis Academic. Web.
26 Nov. 2012.
"Majority EU Backing Brings Tobin Tax Closer To Reality." Foi: Future &Options Intelligence 1742 (2012): 9. Business Source Complete. Web. 25
Nov. 2012.
Norris, Floyd. "Euro Survives, But Future Is In Doubt." The New York Times 26
Oct. 2012: B1. Print.
Paterson, Tony. "Former Loyalist Accuses Merkel of Crushing Dissent;
Chancellor under Attack from Her Own Party as Splits Widen Over How
to Deal with Greece crisis." The Independent [London]. 16 Aug. 2012.
LexisNexis Academic. Web. 25 Nov.

39

Reuters, ed. "Shares Fall on Worries Over European Debt Crisis." The New YorkTimes 27 Sept. 2012: B5. Print.
Saunders, Doug. "Greece's Olympic-sized misery." The Globe and Mail
[Toronto]. 26 March 2005. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
Staff, CNN Wire, Christine Theodorou, and Diana Magnay. "Greece Strikes Dealon Austerity Plan, Samaras Says." CNN.com. Cable News Network, 30
Oct. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/30/world/europe/greeceausterity/index.html?iref=allsearch>.
Thomas, Landon, Jr., and David Jolly. "Despite Push for Austerity, European
Debt Has Soared." The New York Times 23 Oct. 2012: B8. Print.
"Timeline: The Unfolding Eurozone Crisis." BBC News. BBC, 13 June 2012.
Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13856580>.
Yannopoulos, Dimitris. "Small Majority for Austerity Raises Big Doubts."
athensnews.gr. Athens News, 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/8/58735>.

40

Face the Truth
Fabio Gonzalez
It’s not easy living in a society filled with ghosts from the past. These ghosts
terrorize us today and play a critical role in situations in which we find ourselves.
American society is filled with ghosts in the form of social problems that havebeen caused by policies that have become prevalent in the last few decades.
Getting rid of ghosts is not easy, but an equally difficult task is living in a society
in which rich people become richer and poor people become poorer. The dream
many people have of one day being rich is continually becoming more of a fairy
tale than a dream. Dreams can come true, but fairy tales only exist in books or
movies. As the dream becomes more of a myth, society has to deal with problems
created by our policies, nothing less than pain and suffering. People tend not tobelieve in society anymore, and what we have instead is an abyss of inequality.
The wealthy use their power to crush the less fortunate and reduce government’s
role to that of an outsider who cannot intervene.
We live in a society that accepts neoliberalism as the policy to rule our
economy. Neoliberals believe in shrinking government and prohibiting it frominvolvement in the economy. They believe in a set of policies known as D-L-P,
Deregulation, Liberalization, and Privatization. They support deregulation of theeconomy, and urge the government to remove restrictions that companies have tofollow, such as the national minimum wage. Neoliberals would prefer toeliminate anything that can affect their ability to produce a profit or decrease
their chances of becoming richer. They would like to be able to invest funds inother countries and to have people in other countries invest funds in America.
Neoliberals want the government to make massive tax cuts for businesses andhigh-income earners. Also, they want to abolish any kind of government aid suchas welfare (Steger and Roy 7). They do not believe in the government playing apivotal role in the economy like during the “golden age of regulated capitalism.”
The period between 1945 and 1975 is known as the “golden age of regulated
capitalism.” Just the words “golden” and “age” are exciting! During this period,
the government imposed restrictions on the economy, raised taxes for rich people,
helped lower the unemployment rate, helped emerging strong unions in order tocreate better benefits for workers, and came forward with welfare to assist low
income families. Also, during this period Keynesian policies emerged and wereembraced by the government. Keynesian policies extensively helped theeconomy. We found the government stepping in and spending money in times ofcrisis. The injection of money into the economy helped the nation because it
created cash flow. People had money and were able to spend it. Also, thegovernment hired people to build new infrastructure, which created jobs, reduced
unemployment and strengthened the country as a whole. The role of the41

government in the economy during this period was vital, and it shows how there
is hope in closing the gap between the rich and poor if the right approach toward
the economy is taken. The United States should reject neoliberalism and its
policies.
We are often reminded about the big gap between economic classes in the
United States. Class inequality is not a new issue. Capitalists have been trying to
use the economy to their advantage for decades, and their actions have created asociety where only one percent of people do not have to worry about the financial
crisis because they keep making money while the people not in that bracket are
constantly struggling. Neoliberalism and Adam Smith’s ideas are consistent.
Capitalists are always trying to turn a profit, and if they believe theircompanies will not accomplish this, without remorse, they close them or stophiring. When companies close, people become unemployed, and their ability topurchase goods becomes almost non-existent. The economic balance capitalists
emphasize is meaningless. Adam Smith’s ideas and neoliberalism have the same
goals for increasing the wealth of the wealthy. They try to achieve this goal by
reducing taxes for companies and high-income earners, while other people barely
make enough money for food. In a dream society, it should be the opposite,where companies and high-income earners pay higher taxes and help thegovernment provide health care or better social services for those struggling tostay afloat. Unfortunately, we do not have a dream society. Inequality has grown,
and class mobility has stalled.
It saddens me to know that unless there is a big change in our economy,
or I win the lottery, my financial future does not look promising. Over the years
things do not seem to change; the chances of people moving into “elite” groups
are slimmer by the day. In recent decades, the inequality has clearly grown.
Looking at the distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States,
1983-2007, we see the increase of net worth for the top 1% from 33.8% in 1983
to 34.6% in 2007; while the net worth for the bottom 80% was reduced from
18.7% in 1983 to 15% in 2007 (Domhoff table 1). One would think that over theyears more people would have the ability to increase their wealth, but it has beenshown that the 1% are the only ones achieving this.
There is a funny game called catch up, and this game is being played in
American society daily. Nobody needs to sign up; everyone is automatically aplayer. The bottom 80% is trying to catch up with the top 1%. Lower classpeople believe their hard work is their golden ticket to the top, but these people
live in denial. It does not matter how much people try to move to a better placein society known as the “middle class,” the chances of reaching that point arealmost none. The chances of poor children making their way to the top are
exceptionally low. We believe in an equal society, but there is no worse
blindness than when a person chooses not to see, and it is time to open our eyes
and realize we do not live in that type of society. We are separated into twogroups, the card punchers who work for a salary or hourly wage and the ones
who own the companies where those card punchers work. Class mobility here is
low compared to that of other advanced countries, especially in Europe (Wessel).

42

Education is believed to be a fundamental tool for success in society, but acollege degree has become the new high school diploma, and a bachelor's degree
can only get a person so far. Class mobility moves more slowly than waspreviously thought, and around 45% to 60% of the parents’ advantage in income
is passed to their children (Wessel). As a Colombian immigrant whose parents
came from nothing, it is crushing to know my future will have to be built withblood and tears if I want to get out of the bottom 80%. Financial wealth is like aparadise where the top 1% are the saints and have access to a wonderful place,and the bottom 80% are the sinners who spend their whole lives trying to getbeyond that struggle.
The gap between rich and poor has only become bigger with the recent
economic crisis and its high levels of unemployment. Companies are being
closed continually, and people who have dedicated years of service have had tostart from zero again. The two major reasons for companies’ closures are thepractices of using technology and outsourcing jobs to other countries (Witte).
Companies are always trying to turn a profit at any cost and do not care about
their employees or their financial future; they are only looking for ways to reducelabor and material costs. An easy way to reduce labor costs is by outsourcing.
Workers here are protected by minimum wage laws while in less advanced
countries workers can be paid close to nothing. Also, machines and other types oftechnology are replacing workers, and do not demand sick days or vacation pay.
In some cases, people are replaced by technology that has been created by thosesame people who later become expendable because of the very technology they
helped create. Obviously, companies shutting down increases inequality, a poison
that fills people with deep emotions of hopelessness.
Inequality is significant in health care. The type of health care a person
receives depends on the person’s social status and how wealthy they are. The
bottom 80% have to rely on health care provided by the government which canbe non-existent at times; in order to obtain government subsidized health care,the person’s income needs to be so low it will be a problem to meet other needs
such as for decent housing. The connection between class inequality and health isdirect. The type of health insurance a person has, or not having any insurance atall, can be the deciding factor between life and death (Scott). The bottom 80%
lives in fear of getting sick because visiting a doctor is often not an option. The
top 1% can afford the best possible health insurance while the bottom 80%
sometimes opt for emergency hospital care instead of regular steady medical
attention. Inequality can determine people’s health; also, unemployment itself
can lead to medical conditions that present major health issues down the road.
This is the same unemployment that occurs when hiring stalls because the top 1%
needs to supplement their already fulfilled needs.
The greatest tangible inequality starts with children and the type of
education they receive. Children have big dreams, to become a cop, a doctor, alawyer, and president. Many children, however, do not have the slightest chanceof achieving what they aspire to. Our school system has vast inequalities. It’s
well known that schools differ based on social class, and social class is connected43

to location. It’s been said that our schools educate two kinds of children, those
who will become leaders and those destined to be followers (Kozol 434). Schools
for upper-class children provide an outstanding education while schools for lower
class children are neglected, run down and poor on resources. In a vicious cycle,
inequality in education reinforces inequality. Children are the future and when
they are not well educated, social mobility is out of the question. Poorly educatedchildren are prompted to follow their parents in the bottom 80%. Children are our
future, but in our society, only the children of the rich will enjoy all life has tooffer.
People should not use the word “hate.” It is a strong complicated word.
However, inequality should be hated and addressed. It is almost impossible tobelieve the different conditions people live in depending on their place in society.
People are not equal and do not possess the same kind of wealth, but all people
should at least have the same quality of health care and education. American
society is a joke, and the people laughing are the top 1%. America is called theland of dreams, but the shining sun in the dream has not risen for decades. The
future seems cloudy. It is time to join together for a cause that can only make us
better and can give people hope for a tomorrow without fear. It is time for people
to feel alive again.
Works Cited
Domhoff, William. “Wealth, Income and Power.” 2012.
<http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html>
Kozol, Jonathan. “Savage Inequalities.” Reading Between the Lines, 3rd ed. Ed.
Amanda Konradi and Martha Schmidt. Boston: Mc Graw Hill, 2004.
434-439.
Scott, Janny. “Life at the Top in America Isn’t Just Better, It’s Longer.” The
New York Times 16 May 2005.
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE3DC1F30F935A
25756C0A9639C8B63&&scp=1&sq=life%20at%20the%20top%20is%2
0longer%20scott&st=cse>
Steger, Manfred B. and Ravi K. Roy. Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Wessel, David. “As Rich-Poor Gap Widens, U.S. Class Mobility Stalls.”
Mindfully.org rpt. Wall Street Journal 13 May 2005.
<http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Rich-Poor-Gap13may05.htm>
Witte, Griff. “As Income Gap Widens, Uncertainty Spreads.” Washington Post
20 Sept. 2004: A1. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A34235-2004Sep19.html>

44

Everyday Struggle
Chovair Graham
To protect the subject’s confidentiality, her name and identifying information have been changed.

Biography
Embrace Change is a thirty-six-year-old woman currently living in New
York City. When asked about her race, she answered with a smile, “First place,of course.” With this response, she set a positive tone. With the question
rephrased to refer to ethnicity, she responded proudly, “I am of West Indiandescent.” Ms. Change was born in Kingston, Jamaica, which is where she spent
the first twelve years of her life. She summed up her memories of her hometown
as “blissful and tranquil.” Her mother an English teacher, and her father a music
connoisseur, it is no wonder her desire for writing poetry and songs surfaced.
In the late 80s, EC’s family migrated to the United States. Her mothermoved to California, her father to the opposite coast, namely New York City.
Many summers, EC traveled between the two homes, and developed a “soft spot”
for both locations. As a child, she participated in many extra curricular activities
ranging from spelling bees and plays to cheerleading and writing contests. From
the outside looking in, one sees an energetic all-American child. In fact, many
have seen her that way.
Both of EC’s parents earned degrees, so their primary concern, and hers
as well, was education. She rejected anything that impeded her educational
ambitions just as retired NBA legend Michael Jordan rejected the possibility of
defeat during a pivotal game against Utah when he was deemed unlikely to carry
the Bulls since he had the flu. Jordan scored thirty-eight points that game, anddespite the many difficulties EC faced, she scored big as well. She graduatedsumma cum laude from Lehman College with her Bachelor of Business
Administration degree in Finance, then continued on and got a Masters of
Science degree in the same field.
Now, as President Barack Obama always states, “let’s be clear,” suchhonors were not achieved effortlessly. As life would have it, EC encounteredhardship after hardship and continues to do so even now. When asked toelaborate, she chuckled, inhaled deeply, and said, “I am a single parent of two in
America, a black female with a dark skin complexion, which means I have todeal with an additional layer of bias. Then I’m always expected to carry theweight of my race on my back because I work in corporate America. Everything
I do, I have to make sure that I set a good example for any other black girlcoming up behind me, because it’s not going to be I messed up, it’s going to be
black girls always mess up, so that’s a lot of pressure. My son is sixteen, so hewill be going to college in two years, so worrying about college tuition andthings of that nature is an added pressure. And just trying to survive and provide

45

for two children with no assistance is difficult. Of all the life challenges, that’s
one of the biggest. And then you have your regular wishes, you know? I mean,
you get to a point in your life when you wanna get married, settle down and thenthere is a shortage of men that are my equal, or someone that I feel that I would
be willing to submit to ‘cuz I’m not just gonna submit to any old… I can’t,sorry.” Giggling, she continues, “And I refuse to settle, so you might come toterms with the fact that I might end up alone even though I have faith in God andI believe that at some point the right person will come along. Reality is, theymight not ever come. Am I ready to deal with that? So I have that to deal with aswell, so it’s a lot.”
With her resilience clear, it was only logical to inquire about what
motivates her. “My kids. I mean, to me, I think life boils down to these things: I
want to laugh really hard, and often. I want to love everybody that’s been aroundme that I care for. I want to love them to the fullest of my capacity and I want toenjoy the simple things in life. I want to make the most of the world that’s around
me. How can I get better? How can I be a better mom, person, friend? As long as
God has given me another day to wake up, I should do something with it, and I
should improve. To me, if you’re not growing, you’re stagnating and you’rekinda just taking up space and wasting time on earth; there are so many people
that do that. So that’s practically what motivates me. I want to become somethingthat’s bigger than what I am and I know that my time on earth is relatively short.
I want to be remembered. Drake has a line that says, ‘I wanna be remembered
and reprised, so every word I utter will be mine.’ I wanna leave a legacy; I wannachange someone else’s life for the better. That’s what motivates me every day.”
Like any other human being, EC has strengths and weaknesses. Her
strength is being able to see life in 3D— “I can see life from my point of view,
their point of view and many points in between.” Additionally, she is empathetic,
an effective communicator and respectful. Admittedly, her weaknesses, areas that
she could use improvement in, include that she never gives herself enough credit
and often seeks out those who are insidious, oftentimes, picking the “wrong
people to love.”
The Story“A little over nine years ago, I moved up here [N.Y.C.] away from mydaughter’s father. Me and my daughter’s father had like the worst relationshipever, I mean he was real abusive. My self-esteem was probably at the bottom of
the barrel. I’ve always been the type of person that once I put my mind tosomething, that’s it. I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna go. And
something told me that life in New York was just going to be better. A lot of
people were worried and nervous ‘cause I literally decided to do this within like,
two weeks. I had just got my tax money, I called my aunt, paid my bills, broke
my lease and packed up everything. Me, my eight-month old baby, my sevenyear old son got on Amtrak and left on the next thing smokin.’ March 1st, I think
it was. We came up here, it was a snow storm and all!

46

“Now throughout my time here, I have transformed into what I would
like to say is a strong, formidable, beautiful person. I still have my flaws and myweak points and I think we all do as humans, but the progression that I’ve seen istremendous. I had to spend fourteen months in a shelter. I was in my aunt’s housefor about two months before my cousin made some stupid comment. Maybe she
didn’t mean it in that way, but I heard it and I didn’t like it. In the meantime, I
was arguing with my daughter’s father every day, back and forth. He kept
threatening me, warning me that, ‘when I find you, imma kill you.’ I actuallywent to the shelter and they overheard me arguing with him over the phone andthey put me in as domestic violence.
“ That fourteen months was tough because you’re in a place with nothing
but women and kids. And not everybody raises their kids the same, not everyone
comes from the same background. The things I went through in Cali and Atlanta
I feel prepared me on how to navigate in New York. I learned what to do andwhat not to do. There were certain mistakes that I made in other places that
prepared me to be where I am today. If I made those same mistakes here, I don’t
think I would be as successful as I am now. What I love the most about thepeople here in New York is the authenticity of the people that I run into. I reallydo think that the energy that you throw out into the universe is the energy you getback. I am a much happier, healthier, mentally sound person than I ever was in
my life and it’s reflected in the relationships I have with my friends, in therelationships I have with guys. Now, I know when it’s time to throw in the towel
instead of dragging it out.
“I knew my daughter’s father for eight years—seven years too long! I
should have broke out after the first year. I kept trying because I felt that I owed
her a father in the house, and I felt I owed it to my kids to try. Now I know that I
would never make the mistakes I made previously. I have to say though, that I
love my village. Like, they always say it takes a village to raise a kid. And I’m
the type of person that hates feeling like I’m a charity case, I hate feeling like astereotype. Those are my pet peeves. What’s funny is that I look so young, andwhen walking with my kids here in New York, people are quick to be like, ‘wellwhen did you have him? When you were two?’ They say what’s on their minds
here. Atlanta is a place where people don’t say anything, and they just look at
you funny, and then they just pass their judgment. And here I am with this 5’11”
kid…But my village… my girlfriends are so beautiful and so caring and loving.
And it’s so different from the friends I have in California. I only talk to one girlout there now, and I love her to death! But I don’t trust her as far as I can throw
her!
“Many times you will hear me say, ‘I trust you to be who you are.
Nothing more, nothing less.’ I have girlfriends now where I can leave them in aroom with my man and I don’t feel like they gonna sleep with my man. I have apeace of mind that I’ve never had in any other place. I’m used to friends sleepingwith a guy that I’m dating. I’m used to people saying, ‘Oh we cool’ and then theminute that I get into an argument with them, they tell you everything that they
been wanting to tell you, but never had the courage to tell you when we were47

quote unquote cool. I only had one or two falling outs with people here andnormally, if I don’t like you, I stay to myself. I find that other people here operate
in the same manner.
“I have a girlfriend from the south, and she can’t stand it here. She justhates it and feels that people here are dirty, and rude and dah-dah-dah. ‘I don’t
understand why you love it so much, ’ she tells me. ‘Because the people are real
and authentic in my experience. The people say what they feel and I like that. I
don’t wanna guess’ is normally my reply. I come from a place where I saw
someone get killed over $20 by their best friend. The same person that theyshared the same bed with, that they grew up with. I come from a place where
people use the word friend real loosely. Most of the people that I see here are
surrounded by people that they grew up with; they have this close knit family
whether it’s blood, or extended family. I mean, yes they bicker and they fight, butthere’s this loyalty here that I have never experienced in any of the other places
that I have lived. And that’s something that I cherish. That’s one of the reasons I
moved here. My girls were like, ‘we will help you,’ and not only did they mean it
when they said it, but they showed it as well.
“I think that here, I found my home. In the last ten years, I can really saythat I don’t feel like I have to watch my back all the time any more and I don’t
feel like everyone’s out to get me. It is such a relief! I really felt like it was me
against the world before. I mean, Biggie’s Ready To Die—“Everyday
Struggle,”— that was my soonnnggg! I mean I really used to feel like that. As
happy as I am, I’m very good at internalizing my feelings, and laughing
something off. I mean, I have had to condition myself for the last sixteen years.
But it’s nice to be consoled; to be falling apart and be able to call someone andbe assured that they are here for you. That it’s going to be all right. It’s nice tohave that feeling and I cherish that. That’s the reason I enjoy being in this space,being amongst my extended family. I love them. It’s a blessing and I think God
puts certain people in your life for a reason, for a season or a lifetime, and I think
I found my lifetime people. And for that, I’m happy.
“It takes time for you to kinda figure out home. And home is notnecessarily where you were born, or where your parents live. It’s where you as aperson feel the most natural, you feel the most acclimated. You can be who you
are and not have to worry about what anyone else is thinking of you and so on
and so forth. To me, that’s home! And I feel that here.”
The Personality Analysis
Is there anything that stands out in this interview? If you answered no,
you may want to re-read it! In practically every aspect of this interview, EC mademention of human interaction. Without difficulty, one would connect EC’s
biography and experiences to Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers’s “Humanistic
Theory of Personality.” This theory places an immense amount of emphasis on
the creative, optimistic, and self-actualizing tendencies of human beings. EC
encourages any experiences that are deemed “satisfying,” by maintaining them,and those that are anything short of that she discards. For example, when EC48

realized how toxic her relationship with her daughter’s father had become, shemade a spontaneous, heroic power-move north. This would best be defined as the“organismic valuing process” according to humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers(McAdams 272).
Moreover, after having experienced so many years of storms anddisappointments in her interpersonal encounters, she is now at a place in her life
where she can count on her loved ones to perform endless, “unconditional
positive regard.” Putting it briefly, EC has landed into the unselfish, comfortingarms of those that accept, value, love her and treat her as if she is irreplaceable.
Feeling such warmth, it is no secret that her self-worth has become heightened.
Her sense of belonging followed suit.
As the preceding statements prove, EC’s basic needs are met and theonly portion of her life that has not been fulfilled, but is currently underconstruction, is the attainment of self-actualization. As EC said, she is striving toreach her innermost potential as she wants to “become something that’s bigger”
than what she is. She wishes to “be a better mom, person, friend.” If that does notdescribe the goal of self-actualization, I do not know what would.
In the final analysis, EC has encountered peak experiences, and not justthe positive ones mentioned in the textbook that include moments of happiness,
ecstasy, and transcendence. I believe that it is safe to declare EC’s struggling
times and unhappy moments as peak experiences as well. Why? Look at theoutcome and how such experiences have honed the person she has become. The
life lessons her experience overflowed with created what I would call a BEAST(positive connotation, please). EC has proven herself to be a multitude of things.
Since my list of her qualities is as long as the Nile, here’s the short version. EC iscourageous, optimistic, reflective, inspirational, resilient, wise, unique, driven,honest, trustworthy, affable, and altruistic. With such motivation and selfdetermination, it would be impossible for me to even entertain the idea that EC
will not attain self-actualization—her fullest inner potential. I don’t see anything
anywhere in this interview suggesting she’ll fall short of her goal.
Having said that, I have to add that adversities that you and I face shouldbe embraced, no matter how difficult. As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill me,
shall make me stronger!”Work Cited
McAdams, Dan P. The Person: An Introduction to the Science of Personality
Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son, 2009.

49

Where Art Thou, Black Dads?
Tamatha Hines

The absence of committed black fathers in black homes is the root of many ofour problems within black communities. More specifically, the absence of myfather has been problematic for my family. I am angry and frustrated. I have nofather, no husband or man. As a microcosm of the state of black America, myfamily is dominated by women who are leading dual parenting roles andmaintaining households. My family has the challenge of raising boys without thebenefit of positive, strong male role models. It is a common issue within black
America. The state of black America rests on the state of the black family. We
cannot progress nor will we survive if our black men continue to “disappear.”
Although there appears to be a trend to redefine family, I only know of one thatspeaks to continuity and black tradition.
The black family is desperate for black men to be present physically andemotionally. It is imperative that our men return home. The drive to emasculate
our black men and families must be acknowledged and confronted. When thehead is cut off, the body flails. We have managed to flail successfully purely on
spirit and tenacity, but eventually the body will drop. Can black men rise toembrace their families despite the conditions of racism and socio-economic
injustice aimed to weaken their masculinity and ultimately the state of black
America?
The dilemma of today’s absent black father must be understood from ahistorical perspective. The problem is not a new phenomenon but a cleverly
crafted construct based on numerous unethical “experiments” that supported
America’s racist agenda. The precepts of black inferiority as outlined in
Higginbotham’s Shades of Freedom and Willie Lynch’s The Making of a Slave
speak loudly to why many black men and ultimately the black family are
struggling. From the onset of the “New World,” white superiority wassynonymous with the dehumanization of people of color in order to colonize andclear the land (manifest destiny) for the benefit of white privilege. This
dehumanization process effectively pitted one person against another byremoving the seed from its natural state, and instilling destructive patterns.
Today’s crisis of absent black fathers is directly linked to America’s
historical crafting of black inferiority and white superiority. Colonial WhiteAmerica believed:
The African Americans themselves must come to realize theirwretched status; black youngsters must be “educated” as to theirplace and limitations. Only then would African Americans lose
all just ideas of their natural position. When African Americans

50believed in their inferiority, the precept would become both apart of law and a part of life. (Higginbotham 29)
With the notion of black inferiority firmly implanted in white and black
mindsets, (and often touted as scientific fact by “experts” such as Samuel A.
Cartwright), transmission into law soon followed. Slaves were not allowed tolegally marry as that would have constituted a legal contract between people—
slaves were deemed chattel, more likely cattle—who were protected by civil andconstitutional rights. Only free blacks, not slaves, were allowed to enter into
legal contracts. It would take the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to extend marital
rights to all black people. However, before that, as a matter of keeping the peaceand “expanding their property,” slave owners did allow the custom of jumping
the broom. “The wedding vows they recited promised not ‘until death do us
part’ but ‘until distance’—or, as one black minister bluntly put it, ‘the whiteman’—‘do us part’’’ (Hunter). This quote reflects the fragile state of black
families and their powerlessness to remain together. Black slave codes
effectively shut down black people’s pursuit of happiness, systematically
stripping them of all human rights that allow a person to declare “I am.” Theirpursuit of happiness was not considered an unalienable right set forth in the
United States Declaration of Independence. Black people’s happiness or love offamily was not a factor in an equation based on profit by breeding black people.
Additionally, male slaves were made to impregnate multiple female slaves, andfemale slaves were kept pregnant thereby producing new slaves. During thisbreeding process, emotional and familial ties were devalued and degraded.
The advent of the Civil War presented a new twist to the absence of
black fathers. Approximately 180,000 black men—free and slave—joined theUnion Army to fight or labor in the Civil War. Conversely, there were also
black Confederates (count widely ranges from 15,000 to 120,000) who mainly
served as laborers but also engaged in combat (Williams). These enlisted Union
and Confederate soldiers voluntarily or involuntarily left behind their families
with hopes that the end of the war would result in black freedom, equal
opportunities, and whole families. To reunite with family and/or begin a new
family, these black men fought and served diligently in hopes of securing abrighter future. A poignant scene in Glory showcased the pride Rawlins exuded
when greeting black children back home. He represented the true character of a
black father who stands up to be able to provide for and protect his family. The
Rawlins of yesterday and today represent the truth that black men can rise
beyond age-old precepts of inferiority to embrace their families.
During the Civil War, black women were not strangers to the absent
black man syndrome; it was a way of life. Many black women such as Harriett
Tubman did not blink an eye in raising “their” children, using hoes and shotguns
to provide and protect, being both mother and father. This forced independence
set the stage for strong, black single mothers and village parenting in raisingchildren in black America. Unfortunately, some independent black women haveadopted this absence as typical rather than abnormal. We have to challenge black51

men to be responsible, to return, stay, and co-head their families. Black womenmust allow them to do so. Super families trump superwomen.
After the Civil War and during the Reconstruction era, returning blacksoldiers went back home to reconnect with family and start anew. According to
Bennett, “Witnesses said the roads of the South were clogged in 1865, withBlack men and women searching for long-lost wives, husbands, children,brothers, and sisters. Some of the searchers were successful, but many families
were never reunited” (201).
Old and new families alike picked up the pieces to move forth fromfamiliar grounds to new beginnings in areas near and far. These times
represented promise for the black family as black communities emerged offeringstability and independence. Black towns such as Rosewood were self-sufficientwith skilled labor and professions (doctors, teachers, blacksmiths, bankers, store
owners, etc.) and, more importantly, were the epitome of black progress. They
characterized the true spirit of the black family when allowed to thrive without
interference. “The first fruit of the new legal order was a deepening of therelationships between black men and black women, who legalized marriage ties
at mass registrations and ceremonies” (Bennett 290). The Reconstruction era andthese towns represented a chance for black fathers to be men in their homes.
These symbols of black pride offered additional proof that black men could rise
beyond their restrictive environment and head their households with love andpride.
Jim Crow laws and modern-day plights, however, were a terrible setback.
Jim Crow laws effectively reversed public black freedom. Segregation of public
facilities in the South, the disenfranchisement of southern black America, and the“strange fruit” that hung from southern trees ushered in a new era of terror.
However, innovative black families banded together to again showcase theirgreat strengths:
Southern blacks survived the demeaning character of Jim Crowby organizing self-help associations that functioned as parallel
institutions to those in the white community, ranging fromlodges and social clubs to life insurance programs and volunteer
fire departments. By 1910, a wide range of segregated black
institutions in southern communities served as refuges and safe
harbors from white terror and violence; these social clubs andlodges enabled a small, middle-class of prosperous black
participants to live in dignity and with self-respect. (Davis)
The black progress that burgeoned within the hearts and minds of black
people could not be “worn” because fearful white America deemed it a threat.
Lynchings became a southern pastime. During 1882-1968, approximately 3,500
black people were lynched, with Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas respectively
accounting for the states with the most recorded incidents. This terrorization
definitely plagued the psyche of the black family. Black men and women alike
did not know if the slightest transgression or none at all could cost them their lifeand lead to their family being torn apart. This terror still reverberates as52

countless black families (e.g. Evers, Till, King, Bumpers, Hawkins, Bell, Martin,etc.) move forward in the wake of tragedy. Moving forward and away (e.g.
Underground Railroad, The Great Migration, Kansas Exodus) is what black
people apparently have mastered in order to survive the systematic violations of
their human rights.
Unfortunately, the modern black family is still under attack incontemporary ways that were set in motion centuries ago. The machine is so
finely tuned that it needs minimal interference from the engineer. The challenge
for black families today is moving forward by remembering the past as depicted
in Sankofa. Black people lead the statistics for most social ills today.
Incarceration, unemployment, black-to-black crime, single-parenting, foster-carechildren, high-school/college dropouts, etc. are plagues as much as the chains ofslavery and the nooses of Jim Crow. Our true heritage demands that we as apeople, and black fathers particularly, make a united stand to rise beyond the ageold precepts of inferiority to embrace our families despite the conditions ofracism.
Surely an inferior people would not be able to survive, progress, and lay
claim to being achievers and trendsetters in every field, industry, and sport today.
Black men must embrace their innate greatness for actually flourishing throughcenturies of mind-boggling physical and psychological abuse. By looking back,
black men and women can see what is wrong today. What is wrong is that weare allowing yesterday’s false precepts of inferiority to ruin our relationships,
families, and communities today. We are not the product of Willie Lynch’s The
Making of a Slave, we are the antithesis, the anomaly, that would not go the way
of “The Trail of Tears” walked by Native Americans. Bennett notes a“…desperate need for new interpretations of the formative events in Blackhistory from a Black perspective…in order to mobilize the latent energy in themasses, in order to save them from self-hate and self-destruction…” (201)Powerful, positive black images need to be injected into our psyche.
Ourancestors sacrificed and paved the way for us. The black family cannot
disintegrate and let their struggle be for naught. The ancestors’ stories andimages are to be acknowledged and honored. Acknowledgement and acceptancewill lead to healing. As poignantly stated by Dr. Youngblood, “the way out isback through.” Self-love is the answer to our dilemma. To love ourselves, wemust love our history. To love ourselves, we must love our image. To loveourselves, we must love one another. Loving one another will ultimately savethe black family. Understanding our history and the forces against us mitigates
my anger and frustration. I forgive my father because his journey was heroic.
He did his best given the cruel realities that engulfed him and our family during
Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. I am living because my father was notinferior. I am a living testament of our history. I have faith our black fathers
will return home and usher in the dawn of a new day.

53

Works Cited
Bennett, Lerone. Before the Mayflower. Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1998.
Bennett, Lerone. The Challenge of Blackness. Chicago: Johnson Publishing,1972. Web.
<http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynchingstat.html>
Davis, Ronald L.F. “From Terror to Triumph: Historical Overview.” 2012. Web.
<www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/overview.htm>
Harding, Vincent. There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
Higginbotham, Leon A. Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of
the American Legal Process. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Hunter, Tera W. “Putting an Antebellum Myth to Rest.” The New York Times 2
Aug. 2011. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/opinion/puttingan-antebellum-myth-about-slave-families-to-rest.html>
Williams, Scott K. “Black Confederates in the Civil War.” 2003. Web.
<http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm>

54

Islamic Rituals,
A Pillar in Bengali Culture
Abir Khan

I was born in the United States to Muslim immigrants from a little Southeast
Asian country known as Bangladesh. Very dense in human population,
Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country with very few resources. Manyof its inhabitants leave to search for better opportunities elsewhere such as inAmerica. Upon arriving here, many of these families are faced with real
predicaments. One problem is accepting that their community’s culture—theirreligion and language— is vanishing among their children and even themselves.
People are falling away from the community. They have become so preoccupied
with maintaining their socio-economic needs that they feel as if they are losing
the very essence of what their forefathers fought so hard for. This paper suggeststhat the Bengali community relies heavily on the daily ritual requirements of theirreligion, Islam, to keep their beloved cultural identity and sense of community
intact.
Let’s consider the history of Bangladesh, a fairly new nation. Having
been born a “Bengali,” I have been told the story of Bangladesh’s independence
and I must say we are very proud of what our people have fought for. In the mid1900s Pakistan was divided into two, the East and West, that had little incommon with the exception of their religion, Islam. Their cultures werecompletely different and so was their language. East Pakistan believed they werebeing economically and politically discriminated against because
demographically the West was occupied by the wealthy, who spoke Urdu. In theEast, the poverty- stricken inhabitants who spoke Bangla thought they were being
economically neglected because of their language and culture. Their differences
led to a war of secession. History books say Bangladesh fought for its
independence for political and economic issues, but ask any native and they willtell you that they fought to keep their culture alive (since the Pakistani
government was trying to get rid of it).
In Bengali culture, religion pretty much defines a person and plays a keyrole in everyday life. The life of a Muslim requires discipline and regulation. Asa practicing Muslim, I can explain that “Muslim,” originally Arabic, means “onewho submits to God.” Now however it describes an adherent of Islam. Growing
up I was taught that Islam is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion (faiths derivingfrom or associated with the origins of Abraham) which was based on the Quran(holy text of Islam) which is believed by Muslims to be the direct word of God
revealed to them by the prophet Muhammad. According to Islamic teachings,

55

Muslims are to pray—either alone or in a congregation for religious worship,
usually at a mosque—five times a day, at dawn (fajr), at noon (ẓuhr), right before
the sunset (asr), once just after sunset (maghrib) and finally at nightfall ('isha').
So here I am born and raised as a Bengali Muslim and yet for this anthropology
paper I choose to observe the Muslim prayer routine of rituals and observancesfrom the outside looking in. It was only recently that I gave up being a “blindfollower” of faith and started some introspection as to why I believe what I
believe. Observing this ritual allows me to suggest that those who attend mosque
prayers use religion as a cultural system.
In Islam the mosque, similar to a church, is the place of worship but it
also serves as a community center. I’d like to observe a mosque, Masjid AlAman, which I have regularly attended throughout my life. Of course this time I
will be going there with different intentions and purposes. Masjid Al-Aman is
located in the heart of the large Bangladeshi-American Muslim community
located on the Brooklyn-Queens border. The mosque itself is in Brooklyn but its
surrounding neighborhood and most of the people who attend are from Queens,
specifically Ozone Park. It holds five daily prayers. It is about five minutes
walking distance from where I live and has been there for more than twenty years.
Although generally mosques allow women to pray in them, this mosque does not;in accordance with Islamic teachings, women and men are to pray separately andthis mosque because it was long being renovated, could not accommodate theneeded separation of women. In order to conduct my observations, I began byrequesting consent from the Imam, or the leader of the mosque similar to a pastor
or priest. Because I am a regular attendee, I did not have to have permission of all
the other attendees since it would be no surprise for them to see me there. I
decided to go to the evening prayer called maghrib which is now held at 7:40 pm
daily. The time varies according to the time of the year following the Islamic
calendar as well as the time the sun sets. I chose to attend this prayer specificallybecause I thought it would have the most people in attendance. Many would
attend this prayer service since they are home by this time from work or school. I
also decided that I should walk to the mosque and not drive. I promised myself toobserve this prayer service as if I were observing it for the first time. The way I
chose to do this was to note down whatever I deemed as necessary information
on my phone as well as participate in the prayer services being conducted. Also, I
conducted an informal interview with one of the regular mosque attendants.
To analyze what I saw, I’ll consider Clifford Geertz’s book, Islam
Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia in which hedescribes two peoples that practice Islam differently. This work was not anassigned reading, but Geertz and his work in anthropology have a great influenceon the content of this course. Geertz seeks to explain how religions react to deepchanges within society. His study of Islam in two very different countries allows
a comparison to be made. Geertz explains how although rituals play a big role ina religion, it is that society’s culture that defines how to go about those rituals.
This work supports my argument that the community uses religion to develop
their identity.

56

Members of the immigrant Bengali community pursue the preservationof their culture, and it seems that they use motions of ritual Islamic prayer toattain that goal. Victor Turner has stated “Communitas is rather a matter ofgiving recognition to an essential and generic human bond, without which there
could be no society” (328). “Communitas” is the Latin word for the unity of acommunity. Turner notes that humans in general rely on an attachment to eachother to achieve a bond, for without it there is no sense of community. I suggestthat the attachment may form from the actions of ritual Muslim prayer. Imagine
that five times a day you attend a prayer service with your fellow Bengali men toattain salvation together. You do this with specific motions: you stand alongsideeach other, shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet and, following the imam’s command,
prostrate before your lord in a repetitive synchronizing motion. This surely
induces unity. The imam, naturally, has a key role; every community requires aleader, and he plays this part by leading the ritual.
When attending the ritual prayer, Bengali men refer to one another withthe term “brother.” Muslims base this practice on the belief that they are all
children of Adam and Eve. This notion creates strong bonds, giving one thefeeling that when they are practicing their faith they are doing so with theirfamily. Emile Durkheim suggests that a religion is “a unified system of beliefs
and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart andforbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community
called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (45). In our case it would be amosque and not a church, yet the emphasis on uniting the community is relevant
since the term “brother” denotes unification. Bengali men only refer to each otheras brothers when they are in the space of “ritual holiness” so “brother” canalmost be understood as a sacred term; only then is the term appropriate.
Geertz defines religion as “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2)establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in menby (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothingthese conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods andmotivations seem uniquely realistic” (“Religion as a Cultural System” 59). Hesays that a system of symbols connotes importance to an object, a feeling or an
idea. He explains that culture patterns are unique in the world in that they are amodel for and a model of the society that they come from. This is true for thepeople of Bangladesh since their ritual procedures are distinctive. For example
the older men seem to be found seated towards the front of the prayer services
and the young found in the back. This reflects Bengali culture where respect for
elders is emphasized. All cultures teach respect for your elders but Bengali
culture believes with age comes wisdom, whereas youth connotes inexperienceand opinions that may be disregarded. Other ethnic mosques I have attended had
a random seating arrangement. Geertz says observing the rituals allows us tocreate moods and motivations, for instance, joy in the mosque when prayer
services come to an end and some men stay back to exchange hugs and toperhaps express their gratitude towards each other that they have attended theprayer. The gratitude then motivates one to continue coming to the mosque to57

pray. Individuals develop a strong tie with their people and feel encouraged toreturn and feel good about it.
In short, in attending ritual prayer you are essentially engaging in an act
to be a part of your culture again. Speaking from experience, when one hasn’t
attended mosque services for a long period of time, you can be seen as a negative
figure in the community, and one to be avoided. This occurs even though one of
the beliefs pushed by Islam is not to judge others. There can be only one
explanation; the mosque in this community is strongly culture driven.
After observing my fellow Muslims pray, I feel that a big part of theIslamic belief system is unity. This concept is further prompted by the Bengali
culture since people feel as if after leaving their motherland, they have lost theirsense of cultural identity. Fortunately, their faith in Islam and the rituals it
requires them to observe, allows them to reconstruct that identity by unifying
with one another through a prayer which is required five times a day. Followers
go to the mosque which acts as a center to reunite this community and reinforce
men’s strong ties with one another. Even I as an observer felt a strong sense ofunity multiple times during the course of this observation. Of course being
Bengali, my whole life has contributed to my feeling this way, but this was thefirst time I analyzed and understood why. It began when everyone was holding
the same pose during the prayer, then when one Muslim greeted another as“brother.” I am a perfect example of what the leaders of my community worry
about; I risk losing all ties to the culture which they fought to gain independence
for! Now I feel that it was necessary and a good insight for me to observe myfaith from a distance only because, for the duration of my observation, I felt thatmy sense of individuality was dropped; during the prayer I felt a deep culturalsense of harmony with my community.

Works Cited
Geertz, Clifford. “Religion as a Cultural System.” Reader in the Anthropology of
Religion. Ed. Michael Lambek. Blackwell Anthologies: New York, 2008.
Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco andIndonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (Phoenix), 1971.
Turner, Victor. “Liminality and Communitas.” Reader in Anthropology of
Religion. Ed. Michael Lambek. Blackwell Anthologies: New York, 2008.
Durkheim, Emile. “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.” Reader in the
Anthropology of Religion. Ed. Michael Lambek. Blackwell Anthologies:
New York, 2008.

58

The Religion of America Is Capitalism
Leah Braithwaite

I believe that the religion of America is capitalism, and the lottery plays a keyrole in this religion. Americans are told to work hard in order to have a lot ofmoney, so they can buy big houses and fancy cars. We marvel at other people’s
success with pride as well as envy. We are told to make money in any way wecan, as long as no one is hurt in the process. From the time a child is young they
are told to work hard in school, so they can go to college and make a lot ofmoney as adults. The possibility of getting money is the driving force in America.
In this paper I argue that the lottery shows that capitalism is a religion in America.
I refer to articles by Robert Bellah, Max Weber, and Clifford Geertz.
The lottery is a national game played in almost every state in the U.S.
twice a day. Considered as gambling to some, which is viewed as a sin in otherreligions, the proceeds made from the lottery here are said to support publicschools around the country. As long as people have the opportunity to makemoney, and are helping others in the process, the lottery is not seen as a form ofgambling. In fact, the prospect of making money through the lottery is glorified.
On a September morning I went to a local liquor store in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn, Tin Choi Liquor store on Prospect Place and Nostrand Avenue, toobserve the playing of this fulfilling and addictive game enjoyed by more than amillion Americans. I wanted to see if the lottery really aids people in making
money, or if it is the thrill of the possibility of winning that drives people tospend sometimes as much as one hundred dollars a day on this game. Even
without the likelihood of winning any money, people still come out in droves totake part in the American belief system embodied in the lottery.
On that September morning I accompanied two of my neighbors, “MamaJ” and “Ms. J,” to the liquor store to observe the playing of the New York Lottery.
We arrived at 10:30 am. The first drawing for the numbers takes place at 12:15
pm every day, and most lottery players buy their tickets before then. I chose toaccompany “Mama J” and “Ms. J,” because they are both avid lottery players,
who always play at this store. They both admitted to having a favorite place toplay. They did not say why but I assumed that some superstition is involved. If
you have won at one particular store, you are more likely to go back to it all thetime. They agreed to help me with my observation as long as I changed theirnames. They play their numbers for the day and evening drawings. When asked
if that is the custom with lottery players, they said yes, and explained to me how59upsetting it would be if they only played the 12:15 lottery and the same number
they played came out in the evening. I noticed in fact that most people playmorning and evening the same way “Mama J” and “Ms. J” do. I decided not to
use a pencil and paper during my observation, and opted to use the notepad on
my cellular phone instead because I did not want to draw attention to myself. Of
course once at the store I realized that drawing attention to myself would havebeen impossible, because the people were focused on the task at hand.
The store is located on the corner of a busy avenue with a bus stop
directly across the street. On the windows outside the store are two large poster
boards dedicated to the rules and regulations of the game, as well as the numbers
drawn on the previous day. I took time to read the rules of the nine different
forms of the lottery that one can play. The rules are different for each game, but
the motive, which is to win money, is the same. I found it interesting that theseposters, rather than liquor advertisements, were posted on the front of the liquor
store. At the rear of the store, a clerk sits behind thick plexi-glass, and takes thenumbers and money of the people purchasing tickets. Every number taken from acustomer is put into a machine and a small pink and white ticket is generated
with the numbers chosen printed on the front. I participated in the game myself. I
purchased two numbers for midday and evening. When the tickets were given tome, I noticed a telephone number on the back. The number was for a hotline forpeople with gambling problems. I thought how convenient it was to have thehotline number printed on the back of a ticket millions of people see in thisgambling act everyday; but we’ve noted that the lottery is not looked down onlike other forms of gambling.
During the hour and a half that I observed the game being played, Iestimated that close to eighty people come into the store to buy a lottery ticket. I
did not see any patrons purchase any liquor during this time. How interesting thatno liquor was purchased in a liquor store. Most of the people who bought ticketsbought more than three at a time. One gentleman who stopped to talk with
“Mama J”, “Ms. J,” and me explained that he purchases only his afternoon tickets
at that time, and after work he purchases his evening numbers. When I asked why,
he said, “It’s the best way to win! And my mother purchased her tickets thisway.” I saw this act as both a superstition, and a family tradition. “Mama J” and“Ms. J” purchase both their morning and evening tickets at the same time. Theysay that it is more convenient to buy their tickets all at once, but they did admit tohaving a ritual like the gentleman who buys his tickets separately. The womenalways buy their tickets together, and at 11:30. On this particular day the two
women reluctantly brought me to the store earlier than their usual time. They
understood that I needed more time to observe in order to view more of a crowd
buying tickets. They explained to me that the two became friends because of thelottery. They met at the liquor store, not knowing that they both lived in the sameapartment building. In fact I noticed that people who bought tickets at that time
seemed to be very close friends. “Mama J” and “Ms. J” were even able to giveme a profile on almost every person who came into the store, but when I asked
the person’s name, they could not remember, or never got the person’s name to60

begin with. What they did know was the person’s regular numbers, and theirreason for playing the lottery in the first place. The reasons were simple andstraightforward for most; it was to get extra money.
On that day I saw people of many different cultures and races purchasing
lottery tickets. Crown Heights has a strong Hasidic Jewish and Caribbean
population living there, as well as East Asian and Middle Eastern. I saw peopleof all of these cultures come in and purchase tickets. All these different cultures,
representing different religions, and speaking different languages share in theAmerican culture’s focus on money. We are always striving for bigger and better
here in America. Each person has different plans for what to buy if they ever win,
but the motive is always the same.
In “The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism” Max Weber
discusses the importance of working hard and making money in America (49).
Weber reminds us that, “time is money” and “credit is money” (50). “Time ismoney,” because the more time you take out of your day to work, the moremoney you are likely to make. “Credit is money” because here in America, we
use “credit” or the act of borrowing as a form of money. If one borrows money,
the money has to be given back to the person it is borrowed from in a timely
fashion, and most times with interest. He mentions that if creditors see the person
who owes them money not working hard, the creditor will go to that person firstto collect their debt. Americans being lazy is unacceptable, because lazy people
cannot possibly be making money. Weber quotes a story about Jacob Fugger andhis “business associate who had retired and who wanted to persuade him to do
the same, since he had made enough money and should let others have a chance.”
Fugger rejected that thought “as pusillanimity and answered that ‘he thought
otherwise, he wanted to make money as long as he could’” (Weber 51). The ideaof not striving for something more in life is cowardly to Fugger, and to many
Americans. No matter how long one has been retired, the desire to make money
is still present in a strong way.
“Mama J,” “Ms. J,” and a lot of the people at the liquor store who play
the lottery embody this principle. Like Jacob Fugger, the women are retired, butthey still have a desire to make money any way they can. On the day of theobservation, “Mama J” mentioned that she was eighty-two years old, and had
been retired for fifteen years. She has a cozy apartment in Crown Heights, and ahome in Florida that she goes to during the summer. For some, having a summer
home is opulent and a privilege, but she still feels the desire to play the lottery
daily. She hopes to use her winnings to buy nice things for special occasions andtake her family on vacations during the year. Money is always to be made orearned in someway.
Weber argues, as I do, that capitalism or the importance of making
money is the religion of America. I’d add that the desire in every person who
participates in the lottery is to make money. Weber states that in the UnitedStates, “the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends
to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually gives it
the character of sport” (54). Is such a sport frivolous? Americans continue to61

send their children to good schools, and encourage them to pursue high-paying
careers so they can make a lot of money in the future. The desire to make money
is found even in games and competitions. The lottery is only one of the many
games where people can make a profit by winning. The lottery is a sport,
someone always wins, and someone always loses.
The religion I’ve described is not reserved for less fortunate Americans.
Americans with good salaries also participate in the lottery. During myobservation I saw several nurses purchase lottery tickets, as well as construction
workers and teachers. They explained that their salaries were simply not enough.
If they wanted to buy nice things, and do nice things with and for their families,
they had to find ways of getting additional money. The superstar of the store wasa young man who once won a lot of money from the lottery. He drove up to thestore in a very expensive car, wearing very nice clothing. What surprised me wasthat even after winning so much with the lottery he was still playing the lottery
every day.
In “Civil Religion in America,” Robert Bellah paints a very different
picture of religion in America than my own (509). Bellah argues that Americans
have a strong belief in God as described in the Christian bible. Bellah points out
the use of the word God in President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech: “Justbelow the surface throughout Kennedy’s inaugural address, it becomes explicit in
the closing statement that God’s work must be our own” (512). Bellah
emphasizes that the work of God is to help others be humble; that’s what weshould do as American citizens. I disagree with his view of our country. Being
humble does not involve being a millionaire or working so hard to achieve that
title or status. Americans work to make money. Bellah also argues that
Americans are a very moral and just people, and their behavior comes from theirbelief in a Christian God. I disagree. I agree that America can be a very moral
place, and this could come in part from the things learned in the Bible, but
America is a melting pot of so many different types of cultures, races, andreligions that I do not think this behavior or belief comes from the Christian
Bible.
Bellah describes various American holidays like Memorial Day,
Thanksgiving, and Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays as religious holidays
and rituals, but I see that these holidays and their rituals have become ploys formaking and spending money. Bellah states, “Memorial day observance,
especially in the towns and smaller cities of America, is a major event for thewhole community involving a rededication to the martyred dead, to the spirit ofsacrifice, and to the American vision” (515). Bellah paints a picture of Memorial
Day being a day of honoring the men who sacrificed their lives in the Civil War.
But today what would Memorial Day be like without a sale at a major department
store? Thanksgiving he calls “a day which incidentally was securely
institutionalized as an annual national holiday, to serve to integrate the family
into the civil religion” (515). But what would Thanksgiving be like without theexcitement of “Black Friday”? What would Thanksgiving be like without theopportunity to get an exceptional deal on a flat screen television, or an IPod?

62

Many stores count on “Black Friday” to boost their annual sales. “Black Friday”
has been marked the beginning of the holiday shopping season. On all of theseholidays, American rituals have been replaced by the desire to spend and makemoney. Americans feels so obligated to make money to spend during theseholiday sales that they will gamble away money with the strong hope of making a
profit. One woman I observed who purchased lottery tickets said she saved all ofher winnings during the year so she could buy Christmas gifts at the end of theyear. Money has become the root of every ritual and traditional holiday here in
America. Money is a part of the American belief system, and the lottery aids inthe religion of America by helping people to make additional money.
Playing the lottery truly felt like a religious experience that September
day. People came into the store always at certain times, approaching the store
clerk as if he was a priest at a Catholic mass giving Communion, with eachnumber played having a story and meaning behind it, and with the person leavingwith the same reverence as when they came in.
In the article, “Deep Play: Notes of The Balinese Cockfight,” Clifford
Geertz discusses cockfights in small villages in Bali (430). Geertz also describes
a culture of winning, but reasons for winning are slightly different than those in
the lottery. In Bali only men can participate in cockfighting, and winning is amale status symbol. Cockfighting is outlawed in Bali, therefore, the men mustcompete in secret, and competing allows these very poor men to create ahierarchy amongst themselves. Money is not the only reason to compete, but it isstill important to them, as much as status within the village. Geertz states, “It isbecause money does, in this hardly unmaterialistic society, matter and mattervery much that the more one risks, the more of a lot of other things, such as one’s
pride, one’s poise, one’s dispassion, one’s masculinity, one also risks, again only
momentarily but again very publically” (434). What Geertz says here is thatmoney for the Balinese is very important, but what is more important is theimage of being a winner that comes with it.
Like cockfighting to the Balinese, the lottery aids in the creation of status
here in the U.S. But since the lottery is not outlawed here, the way cockfighting
is in Bali, people are more comfortable participating in this competition.
Everyone over eighteen years old in the U.S. can participate in the lottery. Bothcockfighting and the lottery are gambling, but the lottery is glorified here because
it allows us to make money. Also, as with cockfighting, winning the lottery
creates status. We have a class system in America. Americans work hard tomaintain their middle class status with hopes of one day being considered upperclass. The lottery is a quick way to achieve that class difference. Having moneymeans more opportunities. When a child grows up in a financially privileged
household, they have many academic and extracurricular activities, and are
exposed to more things because they can afford to travel. Like “Mama J” and“Ms. J,” winning in the lottery allows them to travel with their families, and toprovide the things they need in a capitalistic consumer-based society. Theirfamilies can appear as if they are in a higher class than they truly are.

63

People participate in the lottery to take part in the American ritual. On
November 9th I went with my mother to purchase a ticket for the Mega Millions.
The amount she hoped to win was over 500 million dollars. I took her to theliquor store on Prospect Place and Nostrand Avenue that “Mama J” and “Ms. J”
took me to. My mother and I chose our numbers carefully and split the price ofthe ticket in three, because a friend wanted to try his luck as well, and gave me athird of the lottery ticket’s price. After the ticket was purchased, and was put into
a compartment in my wallet for safekeeping, my mother and I walked the fiveblocks back to our apartment. As we walked, I calculated the amount of money
each of us would get if we won. My mother asked me what would I buy if wewon, and I asked her. We spent the entire walk back to our apartment talking
about what we would buy if we won. The conversation was great fun. It was fun
to imagine a life better than what we have, a life where you could buy what you
want and travel when you want. This moment was the perfect embodiment of thereligion of America, the desire to have more than we already have, to gain thesame options as the people we see on television and in magazines. The possibilityof being “better off” than you are now, and knowing the only way to achieve thatis through money, is the American way.

Works Cited
Bellah, Robert. “Civil Religion in America.” A Reader in the Anthropology of
Religion. Ed. Michael Lambek. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing,
2008.
Geertz, Clifford. "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." The Interpretation ofCultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic, 1973.
Weber, Max. "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." A Reader in the
Anthropology of Religion. Ed. Michael Lambek. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing, 2008.

64

An Interview:
The Immigration Experience
Jose Rivera
The person I interviewed shared the story of how she became a citizen of theUnited States. She was born and raised in Orissa, India. She immigrated to theUnited States in 1991 at the age of twenty-three, with nothing but a duffle bag
full of old clothing. Her family did not come with her; they could not afford to.
Despite the distance, however, she manages to maintain contact with them by acell phone she bought them. To speak with them, she pays for long-distance calls,
which she makes every few months. Aside from a cousin in Queens, she has nofamily in the U.S. or any means of bringing anyone here for a visit. A visa,
required for a family member to visit, is far too expensive for the family and evenpurchasing a visa for one person is out of the question, so she never gets to see
them.
The respondent had many memories of her hometown, some better thanothers. Initially, she described her life in Orissa as poor and depressing. The
respondent described her parents as economically disadvantaged, yet very loving
and generous. As she talked, she warmed to her subject. Her father is a fisherman
who not only caught fish for dinner, but also sold it to locals as a means ofincome. Her mother works at the house, maintaining the chicken coop andvegetable garden in the back yard as well as taking care of her daughters. The
respondent mentioned fond memories of mornings in which she would awaken tofind freshly picked mangos and jackfruit in a bowl on the kitchen table. Any foodthat was to be prepared for dinner was cooked on an open flame in the backyard.
The interviewee described the way her father would lay the large fish across his
lap, running his fishing knife across the body to remove the scales before he put
it on the fire. Recalling fond memories of her life in India, the respondent
admitted that she misses her family above all else, but also that she misses the oldtimes when she and her sister would sneak to the river bank and try to catch thetoads after a rainfall.
The respondent, who had never watched television before she came here,
thought the United States would look similar to her hometown but with betterhouses. When she arrived in New York City after her father saved up enough tobuy her a visa, she found New York absolutely intriguing. How neatly arranged it
is with its tall skyscrapers. It took her two years to adjust to life here. She wasn’t
used to common luxuries such as clean, running tap water, indoor heat, or even
toilets. She is very grateful for her life here in America.
The respondent’s father raised the money for her visa because he simply
wanted her to have a better life than he did. However, she still hopes to find a jobthat pays well so that she can bring her family over so that they can lead more
fulfilling lives as well.

65

Who Will Say 520?
Xiao Yan Wu

Today is May 9th. My sister’s birthday is coming up. I miss my little sister. I
envy that little sister has a very special birthday because it is May 20th, whichmeans 520; and 520 means I love you. Little sister is great. Little sister always
celebrates her birthday with me every year, but she’s not with me this year. I
wonder who will be the person to say 520 to little sister. I keep thinking about
her.
Last night, I had a dream. I saw my little sister was crying. She wastalking to me while she was crying. She asked me why I didn’t care about her.
She blamed me for not caring and taking her with me. She began to cry louder.
She said, did I do something wrong? She said, was it that I broke the lucky
necklace that father gave you, so you’re mad at me? She began to cry louder andbowed down to the floor. She said, “You are not my sister anymore, and I hateyou.” The dream became dark immediately. I still heard her crying. I was so
afraid. I didn’t know what happened. I wanted to help her. When I called little
sister’s name louder and tried to rescue her, I woke up.
The dream is scary. I’m still thinking about her, but I know that people
need to face problems and look forward to the future. I know that dream was justa dream, and it will never be true. However, I’m still thinking about little sister. I
think about the dream again, especially the part when she says, you are not mysister anymore, and I hate you. When I hear this, my heart is full of pain. I feellike a knife is in my heart. I want to cry, but I know crying can’t help. The only
way to heal my heart is to be friends with her again. Then, my heart will be fine.
Also, when little sister talks about the necklace, it’s not totally true. It is true that
she broke my lucky necklace that father gave me, but this is not the reason that I
didn’t take little sister with me. I didn’t get mad at her at all. The reason that I
didn’t take her with me is that I needed to go to school in California. She was still
young and needed mother and father to be with her, not me. Little sister probably
got angry at me, but I have no way to deal with this. I needed to go to school.
Father calls me in the afternoon and asks me, can I go back home tocelebrate little sister’s birthday this year. I tell father that I don’t know. Then,father tells me that he will begin to celebrate little sister’s birthday on May 16th.
I tell father to tell her “Happy Birthday” for me. I go to school right after thephone call.
At night, father sends me an e-mail and tells me all the daily events that
he will celebrate with little sister. May 16th I will bring your little sister to an
Italian restaurant for lunch. At night, I will have homemade dinner with her.
May 17th I will make French foods for her for the whole day. May 18th I willbring your little sister to see the lavender in the lavender farm in Provence. I will66

travel around Paris with your little sister to see Paris at night. I will give her aclover necklace. The necklace is similar to yours, but the color is different. I willtell her that the four-leaf clover means good fortune in the West and happiness inJapan. Each leaf has different meanings. The first leaf means true love. The
second leaf means health. The third leaf means glory and reputation. The fourthleaf means happiness and wealth. The shape of the leaf is a heart. Also, I will tellher that her necklace is similar to yours. I hope that she will love this necklace
and cherish her sister.
May 19th I will show her fireworks in the sky to make her have amemorable birthday.
May 20th I will give her a birthday cake with “Happy
Birthday! I love you, my dearest little sister!” on top. I wish she will forgive hersister and be friends with her again. I will tell her that her sister loves her. I hope
she can have a memorable birthday and never forget what I say.
When I know what father will do with little sister, I feel happy andtouched. I also wish that little sister will be touched and forgive me. I wonder if
she forgives me, will she call me immediately? All the things that I wonder will
not happen; it's just what I’m hoping.
At night, on May 19th, father calls me again one more time. Can I comeback or not? Father tells me that I can arrive on May 20th right after what hesays to little sister. Father says he wants to give her a surprise. I know what father
is thinking. Father hopes that when little sister says that she forgives me, I will
arrive immediately, so she will be so touched she’ll hug me. I feel happy because
father cares for both of us. I say maybe.
I'm wondering about what father says, but I think I won’t go back. I’mafraid that when I see her, she will say, you are not my sister, again. I’m so afraid.
However, she’s still my little sister. No matter, I’m still her sister, and I still needto go back and talk to her. Sigh! People need to face problems, so I decide tolisten to father and fly back home immediately.
At night, on May 20th, right after what father tells little sister, I emerge
in front of her. She has no reaction at the moment. I wonder did she forgive meyet? She is so quiet, and father is looking at her. I’m thinking what happened toher while I was looking at her. I’m afraid that she will not forgive me. While I’mlooking and thinking, I say “Happy Birthday.” Little sister is smiling and looking
at me. I feel happy, and I think she forgives me, but I’m not exactly sure. Then, I
say “520” to little sister. Suddenly she smiles and looks at me. I’m so happy, andI think she really forgives me. But maybe little sister’s laughing, and is going toyell at me. Little sister becomes so adorable suddenly. Little sister says “Sister,
thank you for your happy birthday! I forgive you, and I thank you for your 520,
too. I love you. You are my sister forever.” I’m so happy, and kiss and hug little
sister. I give my own lucky necklace to little sister as a present too. I hope thatmy lucky necklace and her clover necklace can give little sister a full happinessin her life and in her future. I wish that little sister cherishes all the things that she
has.
This is the diary that I wrote in May.

67

The Story Behind My Name
Jacqueline Henry
Jacqueline Elaine Henry, nickname, Nanny/Brownin. She is I, and I am her,born on the first of November, 1966, in the busy city of Kingston on the island of
Jamaica to Verna and Kenneth Henry.
As a child growing up, I was never really fond of my name. To begin
with, I thought Jacqueline was just another boring name that people looked past.
I often wondered why my parents didn’t give me one of those cute, girlie names
like Tina, Latoya, Aahisha or even Karen. To me, only pretty girls carried thesenames. As a young teenager, I gave myself an alias. I would tell anyone who
didn’t know me that my name was Michelle. I liked it because it was popular. I
used Michelle occasionally, until my late twenties and even received some mailin that name.
I really started to like the name Jacqueline in my late teenage years. It
was in songs that people liked. In these songs Jacqueline is the pretty girl, withthe sexy body, who gets the man or is a man’s desire. I started to feel pretty andsexy. I started to own my name. I began telling some people my name. People
call me Jacque sometimes, which I really like. I asked my parents why was I
given the name Jacqueline. My father said, “I just liked it.”
I didn’t like my middle name, Elaine, as a child growing up either.
Where I come from, only much older women had that name. Now as an adult, I
still don’t like it. To make things worse, I worked for a woman with that name. I
inferred that she felt I was inferior to her because of the way she talked down tome, but that’s another story. One day, I asked my mother how she came up with
Elaine. She told me as a young girl she had a classmate who was very pretty.
She had a lot of hair and she loved to smile. My mother admired her. My
speculation is that my mom wished she looked like Elaine. She made a promise
to herself that whenever she had a daughter, she would name her Elaine and soshe did. She heard the original Elaine lives in England now. I’m just happy it’s
not my first name.
I am affectionately called Nanny, which is my nickname. My mothertold me I was a baby, lying on the bed. My oldest brother Courtney, who’s six
years older, came into the room, slapped the bed with his hand, and asked,“wahpen Nanny?” I guess he learned the name at school, where he was taught
about the National Heroes of Jamaica. Nanny is the only female hero. She was awarrior who fought and died for the liberation of the Jamaican people. She was
the leader of the Maroons. The Maroons lived up in the mountains. They werevery dark-skinned people with thick hair. Nanny was feared by many. Today, in
Jamaica, Nanny is on the five hundred dollar bill. I love my nickname because it
represents greatness.
People who have known me from way back call me Nanny. That namehas influenced me somehow. When I was younger, and even now, people would

68

say I’m feisty, or, in Jamaican dialect, “yuh too facety,” and I would shrug. I
would tell them, “mi ave a plaasta fi every sore,” meaning anything that was saidor done that I didn’t favor, I had a counterargument for. As a young teen, myteacher, Mr. Parchment, once told me I was “witty.” I never forgot the meaningof the word. And yes, I fought a lot, but I was a shy tomboy. My friends and I
hopped trucks whenever they drove by, played football and cricket in the rain,rode self-made skates put together from piles of wood and small iron wheels thatcame from old trains. We climbed trees to pick fruit and went to cane fields to
cut sugar cane, but we were chased away sometimes by the ranger on his horse
who protected the fields. We thought it was fun!
My children, except my daughter, call me Nanny. Sometimes my friends
call me Nanny of the Maroons, or Nanny Granny, which doesn’t bother me
because we all know the story behind the name. Isn’t it funny how, when I wasyounger, I wanted a name that was popular? Even though I had the name Nannysince I was a baby, I’ve never heard anyone else with it, until one night when it
got me into serious trouble with the father of my three sons.
I was in my early twenties. It was Saturday night. The street dance in
my neighborhood was off the chain. Reggae music was blasting. Both sides ofthe street were blocked with dance-goers. Everyone seemed to be enjoying
themselves. My friends and I were laughing, dancing, drinking. It was pure fun.
Then the music stopped abruptly, and the disc jockey blurted into the mikeproclaiming, “Nanny come check mi now.” My friends—and I—were curious as
to why the D. J. called me since I did not know him. I didn’t move from the spot
where we were standing. I kind of pushed the command to the back of my mind,
but I was still curious. A few minutes later, Maxi appeared. He stood aroundseven inches taller than me, and is a year older, with a thin build. He is lightskinned and good-looking. He was well known around the neighborhood
because his family owned a couple of racehorses which made them money.
Maxi whispered in my ear and commanded that I leave the dance withhim. I was upset because I wasn’t quite ready to leave, but I obeyed because I
didn’t want any drama. I had to say goodbye to my friends. When we were alittle distance from the dance, the argument started. I tried so hard to explain that
I didn’t know the D. J., but out of nowhere I ended up with a busted lip. Jealousy
got the best of him. A couple of days went by as I investigated the D. J. and thisNanny he called. To my surprise, he had a girlfriend who had the same
nickname as I have. Maxi apologized, but I still didn’t speak to him for about amonth. So much for an unusual name!
Brownin is a slang name used by Jamaican men to describe women witha lighter complexion. This once caused a controversy in Jamaica. A D.J. whogoes by the name of Buju Banton sang about loving his Brownin most of all.
The women with darker skin tone were offended. This caused a stir. Buju had tocreate a remix singing how much he loved and respected women with dark skin.
His remix was accepted.
I have grown to appreciate my names because my parents had goodintentions when they gave them to me.

69

An Interview:
The Immigration Experience
Carmen HumeI interviewed an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. I’ve composed his
responses into a narrative. What follows are his own words.
About thirty-one years ago, when I was sixteen, I came to the UnitedStates to live with my mother on Long Island. It was August, but it felt so cold
compared to the DR, I wore a jacket everywhere. My brothers, sister and I came
together because my mother, whom we hadn’t seen for ten years, got visas for allof us to come live with her. It was strange to be here and to be living with mymother because I didn’t grow up with her. Many of my mother’s relatives werealready here, living in Lindenhurst.
Santiago in the DR where I was born was very different from
Lindenhurst. There was a lot of farmland and trees, a lot of space. The house
where I used to live with my grandparents is still there. I remember working
every day on the farm. It was hard work, but my brother and I were very free, notlike kids here in America. We could run around, swim for hours in the lake andplay a lot of pretend games. We didn’t have much, but life was simple.
I keep in touch with my father and step-brothers and sisters and visit
them every four years or they come here. It’s not that far away. What I miss mostis the beautiful countryside. We had fresh air, also fresh food, like farm eggs andyucca.
When I came, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was a rich country
and that you could make good money here. My mother had been sending money
back home to my grandparents to care for us. I knew that here I could get a goodeducation and find a good job. I forced myself to go to school every day eventhough it was hard at first to understand what was being said. I learned English
when everyone was learning Spanish. I made friends who were very helpful andwithin a year, I started to “fit” in. I was young and determined; it was the 80s andlife was good. But I worked very hard. I was going to school and working to pay
for my clothes and car, and eventually got an apartment. Although my motherhelped bring us here, she didn’t pay too much attention to whether we went toschool or not. It was up to us to do it, to make our own way.
Doing it on my own, with little help from my family, taught me the work
ethic I have today. My mother worked to bring us here, but I worked hard to getahead. Was my experience easy? No. As a foreigner in a new country, youalways have to deal with some kind of prejudice, especially when people hear
your accent and make assumptions about you.

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Texting and Driving?
Viviana Medina

I’m going to give you a number...Eleven. This is the number of teen deaths per
day caused by texting and driving. Admit it, you or someone you know has
texted while driving. I’m guilty of it myself. I say, “It’s no big deal, nothing will
happen. I’m a good driver,” but the reality is you are twenty-three times more
likely to crash if you text while driving.
Here’s an alarming fact. According to Car and Driver magazine, texting
and driving impairs you far more than drinking and driving! You would think
America would learn how to make a culture change. Thirty-nine states ban
texting while driving, yet the texting continues unabated. Around the world thisis a dangerous trend. In the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, which has the world’s
highest rates of road fatalities, a three-day outage of blackberry messenger
produced a forty percent drop in traffic accidents!
You may ask, “What can we do?” Everyone can make a difference bymaking a pledge. The pledge is not just for those who drive! It means you agree
to make your voice heard. If you’re in a car and see the driver grabbing theirphone to text, you stop them. Maybe if one of Bailey’s four friends had spoken
up and said something, they wouldn’t have all been killed. Bailey swerved into
oncoming traffic, hit a tractor-trailer and her SUV burst into flames because sheused her phone to text a friend. Is that what you want for your friends? Are wegoing to wait until the government figures it out? You may think you won’t makea difference but change starts with YOU! Take the pledge!
Works Cited
Austin, Michael. "Texting while Driving: How Dangerous is it?." Car and Driver
June 2009. Web. 4 Nov 2012.
<http://www.caranddriver.com/features/texting-while-driving-howdangerous-is-it>“Cellphone and Texting Laws.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Nov.
2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.iihs.org/laws/maptextingbans.aspx>"International Distracted Driving Roundup." International Cell Phone & Text
Messaging Driving Law News. Glenn Abel, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
<http://handsfreeinfo.com/international-cell-phone-law-roundup>

71

Lohmann, Rachelle Cassada M.S., L.P.C. “Texting and Driving: A Deadly
Decision.”Psychology Today. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/teen-angst/201209/texting-anddriving-deadly-decision"Texting and Driving Prevention." Texting and Driving Prevention. Ad Coucil,
2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. <http://www.adcouncil.org/OurWork/Current-Work/Safety/Texting-and-Driving-Prevention>"Texting and Driving Deadly for Teens | Momlogic.com." Momlogic.com. GNH
Production 18 Aug. 2008. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.momlogic.com/2008/08/texting_and_driving_deadly_for.php>.

72

Schnitzel to Syringes
Maria Serena Bartha

How does a person go from devoting her life to making people happy throughfood—to deciding to be a nurse? That is my story and I will try to make sense of
it. For most of my adult life my career was in New York City’s restaurant
industry. I attended cooking school. I found work first as a cook; later on I
overcame my fear of dough as a pastry assistant. I enjoyed food as a child andfound pleasure in feeding my family as an adult. Life should be filled withpleasure, and food has been a way to convey that to others.
My father was a physician, so medicine and needles were things I was
comfortable being around. I enjoyed visiting him at the hospital emergency
rooms where he worked. As a young girl, I found the brisk action in these places
curious. I also had a feeling of pride knowing my father was taking care ofpatients. Seeing him interact with patients was a treat for me. Also, little children
get into scrapes and when I had a pustule in my finger from an infection, hewould take care of me. It never scared me to see him take out a scalpel or othermedical instrument.
As a young teenager my grandfather had a stroke that left the right sideof his body paralyzed. My grandmother took care of all his needs when thevisiting nurse wasn’t there. I would help with the intravenous feeding. Although
he was a family member, I never hesitated to help out.
Despite a scientific leaning, I followed my passion for food, which lasted
a decade. Then, the year of my thirty-fifth birthday arrived. I felt a need tochange my life and thought about different careers I could pursue. Should I open
a food business, or get away from food? A deep talk with my mother followed.
She said, “If you aren’t doing much with your life, maybe you should go back toschool?” That is what I did. I decided to head forward to my medical roots andapply to nursing.
I did Internet research on nursing schools. I thought about HunterBellevue, since I had finished my Liberal Arts B.A. at Hunter College. I foundout about City Tech, and it all fell into place. I live in the Downtown Brooklyn
area and the nursing program had great pass rates of first-time takers of the
NCLEX exam. I ran over to the admissions office and, through direct admissions,
was accepted. Since I had been to three different colleges as an adult, I’d alreadycompleted most of the pre-requisites for the nursing program. All that was left
was Anatomy and Physiology 1.
I was nervous about taking a biology course since the last one was adecade ago! Studying hard and focusing were keys to my success. I think there73are certain gains in going back to school as an adult, as opposed to being inschool as an eighteen-year-old. If you make the conscious choice to go back toschool and spend your own money on it, there are built in motivators to doing
well. I won’t say the first semester back was easy. But it went quickly and it was
fun to make study buddies in the process. Challenging your brain to learn new
concepts is rewarding. Those “a-ha” moments, when a piece of information islearned and makes sense, are amazing!
I found out on December 29th that I was accepted to the nursing programand it was a special feeling. The instructors I had this semester inspired me. I
have to thank my mom for pushing me to think outside of the zone of what I
normally think possible for myself. My father passed away in 2006. I would liketo think he would be proud of the fact that I decided to go into nursing. He would
tell me I was choosing a career that isn’t easy but would be fulfilling.

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Invisible Army
Hadassa Francois

Sometimes, on painful days, if I close my eyes and everything around meis still and silent, I feel like I’m back there. My stomach begins to turn, my heart
starts beating fast and I get cold, freezing cold. I have to open my eyes quickly
and remind myself that I’m not in the hospital, that it’s just a dream, one of those
hospital dreams. I did not ask to have this condition, I did not ask to have Sickle
Cell, but I refuse to pity myself or to receive pity from others.
I am tough, I am strong. But if you look closely, you will see why I’m sostrong. Are you looking? Do you see them? Don’t you see the face of my motherlooking right at you, or the piercing eyes of my father glaring at you? How about
the presence of my aunts, did you notice? Or maybe it’s the smile of my sister,which always grabs attention. Oh I know, you must hear the laughter of my manyfriends. You see, I am strong not because I choose to be, but because I was bornwith an army. An army that supports me, that watches over me, an army thatspends those painful hospital nights with me, an army that pulls my hair out of
my face when the morphine makes me vomit, an army that refuses to abandon
me, even in the darkest hours.
Sickle Cell does not define me. Pain does not define me. My army, myfamily, and love define who I am. With darkness, comes light, with weakness,comes strength, with pain, comes relief—my army brings me that relief.
The silence is here again. My eyes are shut once more. I see it once again.
I see that white hospital bed, and I feel the cold creeping up against me and myheart pounding. But now, now I am smiling. Not because I’m not scared, notbecause the pain is non-existent. Do you know why, do you see why? Can you
hear them? It’s my army, they’re here with me and they’re cheering me on.

75

New Approaches to Old Disasters
Husaan Iqbal
In the wake of treacherous super storms arriving on land more frequently thanever before, cities with millions of dwellers have come face to face with thedestructive wrath of hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. While we may
blame global warming, many politicians and bureaucrats have fought vigorously
against any efforts to stop it. Instead of waiting for long-term outcomes to solve
immediate problems, it is in everyone’s best interest to search for preventative
solutions now.
Only a month after Hurricane Sandy made it into the record books, talks
began on how to avert damage in the future in the largest city in the country.
Along with New York, other coastal and high weather traffic cities across thecountry and across the globe are facing the same questions. Much like strategies
that could have prevented Hurricane Katrina from wrecking New Orleans, thenotion of building sea walls, levees, and flood gates for the New York
metropolitan area has been talked about by climatologists for years1. Although
the cost of such behemoth projects may come with many uncertainties and insane
budgets, considering them should not be seen as farfetched.
On the other side of the world, Fiat hydraulic engineers have beenworking hard since 2003 to complete a large-scale public works project to save
Venice, Italy. Rising water lines with the help of annual floods have been
threatening to sink the ancient flooding city. Set for completion in 2014, mobile
flood gates are being installed off shore with embedded permanent sea walls to
break up surges headed for dry land2.
In Chicago, city developers are using permeable pavement in parking
lots and bike lanes so storm water can drain through the tiny cracks of thepavement into the soil to reduce water build up and filter runoff rainwater3. Morenoticeable now than ever before is the greenery in and around New York City,
with gardens and farms on city rooftops along with initiatives to make the city
greener and absorb rainwater4, but they were no match for Sandy.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York had been in theprocess of raising sidewalk vents above the curb line to prevent flooding into thecity subways. Once Sandy hit, transit workers using specialized pump trains wereable to clear flooded tubes by pumping water into the Hudson River. With thehelp of the Army Corps of Engineers, the city had most of its car and subway
tunnels restored within weeks5.
A defense project was in the works to protect America’s tunnels fromterrorist attacks by the Department of Homeland Security, which could have
prevented flooding. Engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
teamed up with West Virginia University and ILC Dover, a spacesuit
manufacturer, to develop a giant inflatable plug that could help stop storm waterfrom entering tunnels. Unfortunately, this project is still in the testing stage6.

76

Besides hurricanes and typhoons, other natural disasters such as
earthquakes are also raising awareness of the need for building safer structures towithstand violent movement. While it is common for builders to use dampening
systems to reduce or eliminate swaying of high rises, Japan is at the forefront of
this seismic technology. During its recent earthquake, in March 2011, whichcaused a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown, Japan’s cities were able to withstandthe tremors. Geotechnical engineers had used earthquake-resistant building
standards, requiring seismic isolation techniques, which left many high rises
virtually untouched. The taller a high rise is, the more intense the swaying can
get towards the top, but if the building can be decoupled from the foundation,with rubber and steel bearings between the building’s frame and base to allow
movement, vibrations become less of a factor. This in turn keeps furniture inplace inside and the building’s metal and glass take less stress outside7.
To prevent loss of lives, Japan has also made it safer for commuter trains
to halt before an earthquake wave reaches the tracks and derails the trains. Using
earthquake-warning systems, computers can sense primary waves of earthquakesthat come before the secondary more destructive ones to provide alerts ofupcoming conditions. Similarly Otis, the largest manufacturer of elevators, uses
sensors that stop elevators’ vertical movement and releases the door locks so
passengers can escape the suspended elevator during earthquakes.
Since many locations around the world see natural disasters returning fora second or third bite, developers are now prepared to use disaster mapping
technology to identify common flood zones and where the ground would give
when an earthquake occurs. Open source and crowd source mapping with mobile
applications have allowed civilians to supply local information and geo-tagged
photos to pinpoint areas of disaster. Most recently this technique was used in
Haiti after the earthquake of January 2010, which helped U.N. relief workers toreach bruised areas of the island8.
Research and development have helped save lives from natural disasters
across the globe. Although every approach comes with a cost, new prevention
systems can ultimately pave the way for safety and a future sense of security.
Notes
1 http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-08/national/35701529_1_andrewcuomo-hypothetical-storm-superstorm-sandy
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_Project3 http://www.concretethinker.com/casestudies/Chicago-Green-Alleys.aspx
4 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/in-urban-jungles-green-roofsbring-relief-from-above
5 http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/for-new-york-the-issue-of-stepsnot-taken/
6 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/giant-inflatable-plug-couldprotect-subways-floodwaters-1C6876355
7 http://web-japan.org/trends/11_sci-tech/sci110728.html
8 http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/02/crisis-mapping-haiti/

77Law, Privacy, and Technology
Fanny Gerloven Chico
Is the emerging proposed legislation for online regulation realistic? Examining
our country’s history of privacy regulation together with the advances intechnology suggests the challenge that lies ahead since technology moves fasterthan legislation.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution was added to protect rights notforeseen at the time of writing: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”("Constitution of the United States" 46, 23). However, since 1787 (See id.) no
amendment was added to protect privacy. Although the expression “right toprivacy” is often mentioned, it has not yet been established by law.
However, although the constitution has not been expanded with
amendments on the privacy issue, some federal statutes have emerged since 1787.
For example the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was createdthrough the Communications Act of 1934, which was truly the beginning ofgovernment involvement with technology, specifically the telephone, telegraph,and radio. Then in 1947, the National Security Act was established as “acomprehensive program for the future security of the United States” (50 U.S.C§401) and relates to the Information Sharing Environment (ISE). The ISE“provides analysts, operators, and investigators with integrated and synthesized
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and homeland security informationneeded to enhance national security and help keep our people safe” ("What Is
ISE?") and is the main reason why other acts have been created and agencies
established such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In 1976 the Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) was createdby the CIA primarily to “attack national intelligence problems with effective
targeting, bold technology and superb tradecraft. The DS&T creates, adapts,
develops, and operates technical collection systems and applies enabling
technologies to the collection, processing, and analysis of information” (“Science& Technology”). This branch of the CIA is the real technical security agency of
our nation and provides security intelligence to senior United States
policymakers.
The Privacy Act of 1974, according to the Department of Justice, wasenacted because “Congress was concerned with curbing the illegal surveillance
and investigation of individuals by federal agencies…also concerned withpotential abuses presented by the government’s increasing use of computers tostore and retrieve personal data…such as an individual’s social security number”(“Privacy & Civil Liberties”). It was designed to regulate how government
recorded and used individuals’ personal data.
The Privacy Act was then followed by two acts that covered technology
usage, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 and the78Computer Matching and Privacy Act of 1988. The latter amended the original
1974 act by creating procedural requirements for computer-matching activities.
The ECPA generally “protects wire, oral and electronic communications while
the communications are being made, are in transit, and when they are stored oncomputers…applies to email, telephone conversations, and data stored
electronically” (“Privacy & Civil Liberties”).
In the early 1990s, when the Internet became available to the generalpublic, it wasn’t as advanced as it is now. The younger generation, age ten to
twenty-two (Schroer) lack understanding of their rights and have a false
impression that they are protected. Even more importantly, popular webpage
influences on young people, like MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook are known for
not practicing prudence when it comes to their patrons’ privacy and provide no
warning signs to consumers before they sign on. Notorious for selling his
members’ information to advertisers, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook,
was misleading when he stated that privacy is “no longer a social norm”(Schmierer 57, 6) due to the amount of information that is shared. Zuckerberg
was wrong both in his statement, and in the message he sends to his followers.
Of course, Zuckerberg is going to try to sell the idea that privacy is not importantto his patrons because his patrons’ privacy is what he turns over to advertisers forprofit. Unfortunately, however, when Zuckerberg speaks, we listen and, ineptly,
we want to believe his truths.
The right to privacy has not been established by law and because of thedelusion that it has, regulation is still needed for the practice of online advertising.
In 1890, Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis felt compelled to
publish an article regarding lack of privacy from “new” technology during theirtime. They wrote, ”Political, social, and economic changes entail the recognitionof new rights, and the common law in its eternal youth, grows to meet the new
demands of society” (Warren and Brandeis 11, 1). The concern they mentioned
has remained decade after decade, but no changes have been made. Unsure ofwhat exactly would protect privacy, Warren and Brandeis said, “It is our purpose
to consider whether the existing law affords a principle which can properly be
invoked to protect the privacy of the individual; and, if it does, what the nature ofsuch protection is” (Warren and Brandeis 11, 2). The government to date has notestablished regulation of the web because of its ambiguity. However, having no
regulation creates a threat to users’ privacy and a desire for a change.
Interestingly, there are sixteen states that “require, by statute,
government Web sites or state portals to establish privacy policies andprocedure” and they are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware,
Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, South
Carolina, Texas, Utah and, Virginia ("State Laws Related to Internet Privacy"),
In addition, some of the states have enforcements that go beyond government
Web sites. The California Privacy Act protects online activity for writing emails
or text messages, online chat or reading e-books. California also provides
privacy rights to residents of California on what books they read or purchase andwho can manage that information. Other states have provisions on Personal79

Information Held by Internet Service Providers (ISP), Employee E-Mail
Communication and Internet Access, and Public Employers. Only four out of thefifty states have any kind of privacy policies for Web sites. California, under the
California Online Privacy Protection Act, “requires an operator, defined as aperson or entity that collects identifiable information from California residents
through an Internet website or online service for commercial purposes, to post aconspicuous privacy policy on its website or online service and to comply withthat policy” (See id). Fascinatingly, in 2010 Zuckerberg, who resides in
California and originated Facebook in New York, strategically filed theincorporation of Facebook, Inc. with the Secretary of State Division of
Corporations for the state of Delaware (“Eleventh Amended and Restated
Certificate of Incorporation of Facebook, Inc.”), which is not one of the fourstates that provide any privacy policies for Web Sites. The three other states thatdo provide privacy polices for Web Sites are Connecticut, Nebraska, andPennsylvania, all with provisions like California’s.
The University of California Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania’s
April 2010 empirical study found that actually the younger generations are asconcerned about privacy on the web as the generations before them (Schmierer
57, 7). The problem occurs when the majority of users skip over warnings andlegal jargon. Then they go on to provide their biological and geographical data inorder to create a page that requires an identity. By this time, the alreadyproposed warning of rights has been waived and the behavioral advertising hascommenced. The collection of this data is processed and sent to various buyers
who then begin retargeting. The consumer, who was warned, is oblivious to thewarning and assumes the weary belief that “if everyone else is doing it then thismust be safe”; but he or she soon finds out how wrong this is.
Web advertisers use many devices on consumers to maintain theirpresence on the web. Some of their tactics are known as behavioral advertisingand are applied through contextual, cookies, spyware, and adware. The
contextual type is “when an advertiser itself uses information about the particularwebsite a consumer is viewing to determine what type of ad to display”(Schmierer 57, 9). This behavioral advertising does not make a practice ofretaining any data from the user and is not as invasive as other techniques. An
aggressive, more invasive, technique is called a cookie. The cookie program,created through Navigator 1.0, is applied during URL transmission exchange,
although some cookies can be removed. The cookie is a text-only string, which
is transmitted through Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and is eventuallystored on the hard drive without the consumer knowing it. After a cookie isplaced, it “…collects information about the user, including usernames, searchterms, and passwords” (Schmierer 57, 10). The browser-based cookies can beeasily removed by the consumer; however, flash cookies are relentless and arecontrolled by the advertiser and usually regenerate deleted cookies. The othertwo techniques, spyware and adware, have the common goal of collecting andreporting in-depth information. Spyware must be installed on the user’s

80

computer while adware is more of a tracking system that generates pop-up
advertisements while the internet is running (Schmierer 57, 12).
Consumers must begin to read the terms and not just scan and accept
them arbitrarily. When doing banking transactions or government requests
online, you don’t have the option to click your agreement; instead a questionnaire
appears and will not let users continue unless they pass with a certain score.
Users who fail this questionnaire are sent back to the first screen to restart and ifthey fail a second time, they are timed out for twenty-four hours. Advertisers
should be regulated with these tests before offering certain services or upgrades
and be forced to pay the costs of them.
After FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120 (2000),the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTC) was passed.
Since Congress had not granted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the
authority to regulate the tobacco industry when the FDA Rule was originallyestablished, the FSPTC Act was signed into law in 2000. It required Philip
Morris, for example, to advertise that smoking is harmful. Philip Morris wascompelled to place warnings on its product to prevent people from further harm
(Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Title 1 Section 101).
The FSPTC Act was established to educate the consumers on theconsequences of using a product, to show that potential harm existed. The
Internet advertisers are not causing bodily harm to the users, but they are causing(or helping to create) depletion of the user’s privacy and exploitation of theiridentity. The online advertisers need to be held accountable like the Philip
Morris Company, through regulation.
Today we see various forms of Internet legislation under consideration,for example, “Representative Rick Boucher and Cliff Stearns released … a
discussion draft of the privacy legislation that aimed to regulate the collection
and use of consumer information by online behavioral advertisers and othermedia providers” (Schmierer 57, 37). Before long the Best Practices Act was
introduced by Bobby Rush (See id.). The concept is a good cause but the
problem with this legislation is it keeps the status quo without significant changethat can only be developed through real transparency. Transparency andeducation need to be required. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has
jurisdiction because the web does business through interstate commerce and on
the international level. In fact, the FTC as an administrative agency of thegovernment can create regulation without bills passed by Congress. The processof legislation can be costly, time-consuming, and bureaucratically taxing. The
FTC, however, can start the process of transparency by “encouraging all
members of the online advertising industry” (Schmierer 57) to start making theelements of behavioral advertising more obvious by participating in programs ofawareness and transparency.
In conclusion, proposed privacy legislation sounds promising but is notadequate for the scope of the epidemic, and takes too long to enact. Only by firstsetting the foundation through regulation by the FTC, will we engage the issue ofprivacy now and assist in preventing future problems.

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Works Cited"About CIA." â Central Intelligence Agency. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
<https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/index.html>.
"Amendment IX." The Constitution of the United States. Fourteenth (HMS Rose /Bill of Rights Tour) ed. Washington, D.C.: Commission on the
Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1991. 23. Print. With Index and
The Declaration of Independence.
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Web.
<http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h1111256>.Eleventh Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation ofFacebook, Inc. Rackcdn, 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
<http://c114872.r72.cf0.rackcdn.com/FACEBOOK%2010012010.pdf>.
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Federal Trade Commission. FTC. Privacy Online: A Report to Congress. Print.
<http://www.ftc.gov/reports/privacy3/toc.shtm>."Privacy & Civil
Liberties." Privacy & Civil Liberties. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.it.ojp.gov/default.aspx?area=privacy>.
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82

A Hostel Take on City Regulations
Rebecca Karrin

Hostels in New York City, which were once under-regulated, have now comeunder fire and even risk extinction because of stricter zoning and building
development policies (Blaine, 2010). These policies consider the well-being of
every resident and tourist, and address what is acceptable for an apartment rental
and what constitutes a hotel, but they neglect the middle ground of youth hostel.
This analysis reviews established regulations as they apply to hostels. It reflects
the extensive negative news coverage as well as personal experiences fromwithin the hostel world. The continued survival of hostels in New York City rests
upon the recognition of their importance by the local government and legislationthat applies solely to their type of boarding entity. Because there is no one
definition of hostel within our jurisdiction, hostels remain in limbo between hotel
and residential apartment regulation. These factors suggest the complications
which deter the advancement of this niche market.
You step off of a bus onto an empty street, having just arrived at a newdestination and eager to start exploring. But upon arrival, you find that the hostel
you booked no longer exists (Lemon, 2011). A sign on the door reads: “closed
due to building code violations.” Now, imagine you are in a foreign country thatspeaks a different language, your phone does not work on their local carriers andyou have already prepared a budget for this trip down to your last dime, which
does not account for an expensive hotel stay, what do you do? Unfortunately, this
scenario happens more frequently than most people realize, but is often kept outof the media (Dolor, 2010). The ongoing debate amongst New York City
officials and small business owners as to what constitutes a legitimate
establishment for accommodating tourists has been an incessant argument.
During the last five years, the city’s position as to what is consideredlegal versus illegal boarding has changed drastically. The guidelines that
determine such accommodations had previously lacked definition. The rules
applied varied between hotel and housing regulation, bouncing back and forth
between the two. In 2010 an attempt to standardize housing laws the city has
allegedly destroyed budget lodging for the independent entrepreneur by
procuring a stricter policy signed into law by Governor Paterson, which limits
certain types of buildings to no less than thirty days’ occupation by each guest(Segan, 2010). Requiring a minimum stay theoretically restricts the number oftransient guests passing through a building’s doorway; in the past visitors hadunrestricted freedom. After the new legislation came into effect, City
Commissioner LiMandri expressed pleasure in its passing by stating that “Anyillegal residence can put tenants, neighbors and first responders in serious danger,

83and landlords must be held accountable for creating unsafe conditions, in order tomake a profit, which are a risk factor to New York residents, tourists and city
employees” (as cited in Loeser & La Vorgna, 2011). The reasoning behind thislegislation is that a majority of these businesses are in violation of zoning laws
and fire codes that again apply to certain constituents under two separate entities.
In this paper I explore hostels, both their positive and negative aspects, the flaws
in our system to regulate this category of housing, and the city’s inconsistencies
in justifying the shutting down of such businesses.
A youth hostel, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a “supervised shelter
providing inexpensive overnight lodging, particularly for young people...”Hostels which were originally founded in Germany in the early 1900s began tospread around the world creating a new dynamic of budget accommodation. In
1932, Hostelling International (HI) was formed in England, establishing the firstinternational organization. HI set the standard for what hostels represent, creatinga corporate image and membership-based program (Youth Hostel, 2012).
Independent hostels interpret these guidelines broadly. However, certain
properties take this design to the extreme by competing with luxury
accommodations in room standards and amenities, while others will offer themost basic of rooms and environment. The more typical of hostels offer
dormitory style lodging, shared showers, a common room for socializing, akitchen for meal preparation, and often a kiosk that provides local tourist
information. The hostel demographic stereotypically applies to younger, moresocial, open-minded, and budget-conscious travelers.
One common trait that remains consistent is the ability to offer marketfriendly rates in contrast to those of the ever-growing, expensive hotel
competition. As previously mentioned, a fine line separates a hotel and a hostel.
The differences between the two are what hotels thrive upon and what New York
City officials target as dangerous, the factors involved putting all implicatedparties at risk (Voien, 2012). Nonetheless, here in one of the most expensive
cities to visit in America, tourists are frequently searching out the best deal. Whatbetter option than a youth hostel? When most hotels’ average daily room rate
starts at $277 as listed on New York City’s main tourist site’s statistic page(http://www.nycgo.com/articles/nyc-statistics-page), the alternative $30-$50 pernight for the 2012 winter season, as currently listed on Hostelworld.com, a
popular online booking engine, certainly has its appeal. Many are skeptical ofwhat to expect from communal accommodation, whether it’s a shared common
space, bathroom, or bedroom, but find themselves testing it out and taking achance in New York because it is the affordable option. The same temptations
that lead tourists in search of cheaper accommodation prompt a similar interest in
entrepreneurs.
Owning property in this city can be highly expensive, especially whenaffordable housing and rent control are strictly regulated, despite the fact that thecity proactively raises taxes and the cost of living has no ceiling (Hazlitt, 1979).
Small entrepreneurs who own a couple of buildings cannot afford to maintaintheir properties when the average amount of income they collect is less than the84cost of operations. This can also apply to the individual apartment owner that has
difficulty coming up with rent (Epstein, 2012). Let’s say these individuals havean unused spare bedroom, an empty apartment, or an unoccupied building.
Wouldn’t the temptation to operate a hostel, even illegally, be enticing because anightly rate and extra beds would bring in additional revenue? This situation iswhat has influenced many of the newly developed budget accommodations toappear. Where a consumer’s demand exists, a supply of service will develop to
fill that need, especially when that demand will bring in more profit than the
average rental.
Consider a NYC two-bedroom apartment that goes for $1400. Now,
instead of two tenants in that apartment, you manage to fit two bunk beds in eachroom, allowing eight people to occupy the same space per night. Instead ofcollecting that one rent check per month you are collecting $40 from eachindividual person per night. In one week alone the landlord has made more than$2000. The demand for budget accommodation is very appealing from both theconsumer’s and the supplier’s outlook.
Although there is incentive for both tourists and businesses alike topursue budget accommodation, these same factors create hostility toward hostelsfrom both the city and residents for three main reasons. New York City residents
can easily figure out that for every apartment, building, or house that is illegallyconverted into a transient guest-lodging facility, it means one less affordable
home listed on the market. Even though new developments are constantly on therise, affordable housing is dwindling and these illegal establishments are viewed
as a threat to the livelihood of locals (Kamping-Carder, 2012). As a resident andstudent, I have personally experienced the difficulties in finding a reasonably
priced place to live, while sites like www.airbnb.com contain over three thousandlistings that offer nightly rates. These boarding rooms overcharge the unknowing
tourist because they appear more reasonable than a room at a hotel but at thesame time reduce availability of affordable housing for local residents(Fickenscher, 2007). A second issue is noted in frequent news coverage dealing
with the welfare of permanent residents. They feel unsafe with the influx of
strangers entering into their buildings to stay in an illegitimate renovation. Every
day a new face is in their hallway. Also, the noise permeates the walls because
young tourists are usually more careless and tend to party harder than a long-term
renter. And finally, a lot of these “hostels,” because they are not properly
certified, are most likely not paying the appropriate amount of property tax or
employment tax to the city.
So how do you differentiate between a legal hotel, an illegal hotel, and alegal apartment rental? One major defining entity is fire safety codes. Depending
upon the size, occupancy, and type of building or home, certain fixtures,markings, and training are required for them to be considered up to code. An
example would be that hotels are required to have a fire marshal present at all
times (http://nyail.com/fsd/). This person has to have undergone special training
and certification to qualify for this position. Apartment rentals and privately
owned homes do not require a marshal. Also a privately owned home generally85does not contain a sprinkler system. Any building in New York City that has
converted from its original use must adapt and update to its newly definedguidelines. An illegally converted building generally does not abide by theserules. These businesses allegedly open purely for personal interest and gain, notconsidering the welfare of their guests or employees. This also means that they
are most likely not properly insured. In the event of a fire, the city deems this as ahigh-risk factor (Moynihan, 2010). The New York State Department of Healthlists the very strict guidelines that have been developed based on past experiences
and
legal
delegations
thathotels
must
abide
by
(http://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/nycrr/title_10/part_7/subpart_7-1.htm).
Public safety is at the forefront of most of these rules. In addition, proper exits
and signage must be present more so in hotels compared with residentialbuildings. In hotels, a floor plan is usually displayed in a guest’s room; there are
illuminated fire exit signs, a secondary means of egress, and pathways thatcomply with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA).
As previously stated, there are currently no regulations for hostels. The
hostels that attempt to “legally” function in New York, generally apply to the
Department of Buildings (DOB) as a newly developed hotel (Stallman, 2007).
Beyond being in the correct zoning category, to be considered, a state licensing
prerequisite states that the owners must present a floor plan to an engineer at the
DOB that includes thirty or more rooms within the building. Each lodging roommust have its own bathroom. It is unclear how precise these plans must be andhow thoroughly the layout is inspected. When consulting with Lisa Amoia, anengineer at the DOB, she clarified that it was a strict policy that left no window
for flexibility. Afterwards, I inquired about boutique hotels, known for theirsmall occupancy levels. She reiterated that state guidelines apply, and allegedthat any business granted a title of hotel must be in compliance with all
regulations (personal communication, 5 Dec. 2012).
Once an engineer has preapproved the building’s design, determined it isin the correct zone, and had a fire marshal inspect it for fire code regulation andsafety, the building owner may apply for a certificate of occupancy. If an H-9
occupancy certificate is granted, the building is categorized as a hotel. Each typeof certificate determines the legal use of a building, whether it is a mixed
dwelling, a family home, boarding house, industrial, etc. The various building
codes can easily be found on the Department of Buildings website(http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/development/co_factsheet.shtml).
Hostels
generally exceed occupancy codes that have previously been established for mosttypes of buildings and room sizes. It is common to come across rooms that
contain bunk beds and occupancy levels of up to four times those allowed inresidential regulations. This goes against the long-standing “three unrelated
persons” rule defined in the Housing and Maintenance Code § 27 - 2075:
A family is: (a) A single person occupying a dwelling unit andmaintaining a common household with not more than two
boarders, roomers or lodgers; or (b) Two or more persons relatedby blood, adoption, legal guardianship, marriage or domestic

86partnership; occupying a dwelling unit and maintaining acommon household with not more than two boarders, roomers or
lodgers; or (c) Not more than three unrelated persons
occupying a dwelling unit and maintaining a common
household; or (d) Not more than three unrelated persons
occupying a dwelling unit in a congregate housing or sharedliving arrangement and maintaining a common household.
The rule was established in the early 20th century as a means to prevent
unmarried couples from living together, then functioned as a means of preventing
unsanitary conditions resulting from overcrowded housing, and now has
transformed into another purpose, to keep college students in check. It is allegedthat having more young individuals together in a living space leads to additional
problems with noise, parties, drugs, alcohol, and loitering. Many apartments
within the city have four bedrooms. For a family, this is fine, but the city
considers four strangers living together a risk factor. It is argued that there isextensive overcrowding in immigrant or welfare families, so to insist on an
outdated policy such as the three unrelated persons act, seems nonsensical.
Nevertheless, they have applied this rule to hotels and thus to hostels as well
(Buckley, 2010). In a hotel, if you wish to add a fourth person to a room, often afee must be paid. Hostels do not have such a fee because they consistently
surpass the legal limit. Non-profits, shelters, orphanages, and college dormitories,
are the only forms of occupancy in New York City that are allowed tocircumvent these rules and even then the city is tough on these establishments.
So how can we regulate hostels? Unfortunately or fortunately dependingon your point of view, the city is under-staffed and under-budgeted. They do not
pursue or search out illegal establishments unless valid complaints have been
made against the individual property. Only then, when a proper grievance has
been filed, will a city official investigate (Rutkoff, 2010). Even then, the fines are
not big enough to discourage these establishments from continued operation.
Some have been temporarily shut down or eventually permanently shut down,
but it has been noted that these businesses tend to relocate elsewhere. This is only
a short-term preventative for the ongoing problem that is plaguing the city. The
tourists that are expelled onto the streets during a raid are the most affected inthese scenarios. The city is showing a lack of social responsibility for the welfareof visitors when implementing these actions. As noted earlier, guests have beenleft stranded in the street without a place to sleep. There is no one to pick up thepieces. The illegal accommodations that disregard the well-being of their guests
and the city’s regulations have negatively affected businesses that attempt to
conduct themselves legally because they are seen in the same category.
With so many factors involved, it is difficult to determine the best meansof regulating hostels. The three-unrelated-persons rule should be reevaluatedbecause it’s commonplace for hostels to have multiple beds in a room. This is
how hostels are able to offer such reasonable rates. Fire codes should be
reevaluated to accommodate these additional guests, implementing new
regulations, since they already are applied to non-profit lodging. The city has

87increased fines for noncompliance, but does not follow up with most properties
after the initial complaint has been resolved (Pincus, 2012). Mayor Bloomberg
created a special team that investigates illegal lodging, but they should be more
actively pursuing illegitimate transient housing, as well as having more routine
inspections. Businesses that follow all the guidelines should not be penalized likeillegal establishments (Richardson, 2012). Hostels that try to abide by most of thecity’s laws are allegedly targeted more frequently because they let themselves beknown by the community, but as they come under fire, more illegal hostels pop
up in their place. The demand for hostels exists and should be acknowledged bycity government because it attracts a large percentage of tourists each year. If thecity’s enforcement prohibits further illegal developments, then opportunities willarise that give legal businesses the ability to develop (Cochran, 2010). Further
reform of current building codes, a reevaluation of current legislation, and more
distinct definitions will be the only way to guarantee a cooperative progression
for the continued existence of hostels and ensure the best interests of bothresidents and visitors in New York.
References
Amoia, L. G. [Zoning and Code Specialist, Department of Buildings]. Personal
interview. Brooklyn, NY. 4 Dec. 2012.
Blain G. (2010, July 24). Gov. Paterson signs law making it easier for city to shutillegal hotels. New York Daily News. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/gov-paterson-signs-law-makingeasier-city-shut-illegal-hotels-article-1.464591#ixzz1HpvOTKYO
Buckley, C. (2010, March 28). In New York, breaking a law on unrelated
roommates. NYTimes.com. Retrieved 17 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/nyregion/29roommates.html?pagew
anted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
Cochran, J. (2010, July 26). New York homeowners barred from renting totourists. Daily Finance. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/26/new-york-apartment-ownersbarred-from-renting-to-tourists/
Dolor, K. (2010, April 23). DOB shuts down Harlem hostel. | NBC New York.
News. Retrieved 11 Dec. 2012 fromhttp://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Department-of-BuildingsShuts-Down-Harlem-Hostel-91906349.html
Epstein, R. (2012, January 4). Richard Epstein: Rent control hits the Supreme
Court.WSJ.com. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 Dec. 2012 fromhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702044644045771189120
82926658.html
Fickenscher L. (2007, May 14). Hostel takeover. Crain’s New York Business.
Crains New York. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20070513/FREE/70512003

88

Hazlitt, H. (1979). Economics in one lesson. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Retrieved from http://steshaw.org/economics-in-onelesson/chap18p1.html
Kamping-Carder, L. (2012, April 27). Illegal Hotel Penalties | 2011 State
Legislation | NYC. The Real Deal. Real estate news. Retrieved 16 Oct.
2012 from http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/04/27/illegal-hotel-penaltiesspike-in-last-year/
Lemon K. (2011, March 28). New York City hostels: What you should know
before renting. | Neon Tommy. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/03/hostile-hostels-what-youshould-know-you-travel-new-york-city
Loeser S. & La Vorgna M. (2011, May 11). NYC.gov. News from the Blue
Room. NYC Bloomberg Press Releases. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2
f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&do
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Moynihan, C. (2010, July 18). Bill aims to stop illegal hotels in New York.
NYTimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved Oct. 16, 2012 fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/nyregion/19hotel.html?_r=1
NYC: Places to stay (hostel) and things to do? Lonely Planet travel forum. (2012,
February 18). Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2165712
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AWS+&QUERYDATA=$$ADC27-2075$$@TXADC0272075+&LIST=LAW+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=05661412+&TARGET=VIEW
Pincus, A. (2012, September 12). Airbnb | Illegal hotels | Short-term stay hotels.
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Oct. 2012 from http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/09/12/city-council-todramatically-increase-illegal-hotelfines/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Fee
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Rutkoff, A. (2010, July 26). Illegal hotels in New York City will be policed by
Mayor’s Office: Metropolis. WSJ. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2012 fromhttp://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2010/07/26/illegal-hotels-now-outlawedwill-be-policed-by-mayors-office/89

Stallman M. (2005). City of New York v. 330 CONTINENTAL LLC, 18 Misc.
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Feed%3A+trdnews+%28The+Real+Deal++New+York+Real+Estate+News%29

90

Prize-Winning Video
Chin Sheng “William” Hsieh

Professor Ryoya Terao informed us in May, 2011, about the Financial AwarenessVideo Competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At thattime, we all looked at it and showed interest, but we didn’t really do any follow
up until Tony Davis from the New York Fed came to talk to us in detail about
this great contest.
We were very excited and started to generate ideas as soon as Tony left.
The big challenge at that time was, I remember, that the deadline was just two
weeks away. We decided to get everybody generating ideas, so two days after
Tony spoke to us, Chih Yao Yang, Miguel Valderrama, Ron Hatcher, Professor
Terao and I all sat together at the table and started throwing around ideas.
Chih Yao came up with an idea of having a credit card walking a human,
just like a human walking a dog. He thought of that because he saw a woman
walking her dog in his neighborhood, scolding the dog, so he thought why don’t
we swap the characters around and let the human be a dog walked by his credit
card because he has too much credit card debt. Professor Terao thought that wasa great idea, but it would be a challenge to develop and tell a story in just thirty
seconds.
During the brainstorming meeting, we came up with the “Godfather”
idea, using dialogue between a person overwhelmed by his credit card debt and acrook who charges huge sums of money as a credit card debt consultant. Prof.
Terao also wanted to do a music video with a rap song that speaks about credit
card awareness for teens and young adults.
Miguel also came up with an idea about a person stacking up his credit
cards until they fall over. It’s a good image to represent a person racking up toomuch credit card debt.
I was involved with most of the projects. The “Godfather” idea wasnamed “The Visit” and won third prize in the contest. I also was involved with
Miguel’s “Card Stacker” idea (later titled “The House of Cards”) and it won
fourth prize.
The project I was most involved in was the “It’s a Dog’s Life” idea,
which won second prize. After I heard Chih Yao’s initial idea, I started to help
develop the story. Time was a big issue because we had to come up with a story,
a shot list, find a location, shoot, edit, and edit the sound— in twelve days. At
first the story and shot list I thought of didn’t come out quite right. I was missing
some of the details and on the day of the shoot, we weren’t fully prepared. The

91

other challenge was getting all the cast and crew together. The good thing about
having just a little time to prepare, however, was it pushed me to really get things
done without procrastinating. Prof. Terao gave us a pep talk, and taught us how
to get fully prepared in pre-production. He always said that pre-production is themost important stage.
After the first unsuccessful shoot, Professor Terao got involved andhelped make the script flow in a better way. My crew—Chih Yao Yang andMaria Sideris—and I started spending more time on preparation, making
costumes and getting the props together. The pre-production took us a hugeamount of time and by the time we finished, we only had two days left forshooting and editing. The deadline was on Monday. We shot the video on
Saturday and edited the footage on Sunday. The good thing about having acomplete and great pre-production was that it made the production and shoot govery smoothly on Saturday.
I worked on this project from pre-production to production to postproduction. I helped with the shot lists, making costumes, preparing props,
operating the camera, doing the production sound recording, post-production
sound editing and composing of the music. I am glad that I was involved in the
project, not only because we won second prize in the contest, but I learned a lot
and gained a lot of experience.

[In the 2011 New York City Financial Awareness Video Competition, City Tech
students won 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. "Credit Costs," the 1st prize video was
produced by Kenneth Bordes-Hollon; he won $2000 and his video was aired inlocal movie theaters as a public service announcement. The 2nd and 3rd prize
winners were given a celebratory lunch and vault tour at the New York Fed. Toview the top three videos, see
http://www.newyorkfed.org/videocompetition/2011.html and scroll down after
the Puerto Rico contest.]

92

A Rough Ride: No One Seems
To Care How You Get There
C. Daniel Thomas
New York City College of Technology’s Representative to
New York Public Interest Research Group’s State Board

Consider a full-time student attending college and braving the hectic mass transit
system of New York City, to commute to and from school, as a daily routine
during a fifteen-week semester. At the current price of $2.25 a ride, the cost oftransportation is expensive for students, as much as about $700 a year. Many
self-sustaining full-time students do not have jobs. Not all students are selfsustaining, but we can narrow down the individuals who cannot afford this bylooking at how they pay tuition to begin with. Those needing federal (Pell) andstate (TAP) grants to attend school clearly lack financial stability. This group ofunemployed, full-time students who receive need-based free tuition face astruggle paying for transportation.
The state gives grants to students who cannot afford tuition but ignores
how they are to get to school. It is like giving someone water, sugar and lemons,and saying to them “make lemonade” but with no pitcher. If a student isapproved for financial aid, this should signal the incapacity to affordtransportation. But according to Melissa Sangster, a representative of the City
Tech Financial Aid office, financial aid does not cover transportation. The
C.O.P.E. office on campus does offer Metrocard assistance but you must be
working a minimum of twenty hours a week to qualify, so this assistance would
not help students who want to dedicate their time to education alone. In a 2008
student experience survey, performed by the Office of Assessment andInstitutional Research, thirty-two percent of City Tech respondents reported anannual household income of less than $20,000 a year, and eighteen percent reportliving in homes with income below $10,000 a year (“Student Experience Survey”
10). In a school with over 16,000 students (“Facts 2012-2013”), if the
respondents reflect the whole school population, that would mean a significant
number of individuals live below or at the poverty level for a three-member

93family as listed by Kathleen Sebelius, The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
Services who published the 76th volume of the Annual Update of the HHS
Poverty Guidelines (Sebelius fig. 1). Whatever money these individuals may
have should go towards basic necessities such as food, but students may besacrificing food in order to get home. About forty-eight percent of City Tech
students do not live in Brooklyn, so their reliance on the MTA is evident (“Facts
2012-2013”). This is a problem that is real; it affects many students attending
City Tech as well as the other twenty-three CUNY colleges. Six out of ten
CUNY students receive need-based free-tuition, and nearly one billion dollars
was spent on financial aid during 2012-13 to fund their education (“CUNY
Value”). That means that about sixty percent of CUNY students needtransportation assistance.
If you are living in a household below poverty level, should the money
received go towards alleviating the need for basic necessities or totransportation? Dr. Myers, the author of Exploring Psychology, states“biologically speaking, life’s purpose is not happiness but survival andreproduction” (Myers 471). The expense of transportation conflicts with theneeds for an individual’s survival.
I propose a solution, and here’s how it would work. In return for good
grades, the state can award students who are full-time, unemployed and receiving
need-based free tuition with a Metrocard that awards them a certain number ofrides daily. The Metrocard should be available Monday through Saturday (except
holidays), because some students have Saturday classes, and should be acceptedon all MTA buses and trains (except express buses). This enables students to get
to school and focus on their most important job: being in class and learning.
A Metrocard for CUNY students would alleviate the stress of getting tocampus for those who cannot afford transportation. It would bring about a morepositive outlook on school. Furthering your education should not be viewed as afinancial sacrifice; however, problems in attempting to just get here increase thepossibility for one to look at school as a series of problems. We cannot say withcertainty that insufficient funds cause low grades, but there definitely is acorrelation between struggling to survive and poor grades, so the proposal may
help students do better in their college work.
In response to my proposal it could be said that Public Assistance offers
financial assistance for those in need. But Public Assistance is a program that
does not concern itself with the worries of education. In order to be eligible for
Public Assistance you must comply with their requirements that are not schoolrelated. If you have to attend an appointment during class hours, then you are
expected to miss class and follow through with their requirements. This may
cause you to lose time in the classroom. I know this because it has happened tome. The difference between the CUNY Metrocard and Public Assistance is thatin return for good grades you are awarded transportation assistance. Thisapproach supports educational values without forcing students to become
distracted by non-school related requirements.

94

It could be said that young adults must learn to fend for themselves in achallenging world. But psychologically this approach would be a benefit tostudents, causing them to perform better as their work is rewarded. This is“immediate reinforcement” to produce good grades (Myers 239). In other words,
we can condition students to produce good grades with the right incentives. As
Myers explains, many people respond more readily to immediate gratification(immediate reward/immediate reinforcement) and less readily to working toachieve future reward (Myers 240). Good grades consistently reinforced by thisMetrocard will yield better long-term development as well. Myers defines this as“continuous reinforcement: Reinforcing the desired response every time it
occurs” and states that “Under such conditions, learning occurs rapidly, whichmakes continuous reinforcement preferable until a behavior is mastered” (Myers240). Some might say that students might become dependent on the state toproduce good grades. But if some students do become temporarily dependent on
tangible rewards to achieve good grades, in the long run we can condition themto accept social acceptance as a form of reward by praising their academic
accomplishments, through an academic achievements list. But long term, thesolution appears to have no psychological dependency other than what we learn
naturally as humans, that hard work brings rewards.
The CUNY Metrocard solution is practical and affordable; as the statealready funds CUNY students’ tuition they should also fund this Metrocard. The
funding would be automatic for all first semester CUNY freshmen receiving
need-based free tuition and for it to continue another semester, they must meet acertain standard (3.0-3.5 GPA). New York State spends tax revenue and awards
tax credits. The Barclays Center was built, in downtown Brooklyn, at the expenseof taxpayers, money I believe could have been spent better by investing tax
dollars in educating the youth of our city who will build its future. Funds used tosupport lavish stadiums should be channeled into education instead.
Additionally, the 2013 NYS budget gives tax credits for having a green
building and using clean heating fuels. Instead of making these things mandatoryfor established companies, the state provides incentives. They also plan to award
up to $11 million in tax credits to companies as employment incentives and up to$38 million in other “miscellaneous” deductions (Cuomo 21). I believe that thesetaxes should be collected and invested in the future of education as thesecompanies already make a large profit. Many argue that NYS expenditures
exceed its revenue, but with numerous questionable expenses, the need forfinancial reform that benefits New York’s college students is evident.
The solution should be implemented by New York State, since they run
the MTA. According to Ben Fraimow, the New York Public Interest ResearchGroup (NYPIRG) Project Coordinator at City Tech, all the decisions made by the
MTA go through Albany. I urge that petitions, letters and calls to the governor’s
office and state legislators should be made. The MTA has a website where wecan leave comments, to voice our opinions, but without significant numbers themessage may not be heard. Calls to the governor’s office enable the statelegislators to be aware of our concerns; as elected officials, their work should95

always be in the best interest of those who elected them. The State of New York
has apparently allowed the education of New York City to suffer, and maybe thisis because they have no faith that those who are unable to afford schooling arecapable of achieving academic success. At the moment you can liken New Yorkto a delinquent teenager who makes decisions without thinking of the effects
those decisions are going to have on his or her future. The creation of a CUNY
Metrocard system would ensure that New York’s future is bright.

Works Cited“CUNY Value Fact Sheet 2012.” City University of New York Website. 2012.
Web. 21 Nov. 2012.
Cuomo, Andrew M. Governor. "Annual Report on New York State Tax
Expenditures, 2012-13 State Fiscal Year.” New York State Government
Website. 2012: 20-23. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.
"Facts 2012-13." New York City College of Technology Webpage. 2012. Web. 21
Nov. 2012.
Fraimow, Ben. Personal Interview. 28 Nov. 2012.
Myers, David. Exploring Psychology. 8th edition. New York: Worth Publishers.
2011. Print.
Sebelius, Kathleen. "Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines.” U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services Website. 14 January 2011.
Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
“Student Experience Survey CUNY 2008.” Office of Assessment andInstitutional Research at New York City College Of Technology. 2008.
Print.

96

On Happiness: Aristotle and EpicurusOrion McCaine

We all seek happiness. We devote the vast majority of our time to attaining
happiness and all that comes with it—a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment,completion of goals or tasks, and pleasure. The many kinds of happiness include
the “quick fix” that comes in short bursts, moments of pleasure when our needs
or desires are momentarily satisfied; think being hungry, hot or cold, or on amore sinister note, doing drugs. Once we complete whatever it is that wasnecessary for us to be satisfied for the moment, we experience happiness, but it
does not last very long compared to the span of a person’s entire life. Long-term
happiness, on the other hand, is achieved by the completion of goals over thecourse of time—finishing school, staying in good health, being helpful to others.
These goals lead to a pleasure that satisfies both the body and the mind. We
obtain true happiness from fulfilling goals and being satisfied with our character.
This essay will look at happiness through the views of two philosophers,
Aristotle, who believed that true happiness comes from accomplishing goals andliving a virtuous life, and Epicurus, who thought of true happiness as somethingthat is derived from pursuing pleasures. Both philosophers’ positions will be
evaluated.
Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.E.) was a Greek philosopher who believed thathumans are rational beings. We don’t behave in a random or aimless manner;
everything we do has some objective in mind. Aristotle also believed in teleology,
the notion that in nature, there are final causes. These final causes, or telos, aredefined as ultimate ends or goals. A smaller goal accomplished is a mean toward
accomplishing a larger goal. For instance, we make it a goal to wake up early inthe morning to go to work or school, and accomplishing that goal serves thegreater goal of getting a promotion or graduating. Staying healthy is an overall
goal that requires the completion of several smaller goals, e.g. eating a balanced
diet, exercising, making time in your schedule to go to the gym. It is when we
accomplish greater goals in our lives that we can begin to experience true
happiness. Aristotle defines true happiness as attainable and final, allowing us tobe self-sufficient. In his review of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Howard J.
Curzer points out that “happiness is complete, self-sufficient, most choiceworthy,and ‘in accord with the best and most complete virtue.’” True happiness lacks

97nothing. If a person is leading a virtuous life, that is what allows them to be
happy.
A virtuous life, in short, consists of living as a rational being. According
to Aristotle, rationality means being goal-oriented; and rationality is also whatsets us apart from animals. We set the concepts of good morals and goodcharacter as goals to achieve in order to live a happy life. The completion ofthese goals leads to true happiness.
A person should have good character, be resolute, thorough, andresponsible. Happiness comes from being satisfied with our character. A person
who chooses to help others feels good about themselves. This leads to asatisfaction of the mind, making that person content with themselves. When aperson exhibits kindness towards others, it signifies a selflessness that is not heldby everyone else—as long as this kindness is genuine, being kind towards others
strictly for the sake of being kind. A lot of time and effort must be spent on thepath toward obtaining true happiness. This goal takes a lifetime to achieve.
Epicurus (341 – 270 B.C.E.) would have us believe otherwise. Epicurus
was a Greek thinker who followed the hedonistic train of thought, that happinessis derived from the pursuit of pleasure. Epicurus was also an atomist; he believedthat everything we know is made up of atoms that cannot be destroyed and comein an infinite number of forms and sizes and that our lives are just the sum totalof our sensations. Epicurus said that we should give into our indulgences. If wedevelop a particular desire, it is our right to pursue the satisfaction of that desire.
But because too much of anything can lead to displeasure, Epicurus proposedthat we practice prudence while indulging ourselves. For example, if you gethungry, you eat. You do not eat until you are completely overfed to the point
where you experience discomfort. If you have been prudent in satisfying yourhunger, you are happy. But how long does this happiness last? Obviously, weneed to keep eating to continue living, so in this case, the happiness lasts until
you get hungry once again. On a hot summer day, if you get overheated, you willattempt to cool yourself. However, if you get too cold, you will try to warm
yourself again. If life is just a sum total of sensations, then we try to have thatsum skewed towards the side of overall pleasure.
Epicurus referred to the opposite of pleasure as pain. His philosophy
emphasized avoiding pain. In fact, avoiding pain leads to overall pleasure.
“Happiness in the Garden of Epicurus, ” an article from the Journal of HappinessStudies says about Epicurus’ assumption of what leads to happiness, “Thefreedom from pain, which is, as we have seen, in itself a pleasant state, consistsin the lack of pain in the body––aponia––and the non-disturbance of the soul, astate Epicurus called the tranquility of the mind––ataraxia…This state is also
called static pleasure, because it is thought to arise from the stable atomic
structure of our souls.”
This pleasure is described as arising from something stable. If somethingis stable, however, it indicates that it could be, or at one point was, unstable. A
person who follows this ideal is continually working to end up in a place without
pain. This notion of static pleasure differs significantly from long-term happiness.

98

The problem I see is that there is no such thing as “freedom from pain.” Life
includes pain; there will always be some form of discomfort or dissatisfactionthat has to be dealt with, not avoided, to try to live a so-called happier existence.
This could lead to another quandary—in constantly trying to avoid pain, onerisks the chance of becoming dependent on the pleasures that are required tomaintain that static pleasure. We see this in the case of drug addicts; they always
need to achieve their next high. That high is their static pleasure, but it is not
permanent, so they continue to try to obtain the means to return to that state.
There is no end; this state does not signify true happiness. True happiness is selfsufficient and therefore lacks nothing; instead of constant avoidance of pain,
there is the happiness itself.
So where does true happiness come from? It comes internally, both from
fulfilling personal goals and from being satisfied with your character. Whensmaller goals are accomplished, they become means for accomplishingincreasingly larger and more difficult ones. By satisfying these larger goals, wederive a great sense of happiness; the more difficult a goal is, the moregratification we get from its completion. We dedicate much of our lives toachieving true happiness. With true happiness, you get what you give; there are
no shortcuts. The effort and time you put into it, you get back.

99

Hope
Juhair Mahtab

In recent times life has become uncertain. With wars and rebellions going on in
many parts of the world, along with the ongoing economic recession, people havenothing other than despair left in their lives. Most people sleep in fear, never surewhat the next day will bring. They don’t know if they are going to live or die.
They are insecure about their employment. In troubled times such as these, hopehas become the only reason people are still often happy and healthy. Hope helps
people overcome despair and lead their lives the best they can, giving them a way
to imagine that things may become better someday. Hope also plays a major rolein our daily lives. It helps us overcome the various day-to-day uncertainties.
While the definition of hope may be unclear at times and can mean many things
to many people, it is generally accepted as a lack of despair. It is to believe insomething with such determination that even when it seems impossible toachieve the goal, it feels as if the mere desire of achieving it will make it possible.
The origin of hope in Greek mythology is told in Hesiod’s poem
“Theogony” as one of the items Zeus placed into Pandora’s Box. When
Prometheus disobeyed Zeus by stealing fire and giving it as a gift to man, anangered Zeus created the first woman, Pandora, as a curse for man and gave her abox, forbidding her to open it. However, her curiosity got the best of her andwhen she opened the box all the evils of the world came pouring out of it.
Knowing what she had done wrong, Pandora quickly closed the box, trapping thelast thing left in the box, hope. Zeus knew that this would happen so he placedhope in the box. While it is unsure whether Zeus wanted hope to stay in the box
or be released from it, mankind obtained the gift of hope which helped him
overcome all the evils released from Pandora’s Box.
While the origin of hope is unclear, its importance to humankind is not.
Throughout history many great people have succeeded in changing the world
only because they had hope amidst all the despair surrounding them. Let us takethe example of Martin Luther King, Jr. He lived in an America troubled by racial
segregation, unending discrimination and brutal violence against African
Americans. While many African Americans allowed themselves to be exploited,King hoped that one day the treatment of his people could be changed. He hopedthat he, along with all his oppressed brethren, could one day end thediscrimination against them. In King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he saysthat “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded100

by the oppressed.” In many instances his negotiations and protests failed and hishopes were shattered. He asked his brothers and sisters to follow the path of nonviolence, getting hit without retaliation and enduring the ordeal of jail. They
endured postponement after postponement of their planned actions. However,they never felt a complete lack of hope and it was through patience and hard
work, along with a hope to achieve his dreams, that he finally succeeded.
The need for hope has become especially prevalent in recent years. Dueto the ongoing Great Recession, individuals, families, and also corporations areanxious about economic instability. We can no longer have the confidence in ourjobs we once had. We’re scared we may lose our jobs at a moment’s notice. But
it is hope that nothing bad will happen which helps us to overcome our fears andinsecurities and function the way we do in better times. Hope helps us to have an
optimistic view in these times, that one day everything will come back to normal.
We hope that until things get better, nothing bad happens to us.
There have been times for me personally when things seemed bleak andimpossible, but the hope that I might be able to get out of a tight spot andovercome problems helped me to keep a straight mindset and work towards mygoals. Once I was in a swimming competition, competing in the 400-meter
freestyle event for my school’s swimming team. I had been doing pretty well in
the races, and qualified in all the rounds. But in the final race, just after the
beginning, I got a cramp in my leg mid-race. My coach knew something was
wrong and I could hear him yelling at me to stop swimming. However, I didn’t
give up hope and instead fought through the pain and won a bronze in the race.
Personally, I feel if we didn’t have hope life would be bland andmeaningless. We wouldn’t have anything to look forward to with anticipation.
Human life as a whole is based on dreams and the determination to fulfill them.
If we didn’t have hope to keep us energized through psychological challenges,
mankind couldn’t have achieved what we have. In “The Joy of Reading andWriting: Superman and Me,” we learned the author, Sherman Alexie, lived in atime when Native Americans were expected to be illiterate and backwards. They
were expected to be dumb and submissive to the white man. However Alexie
hoped to change that. He was devoted to reading and writing and enjoyed nothing
more than reading. He hoped to change the negative perception of Indians in his
society and he succeeded in this by becoming an accomplished writer of shortstories and novels, proving to the world that Indians could also amount tosomething in life just like everyone else.
Hope is compared to a bird in Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope Is theThing with Feathers.” She visualizes hope as a little bird, a “thing with feathers
that perches in the soul.” It sings to us, never stopping, making us feel contented
and happy. No matter what the weather, be it a storm or the chilliest winds on thestrangest sea, this bird keeps singing ceaselessly. No matter how bad oursituation is, this small thing helps us stay calm during our times of distress. She
also says that the bird sings for us and, despite all its hard work, it never asks its
listeners for a crumb, a reference that hope is something which doesn’t cost us
anything but in moments of our need, it becomes our most beloved possession.

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In Hedrick Smith’s op-ed article “When Capitalists Cared” from The
New York Times, he tells us the story of how Henry Ford took the risk ofadopting new business practices which helped create the American middle class.
He hoped that if the employees were given a higher wage, “the then unheard-of
wage of $5 a day,” it would in turn enable them to become consumers resulting
in the creation of “the virtuous cycle of growth” which would in turn profit thecompany and the economy of the whole country. What we learn about hope from
Smith is that when we take risks, it is often because of hoping for the favorable
outcome of events. Hope gives us the courage to take risks. Every time we invest
resources and time into something, hope allows us to rest assured that it is worthit.
Life without hope is meaningless. Hoping is what makes humans
different from other animals. We live in a society where the outcomes of ouractions are only favorable sometimes and it is hope which helps us take risks.
Hope is what keeps our minds running when all else fails. It is what prevents us
from giving up in moments of despair to achieve what we felt was impossible. It
keeps our dreams alive, that one day we will achieve them. It is what helps us
overcome our fears and insecurities. It is what makes us believe in miracles.
Works Cited
Hesiod. Theogony, and Works and Days. Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1988.
Print.
King, Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Literature for
Composition. 7th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet et al. New York: Longman, 2005.
1221-1234. Print.
Alexie, Sherman. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me.” The
Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Atwan and
Donald McQuade. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2006. 73-76.
Print.
Dickinson, Emily. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171619.
Smith, Hedrick. “When Capitalists Cared.” New York Times 3 Sept. 2012:A:19.
Print.

102

On Being Human, andArtificial Intelligence
Liza Luboa“To err is human; to forgive divine.” This thought from “Essay on Criticism” byAlexander Pope succinctly notes a common understanding of the term “human.”
It is a unique word in that it can describe anything that exhibits the behavior of aperson, yet it lacks a universally accepted definition. Different interpretations ofwhat it means to be human, both benevolent and malicious, can be seen
throughout history. Aristotle (350 B.C.E.) believed that the ultimate goal of every
human being is to achieve infinite happiness while Descartes (1641) argued thatin order for a living creature to be considered human, it must show that it cannot
be deceived into denying its own existence. The field of Computer Science ischallenging such reasoning with the creation of artificial intelligence—the resultof attempts to replicate and maybe even transcend the human capacity to think
and reason. However, being human suggests the ability to understand andrespond rationally to experiences that affect the "soul.” Artificial intelligencecannot recreate this ability even if it can match or even surpass the human levelof intelligence.
According to Aristotle, happiness is the final and finite goal of every
human being. Regardless of the profession or path in life that a person chooses,
all routes lead to the same destination: happiness. Humans make rational
decisions every day that are as much as possible pre-disposed to achieve
happiness; Aristotle found that “some identify happiness with virtue, some withpractical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom…accompanied bypleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity”(Section 8). For many years, this was a widely accepted view of what it meant tobe human, because animals, plants, and inorganic matter could not comprehend
the concept of happiness and did not make rational decisions to achieve it;
therefore they were not considered human beings.
On the other hand, Descartes, having learned all the knowledge of histime, decided to seek new knowledge based on truth. His discovery greatly103troubled him: much of what he knew was based on opinions and beliefs, and theircredence could be questioned. So Descartes decided to forget everything he knew,
and accepted only what he could not doubt as part of his belief system. He
determined that the five senses could be easily deceived. However, his search led
to the conclusion that he could not be convinced by anyone to think that hehimself did not exist. This revelation led to the famous phrase cogito ergo sum,or “I think, therefore I am” and because no other species known to man can
exhibit the same ability, being human primarily relies on the fact that a humanbeing cannot be convinced by others to deny his or her own existence.
Artificial intelligence attempts to create a being that can recreate theability to think and reason like a person. Complex programs have been created tomirror the process of human thought, and their effectiveness has been
demonstrated in the famous chess match between the IBM supercomputer DeepBlue and Garry Kasparov, and more recently, by the victory of another IBM
supercomputer, “Watson,” over Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the chess player
with the longest winning streak. Then there is Cleverbot, a web-based artificial
intelligence that interacts with the person who uses it by relying on responses
previously entered by other users, and creates a database of information that it
can utilize for interaction. But what exactly is the aim of artificial intelligence: toprove that humans are capable of creating a sentient being that can mimic theirthoughts in their own image and likeness—or to create a sentient being that cantranscend the supposed human level of intelligence and make life easier for
people?
Aristotle’s ideology can be criticized because it leaves the definition ofsustainable happiness open to interpretation. He failed to realize that some people
may define happiness in a way that is morally unacceptable. What about those
who find it in deplorable acts such as genocide, murder, torture and theft?
Because everyone has a different idea of what happiness is, they cannot be
considered inhuman for their destructive methods of attaining it. Yet, they areseen by society as “monsters” and “demons” and dehumanized. Would acomputer with artificial intelligence be able to feel and interpret its own
description of happiness? For that matter, would a computer be able, without
relying on a program or a person to feed it information, to independently describe
its happiness?
Meanwhile, Descartes’ dogma, known as Dualism, was tersely criticizedby British philosopher Gilbert Ryle with the phrase, “ghost in the machine.” Ryle
believed that Dualism viewed the human body as nothing more than a “machine”
that houses the soul, or “ghost.” With this argument, it can be said that computers
and machines with artificial intelligence are no different from people. Richard
Dawkins (1976) argues in The Selfish Gene that human beings are nothing morethan “survival machines” created by genes to ensure their continued existence inan ever-changing environment. Because genes lack the capability to make quick
decisions to adapt to the environment, they compensate by creating a brain (p.
60). And according to John Smythies (2009), “the function of the brain is to
discover what is going on in the physical world around the organism and to use

104this information to guide behavior optimally with respect to the short-term andlong-term needs of the organism” (p. 37).
Be that as it may, William R. Clough (2010) points out that “you caneither design a system that is very complex, very costly, and robust and tries toanticipate every possible environment, or you can try to design a system that
adapts to its environment” (p. 142). Essentially, this is one of the maindifferences between humans and computers with artificial intelligence: humans
do not require separate parts to be assembled like computers. Yet assembling acomputer is very complex and very costly: some parts alone can cost hundreds ofdollars alone with the price depending on the specifications required, not tomention the program that fits the needs of the person building the computer. And
human parts cannot be assembled together to form another human and have it
come to life, otherwise the dead would be resurrected everywhere without their“soul,” the very essence of their identity as human beings.
Clough also believes that “all AI requires a programmer. The ‘software’
is not produced by the hardware… the nature of the creator will always
determine the nature of the creation… it will always be a human-created, humanserving construction” (p. 142). Dualism states that the mind is separate from thebody. Artificial intelligence in computers and machines cannot be separated fromtheir bodies because without it, they cannot function. No computer can function
without a program installed into its system to operate it. Furthermore, Dawkins’argument that humans are just machines with brains programmed to ensure thesurvival of genes has been countered by people who choose to defy their genes.
Some choose to consume alcohol past inebriation while others smoke cigarettes
even though research has made it clear that cigarette smoking is detrimental to
one’s health and can lead to emphysema or lung cancer. Humans candemonstrate the ability to override or ignore any directive given to them—computers cannot. They must obey the objectives given to them in theirprogramming, or they will “crash” and suffer internal error.
Humans are consistently fickle creatures, especially when it comes torelationships. They can easily say they dislike someone who has broken theirheart yet moments later profess their inability to live without them. Some people
who are polar opposites in personality somehow manage to stay in a relationship,
puzzling their friends and family. Yet despite the illogical nature of these two
scenarios, people do not find them strange as a computer would: they have gone
through or will eventually have the same experience again at some point. A
computer with artificial intelligence will try to analyze why two people who arepolar opposites or someone in an abusive relationship would stay, whereas
humans would just shrug off the first example and try to help their fellow humanbeing in the second.
Moreover, computers with artificial intelligence do not see the value ofhuman interaction. Unlike humans (if we discount sociopaths), computers with
AI can easily remain detached from conversations without regret or concern. For
example, Cleverbot can ask if the person it interacts with is okay, but is it truly
concerned with the human user’s well-being, or is Cleverbot simply repeating a105

question that it acquired from another person it interacted with? Brian Christian(2011) summarizes it best in the following:
I remember being enchanted as a kid with the early Hardy Boys
books by Franklin W. Dixon, but after a certain point in theseries, the magic seemed to disappear... The first fifteen books
were written by a man named Leslie McFarlane. The next twenty
were written by eleven different people. What I’d chalked up to
the loss of something intangible in those later books was in fact
the loss of something very tangible indeed: the author.
Aesthetic experiences like these for me are like an unending
series of blind dates where you never follow up, conversations
with a stranger on a bus (or the Internet) where you never catchthe other person’s name. There’s nothing wrong with them—
they’re pleasant, sometimes memorable, even illuminating—and
all relationships start somewhere. But to live a whole life likethat? (p. 31)
Next, when humans are drawn to someone they like, because ofchemicals released in the brain or an emotional attraction felt in the soul, they
pay more attention to that person and show interest by getting to know him or her
better. That interest could lead to the development of a relationship or heartbreak
and a soul being crushed. Artificially-intelligent computers do not exhibit thesame behavior: they simply interact to gather information and then move on. Anyinterest they show in a person is purely based on acquiring as much knowledge as
they can for analysis or data gathering, nothing more. Humans can certainly
behave the same way, but it would be dull and distressing to the soul. And what
exactly is the soul?
The soul is usually defined as a spiritual essence that lies within each andevery human being. It cannot be seen, yet it is believed to exist. Somephilosophers argue that the soul doesn’t exist and that the concept of thought isjust a result of signals in the brain responding to chemicals. But if this is truly thecase, then what drives people to ponder certain aspects of their life and go onjourneys to fill that emptiness inside them? Surely Aristotle had to haveconsidered the concept of the soul when he reasoned that every human action isdone to attain sustainable happiness! And Descartes believed in the concept of asoul when he created his famous phrase—a person must have a soul in order tohave consciousness, represented by the fact that he can’t be deceived into
denying his own existence.
Attempts to capture the essence that is the soul can be seen in art andmusic. Songs and poems about unrequited love, jealousy, loss, and the joy ofbeing with that special person permeate the lives of almost everyone. No matterthe language, people are able to understand the emotions and the way it touches
their souls. Wendell Wallach (2011) states:
Emotional engagement is a very important tool for humans. It
grounds us in our world, it connects us and gives form to subtle
responses to difficult challenges, and some of these responses are106very moral or empathetic… machines are far from displaying thekinds of emotional intelligence we observe in even youngsters.
People have a capacity for discernment, for discrimination, forrecognizing what is important from what isn’t. We have theability to bond with and care about each other, to show
compassion, to imagine ourselves in the position of others. (p.
141-142)
Would a computer with artificial intelligence be able to understand thedepth and meaning of a song about unrequited love like “Someone like You” byAdele? The computer can certainly analyze the words of the song and deduct that
it is about Adele’s regret and sorrow over an ex-lover, but would it be able to feelthe emotion behind the lyrics the way humans do?
Of course, the word “art” is almost as indefinable as the word “ human.”
Different forms of art exist, and opinions on what is true art make for a neverending debate among aficionados. Salvador Dali is hailed as one of the greatest
artists, along with Pablo Picasso and Leonardo Da Vinci, yet many are unable tounderstand the eccentricity and emotion behind his works. If the beauty of art isfound in the emotion within the piece itself, could an artificially-intelligent
computer or machine create a masterpiece? Granted, it might get some leeway
based on the fact that there is no definition of true art, but part of what makes art
appealing is that undefinable humans have created it, and at least one person will
be able to grasp the inspiration and the small bit of the artist within the work. The
knowledge that a human with emotions is behind any masterpiece is a small
comfort that most take for granted, simply because we know that artificial
intelligence can never truly mimic the creativity of a human being.
But then, why are humans so determined to create beings that can think
and feel like them? The thought of another sentient being that can think like aperson is undeniably exciting but Wallach advises caution, saying “I am skepticalthat we know enough about the brain to emulate human intelligence” (p. 136).
Continuous research is conducted on the human body, especially on the brain, tounderstand diseases such as Alzheimer’s and epilepsy and how to prevent them.
Are humans essentially recreating themselves to overcome the limitations of
biology and access all the advantages of technology? Wallach brings anotherinteresting argument to the debate:
What safeguards are needed to minimize accidents caused by AI
systems operating in situations that designers and manufacturers
did not anticipate? How should the adoption of robonannies for
infant care and service robots tending the homebound andelderly be regulated? (p.136)
These concerns can be attributed to Isaac Asimov’s famous Three Laws
of Robotics, designed to prevent robots from harming humans or allowing themto come to harm. But as artificial intelligence continues to advance and develop
each year, it is only a matter of time before the concept of morality becomes partof the program that runs computers. Morality is a very complex subject because it
cannot be seen with the “black and white” perspective that computers depend107

upon to function: their binary system stays strictly to a “yes” or “no” structure
and computer programming is primarily mathematical in nature. Adding toWallach’s argument that people do not know enough about the brain to emulate it,
Berrar, Sato, and Schuster (2010) point out that “mathematical models are still
simplistic compared to the daunting complexity of real biology” (p. 4).
Still, lack of knowledge about the brain and the conscience or the
problem of applying morality to computers should not be seen as a deterrent tomaking them more “human.” For the time being, computers are still incapable ofevolving without depending on human intervention and this relationship has
proven to be symbiotic. According to Allenby and Sarewitz (2011):
The human and the technological will not clash, with one or theother emerging victorious. Nor will technology, reaching down
its empathic paw, raise us from the trials and tribulations ofbeing human. Rather, what will happen is what has already been
happening: the two will continue to merge and re-make one
another on the individual scale, on the institutional scale, on thesocial scale, on the planetary scale. (p. 118)
Until computers and machines learn to progress on their own, they willcontinue to rely on human input to develop a semi-solid idea of what it means to
be human. In the motion picture I, Robot (2004), Sonny, a unique, artificiallyintelligent robot that behaves in a humanlike way, asks his human friend,
Detective Spooner, what he will do now that his primary purpose has been
fulfilled. Detective Spooner tells Sonny that he will have to find his way like anyother human. So much about human nature is spoken in this brief interaction
because it highlights a big part of what it means to be human: to discover thereason behind our existence. Computers and machines are built for a purpose, but
why have humans been created? Are people simply just the result of copulation?
Or is there a reason why every human being on earth exists? As long as there isno definite answer, humans will always struggle to learn the reason behind their
existence. Computers and machines will never have to worry about that: after all,they were built by humans for a reason.
Research has shown that humans are genetically related to chimpanzees.
Marine biologists have proved that humans are also related to fish since both
species descended from the same ancestor albeit human beings evolved
differently. Yet humans consider themselves special because of the ability tounderstand their experiences that affect the “soul,” with art, music, and culture.
Humans do not behave with a “hive mind”; they can connect with one anotheryet exercise autonomy at any given moment. From the moment they are bornhuman beings have an unexplained hunger that drives them to seek whatever will
satisfy it. When humans develop consciousness, they recognize that hunger andponder it.

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Berrar, D., Sato, N., & Schuster, A. (2010). Quo vadis, artificial intelligence?.
Advances in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2010, article ID 629869. 1-12.
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Christian, B. (2011) The most human human. New York: Doubleday.
Clough, W. R. (2010). Natural intelligence and intelligible design: Towardharmonious integration. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 22 (1/2),
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Cohen, A.M. (2011). Searching for the ghost in the machine. World Future
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Dawkins, R. (2009). The selfish gene (30th anniversary ed.). New York: Oxford
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Descartes, R. (1641). Of the nature of the human mind; And that it is more easily
known than the body. In Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditation 2).
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