Greek Tragedy Essay Example for Free

Greek Tragedy Essay Art and literature has existed throughout time to represent and express cultural values, ideals and perceptions. It often portrays the forces that push ones particular culture onward, mentally stimulating and expanding individual mind and thought. In ancient Greek culture, Art and Literature is combined in a way that represented all of these things to its people. This combination is what we know as ancient Greek Theater, an art of drama and song, with the structure of spoken portions interlaced with choral lyrics, all concerned with mans fate. 1 Greek tragedy is credited to have developed around 534 B. C when the Greek Thespis created drama in which a main actor conversed with the leader of the chorus (this is where the term thespian originated, it has been used to describe an actor since the early 19th century). 2 Aeschylus, the first of the great 3 tragic poets, added a second actor to his plays and had a chorus of around 12. Sophocles, the second of the great poets, added the third actor and increased the chorus to 15 members. Sophocles is considered to model Greek tragedy, with Aeschylus marking the preparation and Eudripidies the decline. 3 These plays where preformed at Festivals in open-air theaters in which poets competed for prizes. It is widely accepted that these festivals where religious, and honored the Greek god Dionysius (God of Wine). All plays where developed around well-known ancient Greek myth, it was the Poets job to develop character and deepen plot. Each festival included 3 tragic poets to present a tetrology. (A group of 4 plays) which consisted of 3 tragedies and one satyr. 4 Each play would include anywhere from two to four actors, and an assembly of 12-15 choral members. It was each actors responsibility to display the plot through speech, however they where also responsible for singing solos. The chorus was an important tool in Greek tragedy as they commented on each scene and proposed subtleties to the audience, their song also heightened the emotion and atmosphere of the play. 5 Aristotles Poetics is considered the most valuable source of guidance for Greek tragedy. Aristotle defines tragedy as a drama which concerned better than average people (heros, kings, gods) who suffer a transition from good fortune to bad fortune and who speak in an elevated language. 6 It is also defined as a literary composition written to be preformed by actors in which a central character, called the tragic protagonist or hero, suffers some serious misfortune which is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected with the heros actions. 7 The hero is often host to some tragic flaw (hermatia) for which he himself is responsible, and which leads to his eventual downfall. However, Aristotle describes this tragic flaw to lead to a mistake in which the Protagonist is not aware. The heros destruction is often due to his self-ignorance. It is important to understand what Aristotle believes is the purpose for Greek tragedy in order to completely understand some of its main aspects. In Aristotles opinion, one of the marks of great tragedy is its ability to create a Cartharsis, the act of purging the soul of fear and pity. 8 Through creating a complex protagonist, a character who is seen as a great man, or hero, the audience in turn creates respect. Through this characters tragic flaw, and ignorance to his actions, the audience is drawn and starts to pitty the hero. The audience imagines themselves in the heros situation, and although they know the outcome of the story (as all Greek tragedy is bases on well-known Greek myth) they suspensefuly await the heros reaction to his fate. So this purging allows the audience to shed excess fear, refreshing their conscience so that it can exist in a healthy balance. Aristotle theorized that tragedy is rooted in the fundamental order of the universe. 9 Tragedy is a worse case scenario, which describes the possible effects of simple probability. It creates a cause-and-effect chain in which any individual can envision themselves as part of. We can now understand the importance of certain aspects of the tragic heros character and his responsibility to uphold the plot. A hero, in the Greek sense, is a man who by his extraordinary career has pushed back the horizons of what is possible for humanity and is then deemed worthy of commendation after his death. 10 As we know, this hero is not flawless. However, it is important to realise that in what Aristotle values as good tragedy, these flaws often contribute to the very virtues which allow our protagonist to become a hero in the first place. In other words, tragic irony is implicated, and it is the same incidents and qualities of a man which catapult him to hero stature as those which drag him down. Tragedy is concerned with the fate of big men. 11 Aristotle believed that Sophocles, Oedipus Rex was the perfect tragedy. Why was Oedipus Rex in effect the perfect tragic hero? Oedipus was a great man and King of Thebes. He was self righteous, hasty and suspicious of his friends, but we also see that if it where not for these qualities Oedipus would not have continued with his inquiries. His heroic nature is magnified in his persistence for the truth despite the fact that it became quite obvious that gaining further knowledge would end in disaster and self-destruction. 12 Peripeteia is when a character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended to produce. 13Aristotle firmly believed that all good tragedy proposed some peripeteia within its plot. This is perfectly represented within Oedipus Rex. Oedipus promises his people that he will find the root of the plague that gripped his kingdom. In ancient Greek times, it was believed that illness and plague where signs from the gods that they where upset or a crime against their godly standards had been committed. So as any noble hero would do, Oedipus sets out on a quest for this knowledge. He soon discovers that the murder of Thebes prior king, Laius, is the root off his citys pollution. He vows to discover the murderer, and sets the punishment of death or banishment to whomever was found guilty. This was his intention. We can also see again that Oedipus is a noble hero, as he is a king and he is willing to go to any ends for his people. These traits would have invoked feelings of respect in the minds of the audience. As Oedipus discovers more information, he draws nearer to the conclusion that it is possible that through self-blindness and ignorance, Oedipus himself is the likely murderer of Laius. Through this step in the play we see that again Oedipus carries the qualities of a tragic hero; his murdering of Laius was due to his self-arrogance and lack of knowledge that the man who he was killing was of high status. This murder was indeed due to Oedipuss tragic flaw of Hubris (arrogant disregard for the rights of others, or overbearing pride or presumption 14) but he was unaware of the consequences and the murder was quite spontaneous. Oedipus continues to search for the truth despite his possible self-guilt, as he states that he must be sure that he is indeed Leuiss murderer. This, according to human standards, Oedipus not only behaved well in this situation, but he is known to have asserted the dignity of manhood. Alas, more investigation does lead to his definite guilt, and also leads to what is known as an Agagnorisis, or a change from ignorance to knowledge. 15 Oedipus had not been born heir to the throne of Thebes. After learning of a prophecy that he would one-day murder his father and marry his mother, he ran away from his parents to escape this fate. He had arrived in Thebes just after the time of Laiuss death. A sphinx was afflicting the city at the time, and he defeated it, there-for winning the admiration of the Thebans and stealing the heart of newly widowed queen, Jocasta. Their marriage was nearly instant, and they lived in happiness for some years and produced a number of children. So it was at this agagnorisis when Oedipus learnt that he had been adopted, and that Laius had been his father, and Jocasta his mother. They had discarded him apon a hill after hearing the very same prophocy, hoping they too could escape their fate. This unraveling of the plot is called the lusis. 16 This is where the Peripeteia is for filled. Although Oedipus had always intended to catch and punish the murderer of Leius, he in no way intended that it would be himself who was responsible. This is also ironic in the sense that twice he had unknowingly set the path for his own destruction. Another form of Greek tragedy is the decision that the tragic hero must face once he has reached his agagnorisis. 17 Oedipus had a choice, to continue to live in sin with his mother/wife and perpetuate the slow destruction of Thebes, or to uphold the little dignity he had left, finally accept his fate and finalize the promises he made to his people. Oedipus chooses to do what any hero would do, accept responsibility for his actions and punish himself as he promised to do in the beginning of the play. The knowledge of his sin against his father and mother causes him to blind himself, as he could not bear to look upon the world any longer. This fact again adds irony to the story, as when Oedipus was able to see physically, he was still blind to his past and the consequences of his actions. Through his blinding, he was self-knowing, and he had for the first time accepted his fate. He left Thebes as a blind beggar. Although in some respects Oedipus is now seen as no longer a hero, the audience would have respected his final decisions, and in some way he had corrected his moral flaw through his self-punishment. We can now question the belief of fate and pre-determination. Greek tragedy did indeed deal with the role of the gods in mortal life and to the extend that mortals controlled their actions. Oedipus was responsible for his deeds, as it was by no accident that Laius died, and Oedipus did have a tragic flaw, which led to this murder. But we can also examine the fact that a prophecy existed which laid out the steps that Oedipus would take through out his life. If it where not for Oedipuss knowledge of this prophecy, would he have ever left his home in Corinth, would he have ever murdered Laius, and married his mother? Or we can look even further into Oedipuss past; if Jocasta and Leius had not known of this prophecy, they would never had abandoned Oedipus, and perhaps he would never had committed the sins which it seems he was destined to commit. So again we see a cause and effect chain, knowledge leading to ignorance, ignorance in turn leading to knowledge, blindness to sight, sight to blindness. It is also argued that it was the individuals attempt to escape their fate which was the true crime against the gods. It is at this point we can see how the Cultural Revolution, known as The Greek Enlightenment, effected these dramas. It was from this new atmosphere of questioning and individualism in which man started to question the meaning of life beyond the restraints of God rules man. And not only did Greek tragedy come to question the gods, it also questioned what it meant to be human. 18 1 The Complete Plays of Sophocles. 2 http://www. stemnet. nf. ca/~hblake/tragedy1. html 3 http://www. classics. cam. ac. uk/Faculty/tragedy. html 4 www.depthame. brooklyn. cuny. edu 5 15 Greek Plays 6 The Complete Plays of Sophocles 7 www. depthame. brooklyn. cuny. edu 8 9 www. cnr. edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics. html 10 The Complete Plays of Sophocles. 11 The Complete Plays of Sophocles 12 The Complete Plays of Sophocles 13 www. depthame. brooklyn. cuny. edu 12 American Heritage dictionary 15 www. cnr. edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics. html 16 www. cnr. edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics. html 17 http://www. stemnet. nf. ca/~hblake/tragedy1. html 18 http://www. stemnet. nf. ca/~hblake/tragedy1. html.

What Are The Hazards Of Pollution Environmental Sciences Essay

What Are The Hazards Of Pollution Environmental Sciences Essay Pollution refers to adverse alteration of the natural phenomena by human beings, animals or natural disasters which may affect life in one way or another negatively. Pollution is a health hazard that can cause detrimental effects to the natural environment we live in. It occurs in different forms like: Air pollution (atmospheric), land pollution, water pollution, light pollution and noise pollution Air (atmospheric) pollution This refers to a situation whereby the atmosphere surrounding us is contaminated by foreign materials of gaseous nature or particulate matter. These particles or gases may be in form of dust, excess carbon-dfioxide, excess sulphur-dioxide, and smoke among many others. All these materials can alter the natural state of atmosphere making it polluted. Dust for instance can cause diseases like asthma and tuber-closis to humans as well a affecting the transportation activities like the volcanic eruptions. A lot of dust in the air makes the rain water that could have been for domestic benefits useless. Diseases like the ones mention above caused by excess dust in the atmosphere makes increases expenses on our budgets and can lead to poverty to many countries in the world. Excess smoke in the atmosphere can cause choking and some lung problems leading to health complications. Smoke from industries has led to depletion of the ozone layer that shields ultra violet rays from reaching the earth. Ultra violet rays from the sun can cause dangerous diseases like skin cancer to human beings and also affect plants which the primary producers on earth. Gases such as carbon-dioxide and sulphur in excess will not allow the light hits the ground to be reflected back into the atmosphere. This will lead to global warming that has completely altered the way of life on earth at this century. Global warming has caused extreme weather conditions like too much rain leading to floods and also extreme temperatures which have led to desertification. Floods are dangerous to our lives and causes loss of life as it has been witnessed in so many parts of the world. Desertification on the other hand has caused hunger because of lack of rainfall to facilitate plant growth. All the se factors are the end results of excess gases in the atmosphere that brings about global warming that causes extreme weather conditions. Recently a volcanic eruption in Iceland in southern Europe caused major economic losses to so many countries in the world. The eruption paralyzed air transportation which in turn affected many businesses. Tourism activities in and out of Europe were negatively affected because many tourists could not travel. The dust particles that were ejected out of the volcano were believed to affect the planes engines and were likely to cause some mechanical problems that can make the plane to crush leading to loss of life. The particles also reduced visibility to pilots and made navigation quite cumbersome to them. Too much gases like sulphur in the atmosphere has resulted into acidic rainfall which has corroded so many buildings and also destroying plants. When rainfall (water) combines with sulphur it forms a weak acid known as sulphuric acid that accompanies rain water when it rains. The acid will attack buildings by corroding them.Alot of economic losses are realized when this occurs. Plants will not grow to maturity because of acid rain and will lead to hunger and starvation due to lack of food. Land pollution This form of pollution mainly comes as a result of human activities like, uncontrolled waste disposal and industrialization. Disposing of waste in uncontrolled manner leads to a polluted environment. Disposing raw sewage in an open area for example can cause diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentery and others because it will allow flies to access the sewage and food that we eat at the same time. From an economic perspective, this is also a big blow to the sector because a lot of money will be used in trying to treat the patients. Consequently the outcome is a poor economic growth. A high increase in population is also indirectly or directly contributing to land pollution in the sense that the pressure exerted on the limited land leads to degredation.Also human activities like over grazing causes land pollution because the number of animals kept in a small space will highly degrade the same piece of land by overexploiting it. The result of these is the soil erosion and desertificatio n. Some big industries in big towns may carelessly dispose dangerous waste like mercury on the environment. The chemicals can affect people indirectly because plants growing in the same area take in the same chemicals. Research has shown that tubers like Cassavas can store these very dangerous chemicals. Other factories can also release chemicals that can cause dangerous diseases like cancer to people nearby if not controlled. Mining activities also contribute to land pollution. Some miners can dig huge holes and fail to fill them up after the activity. The same holes can be dangerous to people around the mining area. Also some minerals like Uranium are of adverse effect to the surrounding community if not carefully handled. Other human activities like cutting down of trees to create room for settlement has led to pollution through degradation. Due to ever increasing population, natural forests have been destroyed by human beings to give space to rapidly increasing population. Also uncontrolled recreational activities like tourism have led to land pollution especially in parks and reserves where wild animals call home. Tourists may throw plastic bags or polythene backs to the environment hence making the natural habitat for animals uncomfortable for them. Water pollution Water pollution is the most dangerous form of pollution. As the saying goes that water is life, then pollution of water means that the entire life on earth is threatened. Water pollution occur in a variety of forms like releasing chemicals into the water from nearby industries or polluting by machines like ships and motor-boats that use water as a means of transport. Water supports different life forms which also supports human life apart from providing us with drinking water. Some animals that live in water like fish is the main aquatic source of food to human beings. When the water is polluted by chemicals like mercury for example, human beings risk the consumption of such chemicals because the fish that we eat contains such chemicals in their bodies. Also when the industries release raw sewage to a nearby water source people in that area risk getting diseases like cholera that threatens life of most people. Noise pollution Noise pollution is the kind of pollution that affect entirely humans and other animals that are sensitive to hearing. This type of pollution cause disturbance to victims and makes them very uncomfortable. Human beings for instance may not like loud music at night during the time of sleep. Persistent loud music in the surrounding especially at night or any time that silence is paramount is considered to be noise pollution. Noisy industries or factories should be located far away from residential areas to avoid noise pollution. Also in national parks animals may not like noise made by tourists visiting such places and that is why one can sometimes see posters in the entrance to such places that noise is prohibited. Noise in an environmental hazard that can cause health problems to people. Too much noise can make people deaf because of the destruction of eardrums. Light pollution This is brought about by too much light. This type of pollution affects both humans and animals. One can be rendered blind if he or she is exposed to too much light.Ligth is very important in our life but in excess one can be rendered blind. Many of us are able to see because of light but if we do not limit the amount of light we are exposed to, we can be affected negatively in our ability to see. There are varieties of light sources like the sun, electricity mirror reflection and flash lights that help us to see. We need therefore to control the amount of light that we are exposed to in order to avoid light pollution. The most dangerous type of pollution is water pollution because water is the basis for life. Water provides life to almost every living creature on earth. Even scientific researches show that our bodies are seventy five percent water, and then if water is polluted then we risk the danger of perishing. Plants that manufacture food that we eat depend on water for their growth. This initiates a series of interdependency among life forms that ultimately ends up in humans. Work cited Cairn.J.(1997), Biological methods of assessing water quality.ASTM International. Sell.N. (1992) Pollution control.SAGE Kryza.K.(2007). Inspiring middle and secondary learners.Corwin Express. Clarence.D.(1970).The politics of pollution.Pegasus. Clarkson J.(1988).Acid rain.Duke University Press.

Robber Barons in America Essay -- Cornelius Vanderbilt Wealth Money Es

Robber Barons in America What is a robber baron? Webster’s New Dictionary defines it as an American capitalist of the late 19th century who became wealthy through exploitation (As of natural resources, governmental influence, or low wage scales) or a person who satisfies himself by depriving another. In America we had a lot of these kind of people. For this report I am going to tell you about the ones that I found most interesting to me. I would first like to tell you about Cornelius Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in Port Richmond on Staten Island, N. Y. in 1794. Cornelius at the age of 16 had already stepped into the busniess world and he didn’t even know it. At 16 he entered into the steamboat business when he established a freight and passenger service between Stanton Island and Manhattan. Little did Cornelius know this would be one of the key ways he would make his millions upon millions. Cornelius entered the steamer business in 1818, and bought his first steamship in 1829. Cornelius was not a laid back guy nothing was ever good enough for him. If you had and Cornelius Vanderbilt wanted it there wasn’t much you could do to keep him from getting it. This is the kind of attitude that put him on top of the world. After establishing his steamboat Vanderbilt became a very vigorous competitor, lowering his rates while also making his ships top of the line. Vanderbilt the entrepuner himself soon controlled must of the Hudson River. After awhile his f ellow competitors in the steamboat business paid him to take some of his traffic elsewhere so that he wouldn’t get all the work. By 1846 Vanderbilt was a very wealthy man and with wealth he learned cam power. He became widely know as the Commodore Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt sold his steamboats in 1862 and began buying railroad stocks. In a mere 5 years Vanderbilt used his power to uphold most of the New York Central Railroad system. Vanderbilt like in his steamboats strived to be the best in the railroads now. Vanderbilt established many railway systems during his railroad career maybe his most famous was that of the one that connected New York and Chicago in a direct rail route in 1873. At the time of Vanderbilt’s death in 1877 he was worth over 100 million dollars the most at that time. Another questionable hard workingman is that of John Davison Rockefeller. Rockefeller was born in R... ...of what we know about cars to Henry Ford. Ford died April 7, 1947, in Dearborn. Who owns the â€Å"Superstation† and the Atlanta Braves? The television king Robert Edward Turner III who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1938. Turner who was educated at the Georgia Military Academy and Brown Universitey. Turner had a major set back in his life after his dad committed suicide. He inherited the family billboard-advertising business. In 1970 Turner had bought a failing television station in Atlanta, Georgia and by 1975 he had transformed it in to one of the leading stations.. He did this by showing low-cost sports and entertainment programs via satellite to cable systems throughout the country. In 1976 Turner bought the baseball team the Atlanta braves and then the next year he bought the Atlanta Hawks In 1980 Turner invented Cable News Network(CNN) the first 24 hour news station. In 1988 he launched Turner Network Television(TNT). Then in 1991 Turner married the actress Jane Fonda. Turner now at the age of 63 still owns all his companies. I would have to say that after doing this report I learned that no matter how you earn the money you just have to have it to be successful.

Vittorio de Sicas The Bicycle Thief Essay -- Movies Film Bicycle Thie

Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief Since the beginning of its existence as a country, Italy has faced enormous challenges in establishing itself as a unified political and social entity. The geographic, economic, and linguistic differences between its various regions and the artificial manner in which they were amalgamated created a legacy of internal divisions that continues to dominate the country's political climate to this day. Italy's numerous historical fiascoes, such as its disastrous involvement in the two World Wars and the rise of fascism, further escalated the domestic problems that had haunted it since the Risorgimento. At first, the anti-fascist Resistance movement, which dominated the end of World War II, seemed to bring Italy a ray of hope, promising a new era of freedom, reform, and democratic representation. However, this hope was quickly extinguished, as widespread poverty, government corruption, and deep divisions between regions and classes persisted and no true social reform was attained. These ha rsh conditions were depicted by a group of Italian film directors whose neorealist works have since been celebrated as masterpieces of world cinema. One of the most prominent of these is Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief. This 1948 film discusses the prevalent themes dominating Italy's social and political history, within the context of the unsettlingly poor post-War urban proletariat. Among the most prominent motifs in Italian politics since the Risorgimento has been a tendency for quasi-action (inaction disguised as action), in the form of transformismo and attendismo. The first of these terms refers to the practice of "assuring the government of an adequate majority in parliament either by a prelimina... ...ial failure. This somber conclusion of the film seems to be an expression of hopelessness for Italy's future. By 1948, the country had gone through a series of tumultuous historical events, caused by the inadequacy of its political and economic system. The disillusionment of its citizens with the system and in fact with the very concept of their nation was taken to its limits by yet another failure to achieve true social change after World War II. The transformismo of the Christian Democrats and the attendismo of the Communists offered no hope for Italians, appearing as just another stage in the country's endless cycle of political and social failure. The Bicycle Thief is a portrait of Italy's collective consciousness, haunted by its disturbing past and disillusioned towards its future. Works Cited; URL:http://www.film.queensu.ca/Critical/Bonikowski.html Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief Essay -- Movies Film Bicycle Thie Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief Since the beginning of its existence as a country, Italy has faced enormous challenges in establishing itself as a unified political and social entity. The geographic, economic, and linguistic differences between its various regions and the artificial manner in which they were amalgamated created a legacy of internal divisions that continues to dominate the country's political climate to this day. Italy's numerous historical fiascoes, such as its disastrous involvement in the two World Wars and the rise of fascism, further escalated the domestic problems that had haunted it since the Risorgimento. At first, the anti-fascist Resistance movement, which dominated the end of World War II, seemed to bring Italy a ray of hope, promising a new era of freedom, reform, and democratic representation. However, this hope was quickly extinguished, as widespread poverty, government corruption, and deep divisions between regions and classes persisted and no true social reform was attained. These ha rsh conditions were depicted by a group of Italian film directors whose neorealist works have since been celebrated as masterpieces of world cinema. One of the most prominent of these is Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief. This 1948 film discusses the prevalent themes dominating Italy's social and political history, within the context of the unsettlingly poor post-War urban proletariat. Among the most prominent motifs in Italian politics since the Risorgimento has been a tendency for quasi-action (inaction disguised as action), in the form of transformismo and attendismo. The first of these terms refers to the practice of "assuring the government of an adequate majority in parliament either by a prelimina... ...ial failure. This somber conclusion of the film seems to be an expression of hopelessness for Italy's future. By 1948, the country had gone through a series of tumultuous historical events, caused by the inadequacy of its political and economic system. The disillusionment of its citizens with the system and in fact with the very concept of their nation was taken to its limits by yet another failure to achieve true social change after World War II. The transformismo of the Christian Democrats and the attendismo of the Communists offered no hope for Italians, appearing as just another stage in the country's endless cycle of political and social failure. The Bicycle Thief is a portrait of Italy's collective consciousness, haunted by its disturbing past and disillusioned towards its future. Works Cited; URL:http://www.film.queensu.ca/Critical/Bonikowski.html

Wid and Gad

COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) APPROACH AND THE GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT (GAD) Gender by definition refers to the characteristics, trades, attributes or even roles that are expected for males and females by a given culture or society. Some can say the general social meaning of being male or female. The WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) this approach was developed in the early 1970’s this came to use during the United Nation Decade of women (1972-1985).This approach viewed women as passive beneficiaries of the development according to Miller, C and Razavi, S 1995 , in actual fact there was a growing realization that women were being left out of the economic development or that they were not benefiting significantly from it. The WID therefore views women’s lack o participation as the main problem. While on the other hand the GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT (GAD) approach emerged in the early 1980’s , it emerged from the limitations of both the WID and WAD (WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT) its main objective was to remove disparities in social, economic and political equality between men and women.Back to the WID it mainly focused on women, the approach seeks to integrate women into economic development through legal and administrative support. The WID approach has enhanced peoples und erstanding of the women’s developmental needs particularly the need to improve statistical measures of women’s work and to provide women with more opportunities for education and employment. WID has helped mainstream gender issues in many developed agencies and polices as well as increase women’s visibility. However the GAD approach argues that women’s status in society is in the national, regional and global economies .It is not just on moment but also on the social relations between women and men, be it the workplace or in other settings. Gender relations are seen as the key determinant of women’s position in society , not as immutable reflections of order but as socially constructed patterns of behavior. The GAD approach sees gender division of labour the work done by women in the household. Women are usually in a disadvantage position in the work place as compared to men , promotion of gender equality implies explicit attention to women’ s needs , interest and perspectives .The GAD approach looks at the impact of development on both women and men, it seeks to ensure that both men and women participate in and benefit from development. However the GAD also recognizes that women’s may be involved in development but not necessarily benefit from it (Moyoyeta, 2004). The GAD also pays special attension to the oppression of women in the family or the â€Å"family sphere† of women’s lives as a result we have seen projects develop addressing issues such as domestic violence, and violence against women. The GAD approach assumptions were that they were unequal power ratios between man and womenPrevents equitable developments (Makombe, 2010) Moreover the biggest contribution of GAD is the inclusion of man into the approach, it does not exclusively emphasize the solidarity of women. This approach acknowledges that women spent a lot of time bearing, raising children , cooking , washing , fetching water caring for the sick and elderly attending to fields and small stock. It also observes that women have no control over their fertility and over productive resources. It also helped us to understand that the gender division of labor gives triple roles thus the reproductive productive and community to women in society.The WID had the following limitations that however as already mentioned led to the formation of the GAD, the limitations of the WID are by exclusively targeting women WID creates tension, suspicion and hostility. It also does not challenge gender relations and assumes that these will change as women become economic partners in development. Furthermore the approach focuses on integration of women into ongoing development strategies. In as much as the GAD was a better approach to WID it also had its limitations, the GAD advocates for the re-examination or deconstruction of gender roles hence it is likely to depend on the goodwill of men.In a nutshell the GAD approach was a better approach to the WID; therefore the gad approach liberates, empowers and promotes partnership and equitable distribution of resources and benefits. WHICH OF THE TWO APPROACHES HAS CONTRIBUTED MORE TO INVOLVEMENT OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT [4] The WID approach hoped to bring women into development through providing them with opportunities for employment or engaging them in income generating projects. This would, as it were, remove them from the private sphere into the public sphere.The GAD approach goes beyond seeing development as mainly economic well being but also that the social and mental well being of a person is important. It should also be noted that the biggest contribution of GAD is the inclusion of men into the approach. The approach brings in the part played by some women in perpetuating gender inequality when these women connive with patriarchy to exploit, subordinate and oppress young women in the third world. Women in Development wanted to remove patriarchy and replace it with matriarchy as they believed that every man has a woman to exploit, oppress and subordinate.GAD concentrate more on the idea that women must be lifted from poverty and contribute more to the developments efforts. It argues that women have a role to play both in reproduction and in production process, it acknowledges their economic roles and class decisions for development to take place. GAD argues that understanding women and men`s roles and responsibilities as part of the planning of development interventions helps to improve project effectiveness and ensures that both men and women plays their part in national development activities.GAD approach does not only concentrate on economic development for women and men only but it also views the social and mental being of person as very important. 1. Boserup, E (1970) Women's Role in Economic Development. St. Martin’s Press, New York 2. Hazel Reeves and Sally Baden, (2000) Gender and Development: Concepts and Definitions, ins titute of Development, Brighton 3. Schaefer, RT 2006 , Sociology: A brief introduction, 6th Ed , McGraw Hill, New York. 4. Makombe K . (2010) â€Å"Young Women Speak† Sable Press : Harare 5.MIDLANDS STATE UNIVERSITY Faculty of Science and Technology Name Christine T Mhike Reg Number R12960Y Programme BSc Computer Science Mode of Entry Conventional ModuleGS 201 – Gender Studies Lecturer Mrs Mukoni Level 2. 1 Due date22 March 2013

Mexican Cival Rights Essay

George I. Sanchez, Ideology, and Whiteness in the Making of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1930-1960 By CARLOS K . BLANTON Let us keep in mind that the Mexican-American can easily become the front-line of defense of the civil liberties of ethnic minorities. The racial, cultural, and historical involvements in his case embrace those of all of the other minority groups. Yet, God bless the law, he is â€Å"white†! So, the Mexican-American can be the wedge for the broadening of civil liberties for others (who are not so fortunate as to be â€Å"white† and â€Å"Christian†!). George L Sanchez (1958) By embracing whiteness, Mexican Americans have reinforced the color line that has denied people of African descent full participation in American democracy. In pursuing White rights, Mexican Americans combined Latin American racialism with Anglo racism, and in the process separated themselves and their political agenda from the Black civil rights struggles of the forties and fifties. Neil Foley (1998)’ 1 HE HISTORY OF RACE AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAN SoUTH IS complex and exciting. The history of Mexican American civil rights is also promising, particularly so in regard to understanding the role of whiteness. Both selections above, the first from a Mexican American ‘ The epigraphs are drawn from George I. Sanchez to Roger N. Baldwin, August 27, 1958, Folder 8, Box 31, George I. Sanchez Papers (Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries, Austin); and Neil Foley, â€Å"Becoming Hispanic: Mexican Americans and the Faustian Pact with Whiteness,† in Foley, ed.. Reflexiones 1997: New Directions In Mexican American Studies (Austin, 1998), 65. The author would like to thank the Journal of Southem History’s six anonymous reviewers and Texas A&M University’s Glasscock Center for Humanities Research for their very helpful intellectual guidance on this essay. MR. BLANTON is an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University. THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY Volume LXXII, No. 3, August 2006 570 THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY intellectual of the mid-twentieth century and the last a recently published statement from a historian of race and identity, are nominally about whiteness. But the historical actor and the historian discuss whiteness differently. The quotation from the 1950s advocates exploiting legal whiteness to obtain civil rights for both Mexican Americans and other minority groups. The one from the 1990s views such a strategy as inherently racist. The historical figure writes of Mexican Americans and African Americans cooperating in the pursuit of shared civil rights goals; the historian writes of the absence, the impossibility of cooperation due to Mexican American whiteness. This contrast is worth further consideration. This essay examines the Mexican American civil rights movement by focusing on the work and ideas of George I. Sanchez—a prominent activist and professor of education at the University of Texas—in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Sanchez is the most significant intellectual of what is commonly referred to as the â€Å"Mexican American Generation† of activists during this period. As a national president of the major Mexican American civil rights organization of the era, however, Sanchez’s political influence within the Mexican American community was just as important as his intellectual leadership. Sanchez pondered notions of whiteness and actively employed them, offering an excellent case study of the making of Mexican American civil rights. ^ First, this work examines how Sanchez’s civil rights efforts were vitally informed by an ideological perspective that supported gradual, integrationist, liberal reform, a stance that grew out of his activist research on African Americans in the South, Mexican Americans in the Southwest, and Latin Americans in Mexico and Venezuela. This New Deal ideological inheritance shaped Sanchez’s contention that Mexican Americans were one minority group among many needing governmental assistance. Second, this liberal ideology gave rise to a nettlesome citizenship dilemma. During the Great Depression and World War II, Mexican Americans’ strategic emphasis on American citizenship rhetorically placed them shoulder-to-shoulder with other U. S. minority groups. It also marginalized immigrant Mexicans. The significance of ^ For more on Sanehez see Gladys R. Leff, â€Å"George I. Sanchez: Don Quixote of the Southwest† (Ph. D. dissertation. North Texas State University, 1976); James Nelson Mowry, â€Å"A Study of the Educational Thought and Aetion of George I. Sanehez† (Ph. D. dissertation. University of Texas, 1977); Amerieo Paredes, ed.. Humanidad: Essays in Honor of George 1. Sanchez (Los Angeles, 1977); Steven Sehlossman, â€Å"Self-Evident Remedy? George I. Sanchez, Segregation, and Enduring Dilemmas in Bilingual Education,† Teachers College Record, 84 (Summer 1983), 871-907; and Mario T. Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, J930-1960 (New Haven, 1989), chap. 10. WHITENESS AND MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS 571 citizenship was controversial within the Mexican American community and coincided with the emergence of an aggressive phase of Mexican Americans’ civil rights litigation that implemented a legal strategy based on their whiteness. Third, Sanchez’s correspondence with Thurgood Marshall of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and 1950s reveals early, fragmentary connections between the Mexican American and African American civil rights movements. All these topics address important interpretive debates about the role of whiteness. This essay fuses two historiographical streams: traditional studies on Mexican American politics and identity and the new whiteness scholarship’s interpretation of Mexican American civil rights. In traditional works the Mexican American civil rights experience is often examined with little sustained comparison to other civil rights experiences. Conversely, the whiteness scholarship represents a serious attempt at comparative civil rights history. Taking both approaches into account answers the recent call of one scholar for historians to â€Å"muster even greater historical imagination† in conceiving of new histories of civil rights from different perspectives. ^ Traditional research on Mexican Americans in the twentieth century centers on generational lines. From the late nineteenth century to the Great Depression, a large wave of Mexican immigrants, spurred by dislocation in Mexico as well as by economic opportunity in the U. S. , provided low-wage agricultural and industrial labor throughout the Southwest. Their political identity was as Mexicans living abroad, the â€Å"Mexicanist Generation. † They generally paid little heed to American politics and eschewed cultural assimilation, as had earlier Mexicans who forcibly became American citizens as a result of the expansionist wars of the 1830s and 1840s. However, mass violence shortly before World War I, intensifying racial discrimination throughout the early twentieth century, and forced repatriations to Mexico during the Great Depression heralded the rise of a new political ethos. The community had come to believe that its members were endangered by the presumption of foreignness and disloyalty. â€Å"^ By the late 1920s younger ‘ Charles W. Eagles, â€Å"Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era,† Journal of Southern History, 66 (November 2000), 848. † See Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station, Tex., * 1993); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York, 1993); Benjamin Heber Johnson, Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans (New Haven, 2003); and Amoldo De Leon, The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 (1982; new ed. , Dallas, 1997). 572 THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY leaders—the â€Å"Mexican American Generation†Ã¢â‚¬â€urged adoption of a new strategy of emphasizing American citizenship at all times. They strove to speak English in public and in private settings, stressed education, asked for the gradual reform of discriminatory practices, emulated middle-class life, and exuded patriotism as a loyal, progressive ethnic group. They also desired recognition as ethnic whites, not as racial others. The oldest organization expressing this identity was the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). This ethos of hyphenated Americanism and gradual reform held sway until the late 1960s and early 1970s. ^ Studies of whiteness contribute to historians’ understanding of the interplay of race, ethnicity, and class by going beyond a black-white binary to seek the subtleties and nuances of race. This new scholarship examines who is considered white and why, traces how the definition of white shifts, unearths how whiteness conditions acts of inclusion and exclusion and how it reinforces and subverts concepts of race, and investigates the psychological and material rewards to be gained by groups that successfully claim whiteness. Class tension, nativism, and racism are connected to a larger whiteness discourse. In other words, this is a new, imaginative way to more broadly interrogate the category of race. Works on whiteness often share a conviction that thoughts or acts capitalizing on whiteness reflect racist power as well as contribute to that insidious power’s making. They also generally maintain that notions of race, whether consciously employed or not, divide ethnic and racial minorities from each other and from workingclass whites, groups that would otherwise share class status and political goals. ^ In recent reviews of the state of whiteness history, Eric Amesen, ‘ See Mario Garcia, Mexican Americans; George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American; David G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley, 1995); Ignacio M. Garcia, Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot (College Station, Tex. , 2000); Carl Allsup, The American G. I. Forum: Origins and Evolution (Austin, 1982); Richard A. Garcia, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class: San Antonio, 1929—1941 (College Station, Tex. , 1991); David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin, 1987), chaps. 12 and 13; Julie Leininger Pyeior, LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power (Austin, 1997); Juan Gomez-Quinones, Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940-1990 (Albuquerque, 1990); and Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. , Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston (College Station, Tex. , 2001). ^ David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (1991; rev. ed.. New York, 1999); Roediger, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History (New York, 1994); Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, Mass. , 1998); George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit From Identity Politics (Philadelphia, 1998). WHITENESS AND MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS. 573 Barbara J. Fields, Peter Kolchin, and Daniel Wickberg offer much criticism. These historians argue that scholars using whiteness as an analytical tool are shoddy in their definitions, read too finely and semantically into documents and literary texts, and privilege discursive moments that have little or nothing to do with actual people or experiences. More specifically, Kolchin and Amesen argue that many studies of whiteness incautiously caricature race as an unchanging, omnipresent, and overly deterministic category. In such works whiteness is portrayed as acting concretely and abstractly with or without historical actors and events. Ironically, studies of whiteness can obscure the exercise of power. Fields explains that studying â€Å"race† and â€Å"racial identity† is more attractive than studying â€Å"racism† because â€Å"racism exposes the hoUowness of agency and identity . . . [and] it violates the two-sides-to-every-story expectation of symmetry that Americans are peculiarly attached to. â€Å"^ Research that applies the idea of whiteness to Mexican American history is sparse and even more recent. Several of these studies focus upon the use of whiteness as a legal strategy while others take a broader approach. ^ Historian Neil Foley offers the most significant and ambitious arguments by moving beyond an analysis of how white people viewed Mexican Americans to look instead at the construction of whiteness in the Mexican American mind. He shifts the perspective from external whiteness to internal whiteness and argues that Mexican Americans entered into a â€Å"Faustian Pact† by embracing racism toward African Americans in the course of trying to avoid de jure discrimination. Foley claims that Mexican Americans consciously curried the favor of racist whites: â€Å"In pursuing White rights, Mexican Americans ‘ Peter Kolchin, â€Å"Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America,† Journal of American History, 89 (June 2002), 154-73; Eric Arnesen, â€Å"Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination,† International Labor and Working-Class History, 60 (Fall 2001), 3-32; Barbara J. Fields, â€Å"Whiteness, Racism, and Identity,† International Labor and Working-Class History, 60 (Fall 2001), 48-56 (quotations on p.48); Daniel Wickberg, â€Å"Heterosexual White Male; Some Recent Inversions in American Cultural History,† Journal of American History, 92 (June 2005), 136-57. *Ian F. Haney Lopez, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York, 1996); Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley, 1997); Steven Harmon Wilson, The Rise of Judicial Management in the U. S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, 1955-2000 (Athens, Ga., 2002); Wilson, â€Å"Brown over ‘Other White’; Mexican Americans’ Legal Arguments and Litigation Strategy in School Desegregation Lawsuits,† Law and History Review, 21 (Spring 2003), 145-94; Clare Sheridan, â€Å"‘Another White Race’: Mexican Americans and the Paradox of Whiteness in Jury Selection,† Law and History Review, 21 (Spring 2003), 109^14; Ariela J. Gross, â€Å"Texas Mexicans and the Polities of Whiteness,† Law and History Review, 21 (Spring 2003), 195-205; Carlos Kevin Blanton, The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981 (College Station, Tex., 2004); Patrick J. Carroll, Felix Longoria’s Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism (Austin, 2003). 574 THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY combined Latin American racialism with Anglo racism, and in the process separated themselves and their political agenda from the Black civil rights struggles of the forties and fifties. â€Å"^ Missing from such interpretations of whiteness’s meaning to Mexican Americans is George I. Sanchez’s making of Mexican American civil rights. Analyzing Sanchez’s views is an excellent test of Foley’s interpretation because Sanchez’s use of the category of whiteness was sophisticated, deliberate, reflective, and connected to issues and events. An internationalist, multiculturalist, and integrationist ideology shaped by New Deal experiences in the American Southwest, the American South, and Latin America informed George L Sanchez’s civil rights activism and scholarship. Sanchez regarded Mexican Americans as one of many American minority groups suffering racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry. Though Sanchez regarded Mexican Americans’ racial status as white, he also held that they were a minority group that experienced systematic and racialized oppression. Sanchez’s articulation of whiteness was qualified by an anti-racist ideological worldview and supports Eric Amesen’s criticism of â€Å"overreaching† by whiteness scholars who â€Å"appreciate neither ambiguity nor counter-discourses of race, the recognition of which would cast doubt on their bold claims. â€Å"‘ ° Sanchez was very much a New Deal â€Å"service intellectual† who utilized academic research in an attempt to progressively transform society. The term service intellectual is an appropriate description of Sanchez, who propagated his civil rights activism through academic research with governmental agencies (the Texas State Department of Education, the New Mexico State Department of Education, the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs) and national philanthropic organizations (the General Education Board, the Julius Rosenwald Eund, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Marshall Civil Liberties Trust). The pinnacle of Sanchez’s scholarly contribution as a service intellectual was his evocative 1940 portrayal of rural New Mexican poverty and segregation in The Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans. ‘ ‘ ‘ Foley, â€Å"Becoming Hispanic,† 53-70 (quotation on p. 65); Foley, â€Å"Partly Colored or Other White: Mexican Americans and Their Problem with the Color Line,† in Stephanie Cole and Alison M. Parker, eds. , Beyond Black and White: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the U. S. South and Southwest (College Station, Tex. , 2004), 123-44. For an older whiteness study that discusses the external imposition of racial concepts on Mexican Americans and other groups, see Roediger, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness, chap. 10. ‘†Amesen, â€Å"Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination,† 24. † Richard S. Kirkendall, Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt WHITENESS AND MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS 575 Sanchez particularly sought to transform society through the field of education. In the early 1930s he published blistering critiques of the shoddiness of IQ tests conducted on Mexican American children. Mexican Americans bad just challenged separate schools in Texas and California and were told by the courts that because they were technically â€Å"white,† racial segregation was illegal; however, the courts then claimed that pedagogical segregation based upon intellectual or linguistic â€Å"deficiency† was permissible. In challenging racist IQ science, Sanchez essentially advocated integration. ‘^ A decade of service intellectual work came together for Sanchez in Forgotten People. He called for a comprehensive federal and state program to uplift downtrodden Hispanic New Mexicans: â€Å"Remedial measures will not solve the problem piecemeal. Poverty, illiteracy, and ill-health are merely symptoms. If education is to get at the root of the problem schools must go beyond subject-matter instruction. . . . The curriculum of the educational agencies becomes, then, the magna carta of social and economic rehabilitation; the teacher, the advance agent of a new social order. â€Å"‘^ Sanchez regarded Mexican Americans as similar to Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, and African Americans. To Sanchez these were all minority groups that endured varying levels of discrimination by white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America. Sanchez was uninterested in divining a hierarchy of racial victimization; instead, he spent considerable energy on pondering ways for these groups to get the federal government, in New Deal fashion, to help alleviate their plight. Even in the mid-1960s when many Mexican Americans had come to favor a separate racial identity over an ethnic one, Sanchez still conceived of Mexican Americans as a cultural group, ignoring concepts of race altogether unless discussing racial discrimination. â€Å"^ Sanchez engaged the struggles of other minority groups and linked them to Mexican American activism. In 1948, for example, Sanchez (Columbia, Mo. , 1966), 1-6; George I. Sanchez, Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans (1940; reprint, Albuquerque, 1996), xvi-xvii. Befitting the service intellectual ideal of freely diffusing knowledge, the Carnegie Foundation gave the book away. Carnegie provided four thousand dollars for Sanchez’s research at the same time it supported work on a much larger study on African Americans—Gunnar Myrdal’s classic An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York, 1944). ‘^ Carlos Kevin Blanton, â€Å"From Intellectual Deficiency to Cultural Deficiency: Mexican Americans, Testing, and Public School Policy in the American Southwest, 1920-1940,† Pacific Historical Review, 72 (February 2003), 56-61 (quotations on p. 60). ‘ ‘ Sanchez, Forgotten People, 86. ‘† George I. Sanchez, â€Å"History, Culture, and Education,† in Julian Samora, ed.. La Raza: Forgotten Americans (Notre Dame, 1966), 1-26; Mario Garcia, Mexican Americans, 267-68. 576 THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY published through the United States Indian Service a government study on Navajo problems called The People: A Study of the Navajos. ^^ In 1937-1938 Sanchez transferred his New Deal, reformist ideology across borders as a Latin American education expert with a prestigious administrative post in Venezuela’s national government. Writing to Edwin R. Embree, director of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, Sanchez described his work as the chief coordinator of the country’s teachertraining program in familiar New Deal terms: â€Å"the hardest task is breaking down social prejudices, traditional apathy, obstructive habits (political and personal) and in-bred aimlessness. † His first program report was appropriately titled â€Å"Release from Tyranny. â€Å"‘^ During World War II Sanchez was appointed to the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs under Nelson A. Rockefeller, where he continued work on Latin American teacher-training programs as part of the war effort. Sanchez was deeply committed to progressive reform in Latin America that would lift educational and living standards. ‘^ Sanchez also took on African American issues. From 1935 to 1937 he worked as a staff member with the Chicago-based Julius Rosenwald Eund. This philanthropic organization was concerned with African American rural education in the South, and in this capacity Sanchez collaborated with Eisk University’s future president, the eminent sociologist Charles S. Johnson, on preparing the massive Compendium on Southem Rural Life. Sanchez was listed in the study’s budget as the highest-paid researcher for the 1936-1937 academic year with a $4,500 salary and a $2,000 travel budget. Sanchez’s work with the Rosenwald Eund also involved numerous activities beyond his role as the group’s pedagogical expert. In November and December 1936 he lobbied the Louisiana State Department of Education on behalf of a † â€Å"Dr. Sanchez Seeks Fulfillment of U. S. Promise to Navajos,† Austin Daily Texan, November 16, 1946, in George I. Sanchez Vertical File (Center for American History, Austin, Texas; hereinafter this collection will be cited as Sanchez Vertical File and this repository as Center for American History); George I. Sanchez, The People: A Study of the Navajos ([Washington, D. C], 1948). â€Å"^ G. I. Sanchez to Edwin R. Embree, October 17, 1937, Folder 4, Box 127, Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives (Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Franklin Library, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee; hereinafter this collection will be cited as Rosenwald Fund Archives and this repository as Franklin Library) (quotation); Embree to Sanchez, October 29, 1937, ibid. Sanchez’s work for the â€Å"Instituto Pedagogico† occurred just after its creation in 1936 during a brief liberal phase of Venezuelan politics. For more on its creation, see Judith Ewell, Venezuela: A Century of Change (Stanford, 1984), 75. â€Å"Dave Cheavens, â€Å"Soft-Spoken UT Professor Loaned to Coordinator of Latin-American Affairs,† Austin Statesman, December 3, 1943, in Sanchez Vertical File; â€Å"Texan Will Direct Training of Teachers,† Dallas Morning News, November 3, 1943, ibid. ; George I. Sanchez, â€Å"Mexican Education As It Looks Today,† Nation’s Schools, 32 (September 1943), 23, ibid. ; George I. Sanchez, Mexico: A Revolution by Education (New York, 1936). WHITENESS AND MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS 511 Rosenwald teacher-training program and the broader issue of school equalization. Equalization had been the primary avenue of African American activism that culminated with the Gaines v. Canada decision of 1938, which mandated that the University of Missouri either admit a black law student or create a separate, equal law school for African Americans. Sanchez also lobbied in Washington, D. C. , in February 1937, consulting with the Progressive Education Association and various government agencies on Rosenwald projects. ‘^ As one of his duties on the compendium project, Sanchez studied rote learning for rural African American children who lived in homes lacking in formal education. This study was inspired by Charles Johnson’s mentor at the University of Chicago, Robert E. Park. Johnson, Sanchez, and other young researchers such as famed historian Horace Mann Bond were to look at ways to educate populations â€Å"handicapped by the lack of books and a tradition of formal education in the home. † This venture was affiliated with the Tennessee Valley Authority and chiefly concerned with â€Å"raising the cultural level† of poor, rural African Americans more effectively than standard textbooks and pedagogies developed for privileged students in other parts of the country. The project aimed to equip teachers to â€Å"integrate the knowledge which the school seeks to inculcate with the experiences of its pupils and with the tradition of the local community. † Sanchez’s comparable work with bilingual education in New Mexico and Latin America fit well within the scope of the new undertaking. ‘^ Sanchez’s biggest project with the Rosenwald Fund was creating a well-recognized teacher-training program at the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute at Grambling. Charles S. Johnson later described this Grambling teacher-training program as â€Å"among the most progressive of the community-centered programs for the education of teachers in the country. † He praised the Grambling endeavor for offering African American teachers â€Å"opportunities for the development of creativeness and inventiveness in recognizing and solving ‘* Charles S. Johnson to Edwin R. Embree, October 16, 1936, Folder 1, Box 333, Rosenwald Fund Archives; Embree to Johnson, October 23, 1936, and enclosed budget manuscripts â€Å"Supplementary Budget on Rural Education Compendium† and â€Å"Rural School Exploration, Tentative Budget 1936-37,† ibid. ; undated project time sheet [October 7, 1936 to April 27, 1937], Folder 3, Box 127, ibid. ; Numan V. Bartley, The New South, 1945-1980 (Baton Rouge, 1995), 15; Compendium on Southern Rural Life with Reference to the Problems of the Common School (9 vols. ; [Chicago? ], 1936). † Charles S. Johnson to Edwin R. Embree, January 21, February 25, 1937, Folder 5, Box 335, Rosenwald Fund Archives; Johnson to Dorothy Elvidge, June 23, 1937, and study proposal by Robert E. Park, â€Å"Memorandum on Rote Learning Studies,† March 3, 1937, pp. 2 (first and second quotations), 3 (third quotation), ibid. Sanchez left shortly after the project began. 578 THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY the problems to be found in rural communities, homes, and schools . . . .†^ ° Sanchez oversaw this project from its inception in September 1936 until he left for Venezuela in the middle of 1937. He set up the curriculum, the budgets, the specialized staff (nurses, agricultural instructors, home economists, and rural school supervisors), and equipment (the laboratory school and a bus for inspections). These duties involved close coordination with Grambling administrators, Louisiana health officials, and state education and agriculture bureaucrats. Difficulties arose due to Sanchez’s departure. One Rosenwald employee summarized the program’s problems, â€Å"As long as George [Sanchez] was here he was the individual who translated that philosophy to the people at Grambling, and I am sure that you agree with me that he could do it far more effectively than the rest of us. But now that Sanchez [sic] is not here it is the job of the president of the institution to do both this interpretation and this stimulation. . . . I do not believe [President] Jones knows them. â€Å"‘^’ Fisk’s Charles S. Johnson was elite company for Sanchez. Johnson’s devastating attacks on southem sharecropping influenced public policy and garnered praise from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He and others spurred the creation of Roosevelt’s â€Å"Black Cabinet. â€Å"^^ Sanchez practiced a similar combination of academic research and social activism. When he began his work at Grambling he had recently lost his position in the New Mexico State Department of Education due to his pointed advocacy of reform as well as his penchant for hard-hitting, publicly funded academic research on controversial topics such as the segregation of Mexican Americans in schools. He had long sparked controversy with his research on racial issues. What especially limited ^ ° Charles S. Johnson, â€Å"Section 8—The Negro Public Schools,† in Louisiana Educational Survey (7 vols, in 8; Baton Rouge, 1942), IV, 216 (first quotation), 185 (second quotation). A copy of this volume is in Folder 5, Box 182, Charles Spurgeon Johnson Papers (Franklin Library). ^’ A. C. Lewis to G. I. Sanchez, October 14, 1936, Folder 13, Box 207, Rosenwald Fund Archives; Sanchez to Dr. R. W. Todd, September 28, 1936, ibid. Sanchez to Miss Clyde Mobley, September 28, 1936, ibid. ; Sanchez to J. W. Bateman, September 28, 1936, ibid. Sanchez to Lewis, September 28, 1936, ibid. ; Edwin R. Embree to Lewis, September 29, 1936, ibid. ; Sanchez to Lewis, September 30, 1936, ibid. ; Dorothy A. Elvidge to Lewis, November 27, 1936, ibid. ; Lewis to Sanchez, July 9, 1937, Folder 14, Box 207, ibid.; i. C. Dixon to Lewis, March 17, 1938, Folder 15, Box 207, ibid, (quotation on p. 2); Sanchez, â€Å"The Rural Normal School’s TeacherEducation Program Involves . . . ,† September 17, 1936, Folder 16, Box 207, ibid. ; Sanchez, â€Å"Suggested Budget—Grambling,† April 9, 1937, ibid. ; Sanchez, â€Å"Recommendations,† December 9, 1936, ibid. ^^ John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (New York, 1994), 91-92; George Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, ? 913-1945 (Baton Rouge, 1967), 543, 544 (quotation); Matthew William Dunne, â€Å"Next Steps: Charles S. Johnson and Southem Liberalism,† Journal of Negro History, 83 (Winter 1998), 10-11. WHITENESS AND MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS 579 Sanchez’s future in New Mexico was a 1933 furor over his distribution of another scholar’s Thurstone scale (a psychometric technique developed in the 1920s) on racial attitudes to pupils in New Mexico’s public schools. Governor Arthur Seligman publicly demanded that Sanchez be ousted and that the General Education Board (GEB) cancel the grant funding his position in the state bureaucracy. Partly due to the influence of New Mexico’s U. S. senator Bronson Cutting, a progressive Republican champion of Mexican Americans, Sanchez survived an ugly public hearing that resulted in the resignation of the University of New Mexico faculty member who devised the scale. Nevertheless, the incident severely constrained Sanchez’s future in the New Mexican educational and political arena. ^^ But Sanchez was not pushed into African American education simply out of desperation for employment. He appreciated the opportunities that the Rosenwald Fund provided to broaden his activism as a service intellectual beyond the Southwest. He was direct about this to his most ardent supporter. President James F. Zimmerman of the University of New Mexico: â€Å"I’m sorry the [Rosenwald] Fund is virtually prohibited from extending its interests and experiments into the Southwest. This is the only disappointment I feel in connection with my present work. I feel it keenly, however, as you know how deeply I am bound up with that area and its peoples. At the same time, though, being here has given me a wider viewpoint and experience that may well be directed at my ‘first love’ sometime. † Zimmerman was disappointed; he had groomed Sanchez for a faculty and administrative future at the University of New Mexico. Despite the uproar in 1933 Sanchez’s talents were in high demand, however, as GEB agent Leo Favrot and Rosenwald director Edwin Embree coordinated which agency would carry Sanchez’s salary with the New Mexico State Department of Education in early 1935 (GEB) and during a yearlong research project on Mexican higher education from 1935 to the middle of 1936 (Rosenwald Fund) until he joined the staff of the Rosenwald Fund on a full-time basis for his work at Grambling. ^’* ^^ G. I. Sanchez to Leo M. Favrot, April 27 and May 11, 1933, Folder 900, Box 100, G.

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Funny Quotes for Your Christmas Celebration

Want to make witty remarks this Christmas? Ogden Nash, Dave Barry, Charles Dickens, and many other authors share their Christmas humor with you on this page. Peter Dickinson The threat of Christmas hung in the air, visible already in the fretful look of passersby as they readied themselves for the meaningless but necessary rites of false jovialities and ill-considered gifts. Max Lucado, God Came Near Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts. Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. Ogden Nash People cant concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December. Katharine Whitehorn, Roundabout From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it. Frank McKinney Hubbard ​Next to a circus there aint nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit. Bill Waterson, Calvin Hobbes Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer... Whod have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it Christmas and went to church; the Jews called it Hanukkah and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say Merry Christmas! or Happy Hanukkah! or (to the atheists) Look out for the wall! W. J. Cameron There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Out upon merry Christmas! Whats Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer...? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas upon his lips should be boiled with his won pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!