Naperville vs. Aurora

I grew up in Naperville, Il a quaint slice of cookie-cutter suburbia. The town itself been ranked by Money magazine as one of the top three cities to raise children in the country for the past 6 years in a row. The vast majority is upper middle class and lives in subdivisions. My close college friends who are not native to Naperville noted that many streets eerily resemble "Desperate Housewives' Wisteria Lane." The town of Naperville itself is situated next to a city of approximately equal size, Aurora. Together these two cities create a the most prominent epicenter for business and industry in Illinois outside of Chicago. Unfortunately, if we likened the two cities to siblings, Aurora, known for its high crime rates, is the delinquent. Naperville, the praised leader, incites pride within its residents. Unfortunately this feeling of superiority over its sibling quickly mutates to haughty disdain.

My subdivision was located about 3 blocks away from the boundary between Naperville and Aurora. The local school district contained two high schools - one in Naperville and one in Aurora. Due to my proximity to Aurora, my subdivision fell within the boundary for the Aurora high school, Waubonsie Valley as opposed to the Naperville school, Neuqua Valley. Both schools boasted Grammy Award winning music programs, offered the same curriculum and had competent teachers, but this was overlooked by many members of my subdivision. Waubonsie's location in the crime-ridden, gang-infested Aurora gave it a repulsive stigma. To prevent their children from associating with potential gang members, many families often moved their children out of my subdivision by the time they reached early middle school. All moved south, into the boundary of the 80 million dollar work of beauty that was Neuqua Valley.

My family refused follow suit. I attended Waubonsie Valley high school for four full years. I received an excellent, challenging education. Waubonsie did have the second most fights in the state of Illinois, (which I attribute to a combination of hormonal, sensitive teenagers and gang activity), but we this was all we made headlines for. Despite the fights, I never once felt unsafe in the school, because I knew the teachers and faculty truly cared about the students. Neuqua, with its vast population of wealthy, arrogant children made the news countless times for rampant drug use and bank robberies. (During my four years I read about at least 6 bank robberies by Neuqua students.) When the state compared average ACT and AP scores, Waubonsie students always scored higher than Neuqua students. Despite this, Neuqua received much more recognition nationally, which I still fail to understand why to this day.

Now, whenever I hear some overtly prideful Napervillian say with dripping disdain, "Oh, you went to Waubonsie?" I slightly cock my head to side, smile widely and say, "Yes, yes I did, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life."

Thomas Builds-the-Fire

Basic Framework

• eccentric storyteller
• symbol of antique Native American tradition

Thomas in LR

• Alexie's target audience: Native Americans
• Thomas seeks to remedy plight and suffering of Native Americans via tradition
• Source of envy for his wisdom, courage, perserverance = outcast
• Seeks to instill antique Indian values within Indians in today's society via darker, heavier stories
• stories are darker because they are more personal, they define him, no family
• Ultimately ends up in jail
• Alexie's message is a warning to American Indians to be mature enough to embrace tradition and not neglect tribal identity.
• Thomas/stories are complex, enshroud in meaning

Thomas in SS

• Target audience: Non-Native Americans
• Purpose: make known tradition and plight of Native Americans
• Thomas is gawky/nerdy instead of outcast
• Seeks to verbalize antique Indian values to today's western society via transparent, lighthearted, humorous stories
• Why? to entertain/barter
• Thomas/stories are simple - not multifaceted

Dancing with Skeletons

Throughout life we must constantly strive to maintain a balance between reality and dreams to be successful. Living only in the present, we forget their dreams and aspirations. Conversely, by immersing ourselves completely in memories, hopes and aspirations, we cut all ties with reality, becoming unfocused. In "A Drug Called Tradition," Sherman Alexie explores and offers a solution to balance dreams with reality.

"Don't slow dance with your skeletons."

As an older, wiser, Victor reflects on this statement made to him by a fellow Native American, Thomas, he realizes that the skeletons represent our past and future. They are our "memories, dreams, and voices. But they trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming" (22). Thomas warns Victor not to spend too much time reminiscing or day-dreaming about the future because memories and dreams make promises and "tell you all the things you want to hear" (22). It is this appeal that lures us in, preventing our ability to take charge of our present situation.

The only way to maintain the balance is to "keep walking, keep moving, and not to wear a watch" (22). Skeletons of the past shadow us and skeletons of the future lead us trapping us in the present. As long as we keep in step between these two skeletons, and let them give us cues as to where we should be in life (the watch), the balance is kept - leaving us with one responsibility: to control the "now."

Empowering women

Although the antiheroine's actions are degrading to women, they allow the protagonist for woment to become empowered by acting as catalysts for transformation. In the "girls gone wild" coming of age story the antiheroine, represented by characters such as Legs/Evie, engage in overt drug use, commit crimes, and purposely are aggressive to display superority over "good girls". These acts themselves are frowned upon in society - degrading the moral character of women. The insecurity of "good girls" such as Tracy/Maddy, attract them to follow the actions of their domineering antiheroine counterparts - thus initiating their process of maturation. Immersed in the dark world of the antiheroine, the protagonist realizes that she has strayed far from her innocent beginnings. She then seeks to redeem her moral character by ending her devious ways and when she accomplishes this she has completed the maturation process with newfound wisdom - becoming an empowered woman.

As I previously stated, it is the the antiheroine's ammoral actions that degrade their status as women. Humanizing this bad girl adds complexity to her character - evoking feelings of sympathy and/or empathy from the audience. We don't feel empowered by their desolate situation, but we feel inclined to save her.

Growth through Violence

Violence, whether it is physical or metaphorical, is always present when a self or cohesive group successfully emerges from a transitional phase. The word emergence itself implies a change and people do not change spontaneously. There is often a struggle with morals and self-doubt that hinders the the emerging process.

A Native American poet, Joy Harjo's work focuses on conflicts between her people and the Europeans who colonized and stole her ancestors' lands. The hierarchy of the empowered Europeans over the powerless Native Americans serves as the basis for her violent conflicts. Much of her poems' imagery portrays disparity because the European presence is malicious and oppressive, not at all conducive to allowing the Native Americans to regain their identity as a race. Harjo shows that it is only through their will to endure the oppression that the Native Americans survive and retain their dignity as a people.

Unlike Harjo, Anne Sexton focuses on the emergence of an individual self rather than a group, but she does use the same empowered versus powerless conflict as a stage for the violence. Because of her abusive upbringing, whenever men are subjects in her poems, they generally are the source of violence against women. Women, on the other hand, are subject to a variety of conflicts. They struggle within themselves against social ideals that guide how they are to act. Giving in to these ideals, beauty especially, results in conflicts between older and younger women. The younger women, armed with their youth, always emerge victorious in her poems. The constant victim is the older woman, often Sexton herself. She rebels against society's emphasis on beauty because she feels age has destroyed hers. Without beauty she feels ostracized from society, wanting to re-enter. As a result her poetry's tone is desperate yet hostile.

The conflicts in the movie 13 ally more with Sexton's battered women than Harjo's struggle with the oppressed. Instead of the older woman being the constantly powerless undividual, the younger female is. As she transitions from adolescnence to adulthood, the path she chooses to make this transition becomes the source of conflict and violence. Craving acceptance and the feeling of belonging in society, she seeks to befriend Evie, who engages in illicit activities. Choosing this path causes young female versus young female violence as they struggle to out-do one another in sex appeal and drug activity. Since the two girls feed off each other they both are in positions of power and yet powerless. Internal conflict also results from physical violence such as cutting and widespread drug use. Her mother, seeing the changes occurring in her daughter as she struggles to emerge as an independent adult becomes concerned and attempts to intervene. An emotionally violent struggle ensues and the balance of power falls in favor of the daughter until she finally surrenders and stops pushing her mother away. We are then assured that the daughter will choose a smoother path to transition into adulthood.

Changing perspectives

Whether high school graduates are prepared for it or not, the college life opens numerous opportunites for personal growth and development - ultimately leading to their lives being reshaped. When the graduates begin their freshman year they are blank slates - they have the capacity to change who they were for their first 18 years of life and lead their own lives in a completely direction. I was lucky. I had the rare opportunity to become a blank slate twice.

My freshman year of college I attended Loyola University Chicago soley because they offered a late admission deadline with a fast track application that allowed me to select a work I had already written in my English class as my submission for the essay portion. It's not that I was lazy, quite the opposite in fact. I was a very driven honors student so involved that most days it would have been more more practical for me to sleep at the school than at home. I had many close friends, a tight-knit family, and lived in (what is widely considered) "cookie-cutter surburbia". I was so complacent with my life situation, the prospect of college altering it was unnerving. I thought it better to ignore the thought of college as long as possible.

I spent the summer before freshman year reluctantly preparing myself for my new life in the city. My small world was about to expand. The college's location in Roger's Park, one of Chicago's more culturally diverse areas, allowed me to take a peek into the lives of Indians and Latin Americans from varying socioeconomic stratas. Compared to my quite, passive demeanor, my roomate was a straightforward, brash girl from a split family. Despite our different backgrounds we connected, and she is now one of my closest friends. Although, I began to understand more about other people, and the world in which I live, I didn't feel like I was maturing. The school was located close to home, and I took my parents constant help for granted.

One day last January, a friend from Seattle asked me if I would ever live anywhere else besides Chicago. I sat in silence unable to reply. This idea had never occurred to me before. The more I thought about it, though, the more the idea appealed to me. In order for me to determine where I belong in the world, I would have to go out and discover new places. When Loyola Chicago took in students from Loyola New Orleans after the hurricane, the people I met from New Orleans convinced me to apply to transfer. I did, unable to contain my excitement as I submitted it - quite the contrast from my college application experience a year before.

So here I am in New Orleans. Instead of being 20 miles away from home, I am now over a thousand and couldn't be happier. Away from the close friends and tight-knit family, I learned to be assertive. No one else is here to take care of any problems for me. As the classes become more challenging, and life after college looms ever closer, I learned how to truly be responsible: balancing a job, full schedule of classes and time for socializing - always keeping in sight my goal of going to med school.

Not only am I becoming independent, but coming to New Orleans has opened a new world for me. I am an urban girl from the north and this city is my portal to the south. I've become immersed in the town's upbeat, quirky culture. My taste of music has even expanded to encompass jazz. Up north, Katrina is viewed as an unfortuanted incident. Down here, when the name is mentioned people shudder. I've surveyed first-hand the damage the storm caused coutless times and follow the rebuilding with eager anticipation. I have never felt so much pride for a place in which I live. It's comforting to know that I am not alone in my process to reconstruct and redefine myself, my new home is doing so as well.