• "But I would have delayed-for how long postponed?-having to learn the language of public society. I would have evaded and for how long could I have afforded to delay?-learning the great lesson of school, that I had a public identity"
• This quote by Richard  reflects the fact that his ability to use the English language can reflect on his public identity.  Not having proficiency in English can lead to public ridicule.  The effort to force the language onto his family brought that feeling of ridicule to his house, a place where should have felt safe to speak the language he wanted to.

• " One night his children and even his wife helplessly giggled at his garbled English pronunciation of the Catholic Grace before Meals."
• This is the idea of ridiculing people who cannot speak good English being brought to Richard's home.  The father feels like less of a person because he cannot speak English well.  This even shakes up to dynamic at home, with the wife now taking charge of financial decisions and even saying grace at home.  This has now isolated the father, who now only has real confidants in other fluent Spanish speakers.

• "Sentences needed to be spoken slowly when a child addressed their father or mother."
• With the kid's primary language now being English, this made it more difficult to communicate with the parents.  Since the parents were not as fluent as the kids but still tried to speak purely in Spanish, the kids would not bother talking to the parents because they would run the risk of the parent not being able to understand them.

Kozol/ ALM

Amazing Grace

• "There are children in the poorest, most abandoned places who, despite the miseries and poisons that the world has pumped into there lives, seem, when you first meet them, to be cheerful anyway"
• Most people would think that children brought up in an area like this would be rotten, rude, and maybe even cruel. But the boy who served as Kozol's guide showed that despite all the death and violence in the area, the kid behaves no differently than any of ours would have.  The situation has done nothing damper the innocence of the children there, at least on the outside.
• "Every time my doctor says I have to go back to the hospital, I cry"
• This quote was made in reference to terrible conditions at a nearby hospital.  A majority of the area is composed of people who have contracted AIDS/HIV.  This quote represents the lack of trust in those who claim to help these people.  The hospital cannot be trusted to keep itself clean and sanitary, while the law cannot be trusted to protect these people from criminals.  This only reinforces the idea that these people can only rely on themselves.
• "I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher would call evil"
• This is a comment on the idea that people have that working hard will change the situation.  But people in these poorer neighborhoods can't elevate themselves because they lack the resourced to get a better life.  Working hard simply isn't enough and the constant talking down to that the poorer people feel is happening will only cause this animosity to grow.

ALM article:

GeekAesthete argues that saying all lives matter takes away from the point of the statement black lives matter.  Instead of looking at the problem being brought forward (the problem being the disproportionate cases of police brutality involving non-white ethnicities), you are shouting them down saying "of course black lives matter, because all lives do matter".  Instead of the conversation bringing about change, it only made it seem as though the person saying "black lives matter" was trying to get special treatment that would place them above others in regards to the law.

U.S.A., Land of Limitations?

This article by Nicholas Christof takes a hard look at the promise America makes as the "land of opportunity" and whether it actually holds water.  We constantly hear that America is a country where economic mobility is accessible to all of its citizens.  In a few cases it is true that some people can rise from the rable join the upper class, but these cases are few and far between.  Not mention that hard work isn't the whole story, the environment and upbringing is also a factor.  If one does not have a stable home life then their chance of succeeding is diminished as seen with the author's example Rick Goff; his mom died when he was young and his father was no parent of the year.  Without proper parents he dropped out of school early on due to teachers giving up on him and as well as he giving up on school.  Christof also mentions the whole idea that people who are less well off then others are less likely to take risks.  People who are wealthier do not process risk or consequences of failure the same way everyone else does.

intro to me

My name is Robert and I am a history teacher in the making and a bit of a history nerd, especially when it comes to old military planes.


Over the summer I spent most of the time working at my local Ace Hardware but my family and I spent a week in Ocean City Maryland.  We did enjoy each other's company but really it was just us waiting to get a crack at the the famous Maryland crabs.

Outside of work I spend time playing games as well as participating in G.A.M.E.R., a club a RIC that gets together simply to have fun playing games we enjoy.