So I’m still behind but instead of keeping pushing it back
and the pile getting taller, I decided to go straight to chapter 4 so I can
participate more and have a better idea of what’s going on then I’ll go back
and do blog posts 1-3.
In Chapter 4 I was expecting another outright victory and
bringing up Kettleman City strengthened that thought, but the farther I got
into the chapter, the bleaker their outcome seemed. I felt sympathy for Montoya in that his idea
of America was crushed in a single blow when he learned that the USA is corrupt
just like Mexico, but in more discrete and legal ways. I Googled “buttonwillow
laidlaw” after reading the chapter and was pleased to see that the struggle is
at least still on-going and the people have not been defeated. These chapters
teach you valuable lessons in how you need to think if you are ever involved in
an environmental injustice struggle as they pointed out that concentrating on
the Spanish language issue probably alienated most other citizens and that is
what could have cost them an initial victory.
Last week in class (2/8/12) we had a pretty good discussion.
We had started out by discussing chapter 3 and Tucker raised a good point in
asking ‘how do [we] measure racism” which to me seems like something that would
have to be measured qualitatively since racism is acting on the feelings of
others. It isn’t just racism though because we are institutionalized to fear
that which is different which leads me to something else we talked about and
that was the appeal ruling of Prop 8 in California and that statement just jogged my
memory that Washington has legalized gay marriage. It's so irrelevant to you whether others get married, I think this whole situation is a joke, just another political issue to vie for votes on. I saw this picture yesterday and thought it was pretty interesting:
