Now and Then

Alas, my time at Fordham University is coming to a close. Fortunately, this semester seems to be off to a good start. I have to say that overall, I have had a very rewarding experience at Fordham and I am very thankful for that. Yet as I think about how thankful I am, I also ask myself, what other choice did I really have? Sure, I could have attended a different university. But not going to college was never an option for me. It was assumed (for practically my whole life) that after graduating high school I would head off to college and get my degree. I think it’s safe to say that this is the case for many youth of my generation. They are expected to go to college. Luckily, for me personally, I had always wanted to go to college and therefore was excited about my new academic beginning.
During a phone conversation with my close friend, we both reached the conclusion that we wish life could go back to the way it was in the 1950s- a time when young men and especially women didn’t have to go to college. Of course, we were making an overstatement. But nevertheless, important generalizations can be made about that era in US history. For instance, relationships between guys and girls seem to have been different in the ‘50s. “Dating” actually existed, while now this concept has almost become extinct. As Dr. Naison of the American Studies faculty repeatedly stated to my class last semester, “None of you kids fall in love anymore.” While this may be a bit of an exaggeration, I think he is on to something.
Fifty years ago it seems that people my age grew up faster. Men and women tended to marry and have kids younger than most do now. There was not an economic necessity for teens to spend thousands of dollars on college after graduating from high school. People, especially men, had the potential to earn substantial salaries right out of high school. Though the 1950s was a segregated time, positive changes for African Americans were taking place. The era saw the largest equality of incomes out of any period in American history. While men tended to receive higher paying positions than women, large numbers of women began to work. However, it was much more possible for married couples with kids to raise a family on one income alone.
Nowadays, the need for both parents to work is much greater. It seems to me that in the present (especially with the current economic situation) many families are under a lot of stress. Many people I know rarely get to enjoy family dinners because their family members always have such busy schedules. Call me old-fashioned, but in my personal opinion, I think time for the family to sit down together and converse is important. Situations where both parents need to work full-time can be extremely burdensome.
While I am happy that feminist pushes have led to greater opportunities for women in the workforce, sometimes I wonder whether the role of being a mother has lost its significance. Has the traditional calling of fulltime motherhood become obsolete or unacceptable? What if a woman’s passion is to be a stay-at-home mom who takes care of her house and children? Is that so bad? In our world, does that mean a woman is lazy?
In my “Approaches to Studies” class from last semester, we examined particular keywords which have significant, yet often very flexible and controversial meanings. The word “family” was one of these keywords. According to Carla L. Peterson, family is “a malleable process” (Peterson 113). Today two working parents seem to be the norm for families, or at least middle class ones.
I tend to feel that in many ways the stay-at-home mom (and/or dad) is an ideal. Families may be more stable and better functioning if both parents were not always struggling out of the house to be financial providers. Perhaps someday this ideal can become a reality once again. This may become possible due to advanced technology.
Technology has enabled more people to not only become educated in their homes, but also to work from their homes and therefore spend less time away from their loved ones. A January New York Times article entitled “Are Doctors Ready for Virtual Visits?” demonstrates technology’s current potential. The article discusses how telemedicine (“or the use of satellite technology, video conferencing and data transfer through phones and the Internet”) is enabling doctors to communicate with patients from all over.

Accent on America

Growing up, I was blissfully unaware of my heavy Long Island accent. After all, everyone spoke the way I did, which made it near impossible to ever pick up on the difference. This came to an end the minute I came to college freshman year, when I was randomly placed to live with a girl from Boston. Our initial interactions were actually about the way we both spoke and those first few weeks living together were filled with laughter about our varied pronunciations of utterly common nouns (she said "cah" instead of "car," I said "cawfee" instead of "coffee). Even more than pronunciation variances, we learned that we had different mannerisms, called common items and stores different names and that we often used different phrases (Bostonians seem to think "wicked" is a universally appropriate adjective, mind boggling, I know). I think we focused on these differences because there was actually little else that divided us- we both came from middle class suburbs, attended good public high schools where we were involved in very similar activities, had close-knit families and were planning to pursue similar majors. We even had other more visible similarities, most strikingly almost identical wardrobes and a love of the color pink. It truly was our regional accents which set us apart and, for whatever reason, we fixated on them.

As college continued, I became very self-conscious of my accent, trying my hardest (especially on job interviews) to remain accent neutral and I definitely have noticed that my roommate now uses "wicked" less. I thought that this was just a natural progression, a possible sign of maturity and a way to practice professionalism. Turns out, our behavior is actually reflective of a much larger phenomenon that originally occurred in the 1960s, according to a New York Times Magazine article printed this week called "Speech Therapy: Is TV like 'Jersey Shore' Helping to Preserve Regional Accents" by Virginia Heffernan.

First off, I promise I will not talk about the horribly addictive yet disgusting television show on which the article focuses, just the basic premise of the article. Heffernan explains that William Labov "the father of sociolinguistics" conducted a study in 1966 which found that many people, especially New Yorkers, possessed a "lingustic self-hatred," thinking that their speech portrayed them as "distorted" and "sloppy." Heffernan goes on to explain that an era of "Newscaster English" followed this, a time when Americans focused on assimilation and refinement, and in line with this, displayed a strong desire to hide their regional badges. Heffernan then credits a wave of mass media for reasserting linguistic pride in America, like Saturday Night Live and Taxi.

Today, according to the article, shows like Jersey Shore tend to exaggerate regional accents and mannerisms in an effort to convene regional subcultures instead of ignoring them. Heffernan believes that "instead of erasing longstanding regional and social distinctions, television will help preserve them." I see her point, but think it is important to recognize that these accents are inauthentic- they are exaggerated. In producing these largely inauthentic accents, characters on these shows are not really uniting a subculture but forming their own new subculture- in the case of the Jersey Shore an especially disturbing one that repulses some of the original culture from which it it originates.

As American Studies majors, we are constantly reflecting on ways to study American culture and the many subcultures that exist within it, especially on the formulation and roles of community and identity. I never thought of American accents as strong identity markers or badges and this article made me think about that. The article also ended on an interesting note, stating that "cultivating and stylizing accents in order to stand out as part of a subculture- to represent in other words- may be as American as the melting pot."

The ability of accents to both unite and divide is perplexing. My roommate and I were divided because of accents yet our fixation on the source of division was something that actually brought us together, uniting us. Divided yet united- seems like an appropriate description of America to me.

2009 Year of Movies

I consider myself to be something of a movie aficionado and since the Oscar season is upon us I figured this would be a good time to give some thoughts on movies that have come out in the last year.

My pick for best movie of 2009 is The Hurt Locker, I saw this movie twice in theatres and it was worth more than cost of the two admissions. This Iraq war drama featured some amazing character work by actor Jeremy Renner as an explosives expert who lives for his work. The film provides viewers with an inside view of the men and women who have become so accustomed to living in dangerous situations that they are unable to function without it once they return home.

Jeremy Renner of The Hurt Locker is my pick for best actor- his performance as a man struggling to live within a high testosterone, high adrenaline environment.

Supporting Actor is undoubtedly Christoph Waltz of Inglorious Basterds. In Tarentino's exceedingly well-made film, Waltz steals the show the bigger name actors like Brad Pitt, though I have a feeling this was Tarentino's intention in his throw-back, mash-up of WWII movies.

Tarentino deserves the award for best director for Basterds which far surpassed the expectations I could have had for it.

As if there was any question over animated picture, Up! will win the award. Though Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox was another of my animated favorites but I have a soft-spot for stop-motion animation.

I did not see many foreign films this year (well I watched plenty of foreign films but only a couple that came out in the last year), but the clear winner of the ones I viewed was White Ribbon a German "children's folk tale" about a serious of mysterious events in a small town with evidence that points towards a suprising conculsion about the society in the months before WWI.

On a side note, I imagine that James Cameron's Avatar will most likely be a top contendor for Best Picture. In my opinion, remaking Disney's Pochahantas in 3D with dragons doesn't deserve an Academy Award, but I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me.

Fordham at the School of the Americas Protest

On the weekend before Thanksgiving, I traveled with sixty Fordham students, staff members, and students from St. John’s University in Queens to the School of the Americas protest and Ignatian Family Teach-In in Fort Benning, Georgia. Why did so many of us spend eighteen hours on a bus in order to be a part of this event? Why did countless others travel from even farther?

I knew I wanted to attend the protest when I learned about the School of the Americas in a Latin American History class my sophomore year. Before I was able to, however, I would participate in a Global Outreach project to El Salvador that exposed me to many personal stories of the grave effects of the School of the Americas. When I learned about actions taken by SOA graduates, I was so taken aback that my government could be running such a school and I would never even hear about it.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, though. The School of the Americas, renamed WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in 2001, is a military school in Georgia (previously held in Panama) where the United States Department of Defense trains mainly Latin American military officers in military and law enforcement tactics.

Many military officers, after graduating from the school, have been accused of egregious human rights violations throughout Latin America, and have been linked to countless deaths. Fr. Roy Bourgeois founded the SOA Watch in 1990 to protest the school. In addition to the annual protest, they do legislative work both to close the school and to fight for transparency regarding curriculum, faculty, and graduates. With increased transparency, the school could be held responsible for later actions taken by graduates if they learned those tactics while enrolled there.

For this post, however, I wanted to focus on the events of last weekend. I may still be processing some aspects of the experience. But I wanted to write about it because it tied in so many ideas of inter-American relations and violence, the role of a school like Fordham in an activist movement like the SOA Watch, and the experience of gathering as citizens to demonstrate for policy change.

On Friday night and Saturday morning, we participated in the Ignatian Family Teach-In (a gathering of the Ignatian Solidarity Network and Jesuit schools from across the nation) that focused on the SOA but also featured breakout session on other topics (for instance, I attended a breakout session about Nike entitled “Behind the Swoosh.”) It was so interesting and energizing to see so many groups of students and educators coming together to learn from and with one another on issues of social justice that are so often separated from academics. The Ignatian Solidarity Network has a special devotion to the closing of the SOA because SOA graduates were responsible for the murder of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter at the Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador in November 1989.

On Sunday, some of the leaders of SOA Watch led the crowd in a funereal vigil to commemorate all those who have died at the hands of SOA graduates. After each name on a list of hundreds was read, everyone in the crowd responded “Presente.” This was a powerful representation of the vast numbers who have been killed, since the procession itself took hours. Afterwards, everyone placed a cross with the name of a victim either in the fence of the school or at the base of a flag representing countries that still send soldiers to the school, creating a powerful image of the number of people who have united to make a statement against the school. Four were arrested for “crossing the line” (crossing onto military base property to protest the school from within.)

I feel very fortunate to have been able to participate in the event, which has left me with many questions but feeling like I have a better understanding of SOA Watch and the Ignatian Solidarity Network. It also has me thinking once more about the university’s relationship to outside society. The university’s role as a social force is an important one.

Additionally, we have been talking a little in our class discussions about what it means to be an engaged citizen, and one moment last Sunday that really stood out for me occurred after the procession, when the somber mood turns lighter as drums play and the crowd symbolically “reenters into life.” It was a very energizing moment, and I heard the chant, “Tell me what democracy looks like- This is what democracy looks like.”

Looking at all the passionate and energized individuals around me, I realized how much I liked that image of democracy.

It's A Small World After All

On Tuesday, November 17th, the Gangway Beatz rappers from Berlin, Germany came to Professor Naison’s “Feeling the Funk” class. The Gangway group had been New York City before and had already visited Fordham University. Because it was their second time coming to one of Professor Naison’s classes, they knew some of my classmates he had taught in previous semesters.
This talented group free-styled for our class both with and without hip-hop beats to back them up. Each group member took turns spittin’ verses, building off of the energy from the other performers as well as the positive vibe from the class as a whole. The group asked the class to participate in their performances. We would sing along to the hip-hop chorus, nod our heads, or wave our hands in the air.
It is unbelievable to me how this group could come up with such innovative and insightful rhymes on the spot without having prepared anything ahead of time. While I am somewhat familiar with improvisation from tap dance lessons I have taken from experienced hoofers, I would certainly never be able to do what the Berlin rappers did. I may be able to make my feet move on the spot, yet I could not think quickly enough to create witty, powerful, and entertaining verses flow into one another so brilliantly.
Though none of us in the class could understand what the rappers were saying since they were speaking in German (except maybe our blogger Taylor who lived in Germany for two years), the performers occasionally explained what their raps were about. Much of what they discussed was political. They attempted to raise consciousness about social issues that were particularly important to them. Even when the rappers did not explain what they were saying, our class still loved listening to them.
It is beautiful how music can bring people from all different places together. Music can make the world seem much smaller than we tend to imagine it. People who speak different languages, have diverse life experiences, and who are of different ages can feel united as they experience music together.
Our class took a wonderful picture with the Gangway rappers. This picture is posted on Facebook as well as the Gangway group’s website (http://www.gangway.de/). Looking at the picture, you can’t really distinguish who’s a rapper from Berlin and who’s a Fordham student.

Guest Blog: Our Great (Gatsby) Evening at the MET

Were it an ordinary evening, I would not normally expect to be asked, “Mike, is my flapper dress straight?” or “Do my linen pants match my shoes?” Then again, this was no ordinary evening—several (about 40) of my friends from Tierney Hall and I were getting ready for what would prove to be the perfect inauguration to our lives as college students living in New York. Straight out of the 1920’s, we excitedly set off for a lavish evening soirée after-hours at the MET: “The West Egg on the East Side: A (Great) Gatsby Party in the New American Wing,” popularized in the American Studies Newsletter.

After missing the Ram Van and receiving an odd glance from my Philosophy professor as we dashed to the Metro-North (apparently white pants are unacceptable in October…), we arrived at the MET a bit late, but certainly in style. We were awestruck by the Temple of Dendur, which was beautifully lit up with purple and blue lights, the upbeat Jazz music and chocolate-covered strawberries setting an elegant atmosphere for the evening. However, we had yet to explore the main attraction—The New American Wing.

The new wing at the MET was breathtaking—from a large circular room built around a panorama of Versailles to ornate, meticulously designed recreations of 1920’s salons, the art truly was truly fitting to the occasion. Of course, the MET was unafraid to incorporate some elements of modernity such as touch-screen computers showcasing each element of the salons, but the museum certainly created a wholly immersive exhibit that complemented our Gatsby-styled evening superbly.

Overall, our evening at the MET was certainly educational and interesting, but also quite fun. Dancing the Charleston under an Egyptian temple, taking interior design tips from 1920’s high society women, and addressing each other as “old sport” all made for an unforgettable evening, the ultimate beginning to our Freshman year.

For those interested in other events by the MET’s College Group (who officially hosted the event), visit http://www.metmuseum.org/collegegroup/

– Mike Rametta

Freshman and possible future American Studies major

"Imagining" Salsa

Taylor’s intriguing, and well-written, blog has inspired me to elaborate on the theme of “imagined communities.” Taylor discusses Stalter’s article about the Third Avenue El Train. Because the train ran so close to apartment buildings, it seemed to bring the people of the city closer together. The train “reinforced urban community” and created an “imaginary connection” between people” (323).
Benedict Anderson coined the phrase, “imagined community,” when discussing the concept of a nation. He believed that a nation was ultimately a socially constructed community. While the people of a nation are extremely diverse and have no real interaction on a regular basis, they feel unified with one another and believe they are part of a collective.
When thinking about this more, I realized Anderson’s ideas relate very much to themes I am exploring for my thesis. My thesis deals with salsa during its heyday, from the late 1960s throughout the 1970s. Salsa music has ultimately fostered “imagined communities” among Latinos residing both within, and outside, the United States.
Many working-class Latinos in the US lived in New York City (particularly in “el barrio” or the Bronx) during the time period. While Puerto Rican immigrants (or “Newyoricans”) comprised a large portion of these Latinos, there were many other migrants in the city from other parts of the Caribbean. All Latinos, regardless of where they originated geographically, struggled with similar social issues. They could not receive high paying jobs, they lived amidst much violence and poverty in urban neighborhoods, and they often struggled with their identities.
While it is true that many Latinos dispersed throughout New York did have direct contact with one another when they went to salsa clubs and danced together, obviously not all Latinos could know, or communicate, with one another. However, simply listening to salsa records alone in their homes fostered an imagined sense of communion among themselves and other Latinos.
Some of the greatest salsa songs aroused social consciousness for all urban Latinos. Drawing upon inspiration from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, salsa artists made Latinos aware of their marginalized social position and called for unification. Lyrics to particular songs described living conditions in the barrio and the struggles people faced on a daily basis.
Not only did salsa music appeal to Latinos in the US, but it was also enjoyed by Latinos living in other countries. Salsa became extremely popular throughout Latin America. For instance, Conjunto Libre’s song, “Imagenes latinos,” called for pan-Latino solidarity among working-class Latinos of all races. Some of the lyrics are: “Indians, Hispanics, and blacks, we’ve been mixed into a blend, with the blood of all races to create a new future;…We’re Latin American, from the center, north, and south, with a present of struggle and a future of light.” People of Latin heritage living all over ultimately saw salsa music as a link to their common roots. Therefore, the music forged a kind of imagined, transnational community. It was the essence of the Latino soul.