Personal Statement for my application to The Evergreen State College

My name is Elisa Miranda, I am fourth generation Chicana that was born and raised in Washington state. My identity as a Chicana is directly related to my personal experiences, as well as, my political and social convictions. I am the youngest of four, the only female to graduate from High School. I am the first to obtain a college degree and attend a four year institution of higher education. Both my parents were Migrant Agricultural workers born in Texas. Since the time of my birth my parents have been active advocates for Agricultural Workers' rights. My mother jokes that my first political meeting was at six months, advocating for funding for a migrant day care center, during the times she worked closely with the Washington Migrant Council in Eastern Washington. When I turned eight, I became actively involved in a leadership development program at an organization called El Centro de la Raza in Seattle, Washington. This organization is unique in its principles and connection to the community with which it serves. In the fall of 1972, the Chicano community of Seattle occupied an abandoned elementary school building after the funding for an ESL program had been cut at Seattle Central Community College. Before the program was cut students, families and community members had convened to discuss the detrimental issues afflicting the Chicano Community of Seattle. Thirty-four and half years later the organization is still a conviction to the efforts of those that occupied the building during one of the coldest winters Seattle has faced, and I have been fortunate to be embedded in the organization's history at such a young age. Since the first time I entered the doors, I was exposed to leadership circles that developed my organizational skills, my historical knowledge of the plights of the Chicano community, and most importantly I found my voice as a poet. My first poetry reading was at the age of ten, after our poetry youth group had been published in an anthology called "Word Up!", and from that point on I participated in numerous other performances. These performances, as well as the poetry that I wrote, centered around the social and political issues that I was becoming aware of. Although the skills and knowledge were abundantly being past down to me, there was still the personal economic and social difficulties that I was faced with. During my sophomore year of high school I became less involved with my academics, and more involved in self-destructive habits. The neglect of my academics soon caught up to me and my own school counselor did not see any hopes of graduation for me. A close friend that had worked along side me through the political activities I was involved in at El Centro de la Raza took me under his wings and introduced me to an organization that saved me from dropping out and help me form a sense of personal strength and identity. At the age of sixteen I became involved in MEChA, which stands for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (the Chicano Student Movement from Aztlan). I learned that being Chicana did not signify me as a Mexican-American, but proudly announced that I was a conscious woman of color that would resist assimilation and embrace the true history of my people. Although this might seem a repeat of the knowledge that I received at El Centro de la Raza, this became an academic sanctuary and a foundation to stand on while immersing in an educational system that denied me of my true history, of literature that came from a perspective other than that of a Eurocentric perspective. They were a group of students, like me, that felt something within our educational system was wrong. Without the continual support of El Centro de la Raza and MEChA I would not have been motivated to graduate high school, let alone consider college an option. My college history has had major bumps in the road as well, which has both taught me valuable lessons of life and gave value to the education that I have received. This is my first year in a four year institution, and it has been a difficult one. I have expressed some of the lack of identification with the curriculum I am exposed to here at Central Washington University to fellow Mechistas, and was encouraged to look at the academic programs available at Evergreen State College. After much consideration and review, I believe that Evergreen can offer me a valuable exposure to my field of academic interest, more so, then I feel any other institution might otherwise. The programs are designed to speak to me as an individual, not as a standardized framework from which my cultural identity is extracted. Thank you for your time in considering me as a perspective student and I hope that this statement is testimony to my ambitions to attending your institution.

What constitutes love?

 

    "Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin is a short story fiction piece written in 1893. This story catalyzes emotional response, creative imagination and the reader's evaluation of human consciousness and awareness through the semiotic symbolism, the phenomenological analysis and a horizon of expectations. In the reader-response critical approach the reader connects with gaps and symbols in the story and fills them with pre-notions of how the social structure of their interpretative communities have trained them to see them filled.

 

    To begin this approach the reader begins to look at the semiotic usage of certain symbols that give rise to an emotional response that the reader continues throughout the story. This is not to persuade an overall theme, however illustrates how the symbols ignite a similar emotion in the reader that is coherent throughout. For example, in the first four paragraphs of the story the symbol of the stone pillar is indicated twice to relay two significant times that Desiree is "discovered" in the story. The first time she is discovered at the stone pillar is when she is an abandoned toddler. She is found "lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar." A stone pillar is a stern and unemotional figure. The purpose of this stone pillar was to act as a gateway to the home of Madame Valmonde. There is a contradiction to the gentle affection that a baby creates within a human being and the cold lack of affection that a stone pillar creates. However both enact as gateways for Madame Valmonde, the stone pillar to her home, and Desiree to her heart. The stone pillar is utilized again with a contradicting emotional reaction of sternness and admiration. The reader, apart of an interpretative community that socializes us to relate the image of the stone pillar with a prestigious class, connects Desiree to the indifference of emotion that is associated with this class status. She becomes one with the image of the stone pillar, but this is contradicted with the strong emotions of love and her character. Earlier indicated the reader brings with her a sense of Desiree's gentleness and sincerity which we have been socialized to see as ideal features of woman-ness. The uniting image of prestige and beauty "struck" Armand into a state of admiration for her.

 

    To go further into more apparent gaps in the story the reader is forced to question the character of Armand. "Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime." The narrator does not indicate why there is a contradiction of character between the generation of the father and the generation of his son. This contradiction is especially apparent in the matter of the dealings with the slaves. Armand's fretful mannerisms are also indicated later in the story as well, "when he frowned she trembled, but loved him." The reader is left with a gap in the story with the character of Armand. The only information we have of his upbringing is that he grew up without a mother in the latter part of his childhood because his mother dies when he is eight. The interpretative community that the reader arises from is socially conditioned to relate the lack of affection towards his slaves, and his stern demeanor, as the result of a lack of maternal affection growing up. However, the ending of the story, as well as a reference to this skin color, negates this conclusion. Desiree mentions, "…seizing his wrist. 'Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,' she laughed hysterically." The ultimate conclusion of his mother being part Black indicates that the hate might arise with a realization of similar subtle physical features to his slaves. Armand does not understand this connection and despises himself and the slaves for it. The obvious reasons Armand would despise a connection is poetically constructed when the mother mentions in the letter that he "…belongs to the race cursed with the brand of slavery." He, therefore, might act more cruelly due to the fact that there is a discontent and ambiguity within himself, and this he might scapegoat with anger towards his slaves. In reevaluating how the reader is to fill this gap, one might wonder what other incidents might have stirred a hate towards his slaves. Creatively inventing an episode, I thought the skin tone might have played a larger role then the reader might first interpret because the lack of centralization on this factor. During the summertime, when skin tone is prone to darken, this might have caused some taunting from his fellow playmates. Physical features that we are teased about when we are young develop into insecurities. When we rise to adulthood, these insecurities carry along with us and we are prone to despise them in others because we have trained ourselves to despise them within ourselves. This might indicate that he might have despised the slaves to such a degree due to the fact that they carried the same features he had grown to hate of himself.

    To conclude, as a reader, I am given only a handful of information about the characters and the settings. This lack of full perception and ambiguous detail antagonized my own creativity of understanding the human consciousness. What started off as a story that might have strived at relaying a theme of karma, went further to analyze what social constructs my own consciousness lies in.

The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones

    Van Jones was able to deliver an abundant amount of information that is very vital to the reader without losing the appeal of the average person. Whether the reader is relatively fresh to the idea of a green economy or actively engaged in creating a green economy, Jones provided a wealth of solid arguments to get the readers thinking about the issue from all view points of society. The idea that we must understand the need to create green collar jobs to improve the economy and make green energy accessible for the lower classes as well as the middle and upper classes is a revolution in itself.

Here Jones begins with the economic value behind creating a green-collar economy in the reality check chapter when he states, "In 2006, renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies generated 8.5 million new jobs, nearly $970 billion in revenue and more than $100 billion in industry profits." (pg. 5) Jones goes further into defining it for the middle class view point: "My definition of a green-collar job is this: it is a family-supporting, career-tracking job that directly contributes to preserving or enhancing environmental quality…We must ensure that all green-collar-job strategies provide opportunities for low-income people to take the first step on a pathway to economic self-sufficiency and prosperity." (pg. 12)

Jones does not stop at the economic value, but he also incorporates the ecological value when he brings in the real life ecological devastation of Katrina. Reading the story of Larry and Lorrie brought me back to the horrifying stories that were being reported, at the same time Jones did a terrific job at keeping my mind focused not just on the inhumanity of how our government responded but the dire need for a green-economy. Jones elaborates far more concisely here, "Stories from Katrina's aftermath demonstrate that the issues of poverty, climate destabilization, petrochemical poisons, and the vulnerabilities of an oil-based economy are not just petty obsessions of the politically correct crowd." (pg. 22) Jones deepens the guilt within my own heart as he continues to equate the real situation here: "The dollars that could have saved New Orleans were used to wage war in Iraq instead, a war undeniably linked to our dependency on the region's oil." (pg. 23) These two quotes hit two key points that Jones is making in the book and targets in his title, which is a green economy is essential in trying to survive our economy and our livelihoods on this earth.

While reading I couldn't help but notice how much he didn't fall into the blame game, as many liberalists tend to do, but gave clear connections through viable information without losing the reader in the process. Jones also continues to avoid the blame game and bring to light the effects of poor policy making here: "The catastrophe of New Orleans was not the result of a deliberate act of malice…however, the logical, necessary, and inevitable outcome of the kind of politics that both major parties have been promoting for two decades. In was a concrete manifestation of a mentality that says that we are not, in fact, our sisters' and brothers' keepers." (pg. 69) Even more shocking and tragic were his direct points here: "…Iraq all added up to one thing: a government too hollowed out to competently perform its basic functions in a crisis…The truth is that George W. Bush's presidency drowned in the floodwaters of Katrina." (pg. 69-70)

    

Contradictions

 

It has been so long

Since I smelt burnt sage

And evergreen rain

The harmonious couple dancing

Smoke and water

Into this warrior's concern

 

I take this embracing cold rain

And salvaged smoke

Fevered with the possibility of change

On these ragged streets

Pavement and pine needles

Served as my training walls

I do not believe

That we have disposed of savage inequalities

From education to innate possibilities

My people are still being choked

 

This smudging supernatural sight

Attacks strategy bare and composed

With a mission of victory without tragedy

One should take notice to the universe

Bending towards the side of justice

The fight lies in self-direction

And poise at times of anger and rage

Yet more so, justice carries with such persistence

When it is not ill affected by one's own dramas

 

I am torn of my revolution

Because of one bronze skinned Xicano

Crazily he laminates a young girl's skin

To encroaching tortures

Known only to broken hearts alike

The conversations between our hearts is crisp night air

And only the morning glory can see the taking of my hair

That is not a cliquish romance of salsa dances

And Latin lovers

It is a romance of ideologies and power

Eminent elements of seduction

This is a matter of contradiction of struggle and love

Infringing on my means of arriving at an end

Dressing for the revolution

 

Señora, excuse me…

But I wanted to ask you…

If you could teach me how to dress for the revolution?

 

Emma,

Xicanita de San Antonito,

Strength in fist

And rippling effect

In a crowd's heart

There was no stopping your evolutionary mass movement.

Such a small body

To put men of great wealth

Into a fearful state

I want to wear your black and white dress in front of some steel bars

I want to wear your hair slicked back and ready for unionizing wars

I want to wear your determination

I want to wear your eyes that speak of an inner revolutionary mind fold

I want to wear the revolution como la mas chingona

I want to wear the revolution like Emma Tenayuca

 

Señora, excuse me…

But I wanted to ask you…

If you could teach me how to dress for the revolution?

 

Minerva,

Maria Teresa,

And Patria,

Las tres mariposas of the Dominican Republic

Solid stance against an unspeakable brutality

Beaten into the arms of death

By the cold, human-less hands of Trujillo

I want to wear your wings so that I can spread revolution from the air

I want to wear your resistant rags in the cell that was meant to strip you of your fever

I want to wear your irrepressible spirit even with the lives of your sisters at your side

I want to wear the revolution como las mariposas

I want to wear the revolution like the Maribel sisters

 

Señora, excuse me…

But I wanted to ask you…

If you could teach me how to dress for the revolution?

Remembering a time

 

Little dedos reach out to me

Softening all chaos

Transporting me into a world I once was in.

My father had a different car

For every period of my childhood

The blue Bonneville,

That you could only open from one side,

And with a hanger at that,

For the days I attended catholic school

How ironic,

That like those cars,

My memories sit in a junk yard,

Exhausted and dirty sight to those

Who don't know the life behind each one.

In This Land No More

 

 

In this land no more

will peasant and Indian

suffer individually.

In this land no more

will man and woman

fight for the same

and different causes.

In this land no more

will mal goberno

bleed our spirits dry

and force us onto lands

with desolate and ungiving soil.

Lands that have skin-burrowing insects

that do more than poison our health.

Lands with no hospitals,

running water, education.

Lands were they can ignore us.

Lands were they hide us from the world.

 

Zapata Vive, Vive!

La Lucha Sige, Sige!

 

Our masks swallowed our faces

so that we can be mirrored in every pueblo

that you exploit and ignore.

 

We will no longer hide,

we will no longer sit quiet

while you deceive us time and time again.

Your laws do not feed us,

your elections rip our lands from underneath us,

and your authority only leaves dead carcasses

and deeper poverty.

 

We are more than armed revolution,

we are more than the land of Chiapas.

We are the exploited, the sick, the hungry,

the uneducated, the oppressed people of

colonization, capitalism, and many other names

but all the same form of greed and power.

In this land no more will we fight separate,

In this land no more will we allow our fight to be heard just by the sky's ears.

In this land we will reach across nations to be one solid voice

against your oppression.