PUSH Critique

For this blog post, instead of just analysing one internet review source, I have decided to look at
two, in order to obtain more than just one view on Push, and to see a critique on different aspects of the novel. The first review I have decided to analyse is located at http://www.wiredmamas.com/push-by-sapphire-review/. The reason this particular critique drew my attention was its informal and very personal nature. This is identifiable as early as the second sentence, where Lana explains casually how 'I must admit, I am a sucker for off beat, alternative types of subject matter, and figured Push would be uplifting and empowering .' The relaxed nature of her writing on one hand immediately eases you into the review and gives you a clear, personal interpretation of the novel. On the other hand, this technique does leave you with a very one-dimensional and simplistic insight, ignoring some of the wider themes and consequences of the novel and Sapphire's writing itself.


The second critique I chose to focus on, located at http://thebookbook.blogspot.com/2009/01/sapphirepush.html,
on the other hand, has a very different style of writing to the previous source. In contrast with Lana's relaxed, personal approach, Lisa gives us a wider, more socially and culturally relevant response to Push. This on one hand is extremely useful, as it highlights the influence of the book outside of the literary world, and searches for the deeper meanings in the writing. However, this method of writing means that you don't receive a genuine, emotional response to the book like you do with Lana's critique. This is evident through frequent examples of the writer refusing to give a personal response to the work, instead thinking very methodologically. For example 'I’ll make no judgment about the quality of the story or the writing as they're both so unconventional I have no basis for comparison'. This example among others means that in this critique we are unable to grasp a pure, human reaction to Push.


Sapphire's writing is interpreted differently by each writer, particularly in the way they tackle some of the more controversial topics. Either review makes explicit reference to arguably the most controversial topic in the book, the sexual abuse suffered by Precious. The wiredmamas critique illustrates quite an intense reaction to the abuse. Lana explains how 'as open minded as I feel that I am, I found myself horrified through most of this book. I’ve read about abuse, neglect, addictions, ect. But the author went a step further with this one'. This reaction shows a certain lack of professionalism and exposes the critique as being possibly less serious. It is however clearly very honest. It shows how, to many people, the way Precious was treated outshines the meanings behind the portrayal of abuse. This could suggest a flaw in Sapphire's writing. Lisa from the BookBook link however looks at the situation of abuse in a far more deconstructive way. She explains how 'The protagonist in Push and both of her children, the products of incestuous rape are completely unequipped to function as productive and self-supporting members of society, through no fault of their own. Some of us believe that our society owes something to these children.' This more literary and socially conscious approach reaches the deeper meanings in the abuse as opposed to the almost childish response given by Lana.


They way in which they response to the book as a whole is explored by both reviews. Lisa's review presents a balanced response to Push, looking at how people might interpret the story positively and negatively, which is unsurprising as the evidence so far has shown that it is a more esteemed, less opinion based source. The balanced nature of the review is evident when we consider how Lisa explains that on one hand 'The story represents the truth of thousands of people of all races', but is also 'an uncomfortable, painful reading experience.' This references the compromise you have to make with the difficult language at hand in Push. If this is achieved however, Lisa reveals that the power of the themes is distinguishable. Despite the relaxed, arguably unprofessional nature of Lana's critique, the final section actually does draw resemblances to Lisa's review, and shows an awareness of the wider issues in Push. She explains how 'In summary, I believe Sapphire chose the dark theme of this book to give us a glimpse into a world unknown to most, yet does exist in our society'. This highlights, like in the other review, how the book has real social awareness, revealing the plights facing African-Americans in the 1980s.

And here's another ethnic and immigrant issue of debate in Southwest USA

........ http://www.illegalaliens.us/aztlan.htm


Who are they and what are the  problems?
See you Monday,
Good wishes,
John

Latin American Immigration - PRO/ANTI

The site I have chosen which presents a positive view on Latin American immiration to the US is http://www.nclr.org/index.php/issues_and_programs/immigration/. I decided to chose this site to analyse after reading the aims of the NCLR organisation. They expalin how the NCLR 'builds on America's identity as a nation of immigrants by promoting fairness in the law and advancing a number of ways to help immigrants fully enter the mainstream of American life.' This drew my attention as it showed the organisation's willingness to comprimise with American society by promoting the full intergration of Latin Americans into American society.

The issues surrounding immigration are addressed by the NCLR through seven catagories. You come to the first of these when you are linked to the immigration section of the sight. The political nature of the section is clear immediately, with references to Obama's view on immigration being made. It is explained how Obama's most recent policy on immigration 'does not grant legal status or work permits' and is 'not an amnesty'. This immediately shows a negative stance away from Obama's treatment of immigraiton. This idea of the importance of 'work permits' is further explored in the section "AgJobs". This section focuses specifically on the way Latino workers in agriculture are treated. This is clear when the NCLR explain how they 'promote fairness and equity for the nation’s farmworkers'.

This section, unlike the political one where they seem more interested in criticising Obama than actively helping the Latin community, shows clear signs of a genuine regard for these people. The level of their desire to change circumstances for Latin American agricultural workers is evident through AgJobs, which is an act which aims to negotiate with agricultural unions. The ideas presented in this section support the arguments they make in the first section, showing how the NCLR are successfully identifying and actively working against the areas they disagree with. This mentality resonates throughout the successive sections.

The Anti Latin american immigration site I have decided to look at is https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/enforcement/border-control/protecting-our-borders.html. When searching for American Anti-immigration organisations, NumbersUSA were frequently discussed as one of the particularly extreme groups. This immediately drew my attention, and although NumbersUSA doesn't isolate just the Latin American community in its dislike of immigration, I found a page which showed clear evidence anti-Latino immigration, with an interestingly different way of looking at the issues when comparing the site with my previous source.

The section I looked at is named "Protect our Borders", immediately identifying Latin America as a perpetrator. Although the aggressive, proactive nature of the previous source resonates in this NumbersUSA section, the sense of negotiation and comprimise is entirely absent in this site. It is replaced by very demanding, one-dimentional demands. They confidently state 'Recent congressional actions have taken aim at these weak areas, but more still needs to be done', offering their own set of ideas that must be incorporated. These ideas primarily involve further guarding of the border, the increased length of the border and the increased height of the border. This seems to be the only real recent opinion on Latin American immigration, and its lack of vision and substance, unlike the previous source, shows how they have in many ways failed to properly address and offer solutions to the problems of immigration.

One thing that this section does do well is show clear knowledge of the immigration situation itself. Although it doesn't do a particularly good job of giving ideas to solve the problems, the problems themselves are very aware to NumbersUSA, in a sense showing that they are addressing the issues. Facts and figures such as 'The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 authorized the hiring of an additional 10,000 border agents by 2010' do back up their demands, with this particular example being followed by 'has not been fully funded'. This shows how despite their naivety and lack of solutions, the organisation does understand the immgration system and does address the issues.

Latio Immigration

PRO -

This website; http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/immigrant-justice is seen to be pro immigration. The organisation is set up with the aim in ‘fighting hate and bigotry, and to seek justice for the most vulnerable members of society.’ The southern poverty law centre track the activities of hate groups and act against them, for the injustice of those victimized. One of their top priorities is ‘immigrant justice’ not only are they working against the immigrant inequality in the work place, their ‘intelligence report’http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2007/winter/immigration-backlash highlights the ‘hate crimes against latinos.’ They go on to explain that ’immigration is growing uglier by the day.’ Immigrants from Mexico and Central America are been perceived as "invaders," "criminal aliens" and "cockroaches." The level of extremity towards them has increased as it is no longer just ‘hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists’ that are acting and in some cases causing bloodshed, but many ‘supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, radio hosts and politicians,’ have joined in. The website offers examples of when immigrants have been unfairly treated, although some of the cases have been resolved and the attackers have been dealt with, many cases go without notice and immigrants cases never get sent to court.

The website offers a ‘stand strong against hate’ map http://www.splcenter.org/get-involved/stand-strong-against-hate this allowing people to show their support for immigrants. The map however also shows ‘hate groups’ the map offers a visual representation of their idea that ‘As the ranks of hate swell, people of goodwill must stand up and be counted’

ANTI -

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageNavigator/about.html This second website is very anti immigration. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) their purpose is to try and reform immigration policies’ as a case of ‘the national interest.’ The websites aim is to make people aware of the figures of immigration and to discourage it. The website is able to gain a sense of closeness to the person who reads it by putting them in the situation, as the heading ‘immigration in your backyard’ suggests that they are being personally effect by the growing immigration levels.

FAIR don’t out rightly state that they don’t want immigration, but they do however put it in terms that reform policies are need as a national necessity. The website covers all aspects of immigration, in looking at the section regarding border patrol;http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16671&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1007 there use of the word alien to describe people who cross the border, enhance the idea that these people are unwanted to America.

The organisations aims are not however just to cut illegal immigration, but to discourage immigration as a whole. They state in ‘Our Principles’ that they aim to set the ‘lowest feasible levels consistent with the national security, economic, demographic, environmental and socio-cultural interests of the present and future.’ Despite them not saying they want to eradicate immigration the information that they give on their website is that the ‘economic, demographic, environmental and socio-cultural interests of the present and future,’ are already at a high so therefore immigration for them is not an option.

Immigration Task

The website I have found for anti-immigration in the south-west of America is:

http://www.defendcoloradonow.org/perspective/art_negative_effects.html

It is a blog site site written by a man called Waldo Benavidez, which focuses on the negative effect of immigration in the state of Colorado. One of his main arguments is the effect immigration has had on the "working poor" of the USA. I think he makes a few fair points and claims he has not set up the website to, as he puts it, be an "immigrant basher" but near the end of his blog he tries to argue that their have been a huge number of murders in and around the border of Mexico which have gone unsolved and that this is a reflection of how little regard Mexicans have for their own people which frankly is a ridiculous point. This site also provides a link to a website for CAIR (Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform) which is a non-profit organisation which is "seriously concerned with Americas rapid population growth"

http://www.cairco.org/

The website I have found for pro-immigration in the south-west is:

http://www.immigrationworksusa.org/index.php?p=20

Immigration Works USA is a national organisation which aims to help immigration reform to benefit all Americans. The organisation is present in 25 states in the US. There were a few states to chose from in terms of the south-west of America but I chose this one:

http://www.txsip.com/

This site is Texans for Sensible Immigration Policy. I wanted to pick a site that wasn't Latino run as I thought it might be to bias so thought this was a good site as it is Texan, which is arguably the biggest republican state, who are of course most related with anti-immigration policies. I like it because it is a fairly balanced site. It states that illegal immigration needs to be stopped as it has got out of controls but they are simple and fair measures which can be taken to help achieve this.

Pro and Anti Latino Immigration

The first website I have found is a petition website and there is a very anti Latino Immigration petition that was set up in 2006, a section is titled "Kick the dirty Mexicans out of the US!" The petition page was created in 2002, but the founder is unknown.

This website isnt just an informative site, it is a petition based website to get Mexicans out of the US and to stop them taking America's jobs. This particular petition has 100 signatures, so its goes to show how strongly people feel about Mexicans being in the country.

Some of the comments are very aggressive and, i think, offensive. One comment said that "Mexicans are dirty, stinky garbage".

Overall, this website poses as a good anti latino immigration site because they describe, in this case, mexican with very negative words. It zero's in on a particular minority that people know are very likely to take our worst jobs.....

This now brings the blog into an opposite direction with a pro Latino Immigration website, this site is more of descriptive piece on pro latino immigration, written by an individual who discusses immigration as a big topic in America today he says that Latino's have done America a huge favor to help the economy by doing the jobs that no other American would ever do! He also says the that America has been 'letting' immigrants into the US with out them even having to consider crossing the border:

"The truth of this is that you do not need to sneak across the boarder to get into the United States. Every year the United States is letting more and more immigrants into the United States. In 2005 1,122,373 immigrants were allowed into the country."

Halfway through his statement it seems that he takes either an opposite side to the argument or he is 'on the fence', because he says: "Immigrants have almost every right that any citizen in the United States has but illegal immigrants have no right to be living in the United States. Why should illegal immigrants be allowed into the United States and take the jobs of those who came to the United States and worked hard to get their citizenship. Illegal immigrants are hurting everyone whether they realize it or not. "Illegal immigrant's first act in this country was to break the law." (Ian de Silva, 2) By coming into the United States illegally they are already breaking a law and should not be allowed into the United States unless they do it legally and properly."

To me this says that everyone has a right to enter into the country as long a you do it the right way and you cannot be judged for it or criticized.

Overall, the two websites are very different the Anti Immigration one is very opinionated with people expressing only their views while the other is more factual with information to backup his theories on the subject.

anti

pro

PRO and ANTI Latino Immigration

http://www.alternacommunity.com/

http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/

Alterna, set up in 2006, is a Christian non-governmental organization that works with people who cross the borders into America: “…is an experiment in Christian missional living, welcoming the stranger and offering hospitality to Jesus who often visits us as an unauthorized immigrant from Latin America.” Their slogan is: “Love Crosses Borders”. They are based in the state of Georgia and are in correspondence with Guatemala.

Alterna enforces the idea of immigration and heavily supports (almost to the point of promoting) immigration particularly amongst illegal immigrants; “…relocation means living a life of simplicity and solidarity with migrants particularly undocumented…” and by their speaking in both English and Spanish they are welcoming to Latino immigrants from Latin America. Their Christian message also acts as their reasoning to want to help Latino immigrants.

MinutemenHQ, first made famous by Shawna Forde (after the murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores) act as the “National Citizens Neighbourhood Watch- Securing the American Border” and their mission is to: “secure United States borders and coastal boundaries against unlawful and unauthorised entry of all individuals, contraband and foreign military”. In the top left hand corner there is a picture of a man with binoculars, and this reiterates their message of acting as a kind of neighbourhood watch.

Whilst Alterna acts to welcome Latino immigration, MinutemenHQ are strongly against it and portray immigrants as dangerous. This is enforced by the counter on the side which estimates the number of “illegal aliens”. As well as this, there is a picture of someone’s eye (representing America) and two flags which look to represent tears, showing that Latino immigration is not good for America. Further down the page, the use of words such as “brutal”, “armed illegals” and “launched Mexico-style attacks” implies to how dangerous immigrants are to America. These particular words spread panic and fear amongst locals, and so encourages people to be against Latino immigration as they think they could be subject to violence. This is very different to the message of love that Alterna tries to promote.

MinutemenHQ think that a majority of people in America agree with their argument and in their “about us” section they write: “You are reading this because you believe that you can actively participate in one of the most important […] movements for justice since the civil rights movement of the 1960s”. I think that the fact they can compare Latino immigration to the civil rights movement (one of the most prolific times in American history) shows just how severe they feel the situation is, and at the same time showing their insensitivity to what happened all those years ago. They go on to almost force the reader to join their cause by using words like “you are considering joining” and “you feel your government owes the citizens of the United States protection from people who wish to take advantage of a free society”; in some way brainwashing Americans to follow them [MinutemenHQ].

The most obvious between Alterna and MinutemenHQ is how they set up their message and present it to the world and other Americans. Whereas Alterna is welcoming, using easy font, large lettering, warm welcoming colours and personal photos, and an easily navigated website; MinutemenHQ’s website appears cold, distant, unwelcoming, very factual based with their news headlines, small fonts and lack of pictures. Even from these different set ups, it can be seen how each side perceive Latino immigrations.