History Alive Project– Dr. Seuss

My topic is on the artist and author Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss was beneficial not only to the modern world, but also to the Civil Rights movement because some of his work from 1941 to 1943 went against the African-Americans racial identity through art. Although Dr. Seuss is mostly known for his childrens’ books, he also illustrated other cartoons that affects politics and racism.

Originally, my first topic was on the activist Malala Yousafzai, but it quickly changed after I realized that I wasn’t that interested in her. I then decided to research on the artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell since I was interested in art and he had a huge connection to Civil Rights. But this quickly changed when Mr. Elms gave me the topic of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is one of the most famous authors for kids worldwide, and it’s very intriguing when I found out there was a different side to him during the time when he drew racist cartoons in World War II. Also, I became even more interested when I learned that the children’s books he wrote had connections to the past such as Adolf Hitler, the Japanese Americans during the American Post-War, and the Cold War.

In order to research, I had to look through the comics that Seuss drew during that time period. I went to a secondary source website (Library of the University of California of San Diego) and found copies of his comic collections. Most of the time, I went on online websites of colleges or museums that have copies of his cartoons such as Dartmouth College and the National World War II museum in New Orleans. There I found primary sources of the drawings he drew himself. Because I thought I needed a variety of different types of sources, I borrowed a book about Dr. Seuss and his work. This book really helped me understand more about his life and what he did as a living before starting to write children’s books.

Because Dr. Seuss was an artist himself, I thought that the best way to convey this project was to do an exhibit. With the cartoons and the drawings he did as a primary source, it made sense to have them on an exhibit. I also decided to select this category because since there were so many images of his cartoons to display, it would be easier to present them through an exhibit presentation.

Although Seuss was mostly famous for the children comics he drew, the ones he drew in the 1940’s goes against races that weren’t White. One of those races was African, and he drew cartoons that was anti-African Americans. He wasn’t exactly a racist, and he was leaning towards being inclusive. He wanted to reduce racial conflicts rather than just responding to the situation.

History Alive Step Two – Beginning Research

Topic Idea:

1. Who: Norman Rockwell

2. What: A 20th-century American painter and illustrator

3. Where: United States

4. When: 1894 (Birth) - 1978 (Death)

5. Why is your topic important?
Although Rockwell might only be a painter and an illustrator, the work he has accomplished had a great deal of effect. His career encompassed two World Wars, a Great Depression, and a Civil Rights movement. For more than 50 years, Rockwell's paintings were among the most recognizable in America.

6. How is your topic related to Civil Rights in America?
Norman Rockwell was the painter for the Ruby Bridges painting "The Problem We All Live With". The painting is an iconic image of the civil rights movement that shows Ruby Bridges walking into an all white public school as the first African American to have done so during the process of desegregation. It shows many important details that can be seen in the painting itself.

History Alive Project Ideas

1. Assata Shakur

• an African-American activist and member of the former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. 
• involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike.
• FBI predator stigmatized her as the first woman on its Most Wanted Terrorists list in May 2013. Shakur never was and is not now a terrorist.

2. Fred T. Korematsu

• one of the many Japanese-American citizens living on the West Coast of the United States at the onset of World War II. 
• a national civil rights hero. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans.
• won the Presidential Medal of Freedom award

3. Alice Paul

• an American suffragist, feminist, civil rights activist and women's rights activist.
• main leader and strategist of the 1910s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote.
• became acquainted with women suffragists and their work.

4. Maya Angelou

• was an American author, poet, dancer, actress, singer and civil rights activist.
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Causes of The Civil War

There are a many principles that caused the Civil War. A few examples are the economical crash and the speeches given by both abolitionists and sociologists. As a result, Congress made various compromises to keep the Union together.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Southern_Chivalry.jpg

Although there were many sociologists, there were also abolitionists such as Senator Charles Sumner who delivered speeches against pro-slavery men. As a result of Sumner’s speech“ The Crime against Kansas”, Preston Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives charged into Sumners chambers and beat him with a cane for insulting South Carolina and Senator Andrew Butler. Another speech that also had a huge effect on the Civil War was delivered by an African American abolitionist  Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1952. Douglass stated, “Your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns,... are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy.” This was an offensive statement that offended Southerners and slaveholders, causing more tension between the North and the South.

The economical crisis is a clear example of one of the reasons that caused the Civil War. In 1828, a new conflict on economy arose between the North and the South. The issue of tariffs almost tore the United States apart. The South had little industry and it bought many manufactured goods from Europe or from the protected Northern businesses. This made the South feel overcharged and cheated. When high protective tariffs were passed by Congress, an issue was raised about states’ rights. After many threats and debates occurred, a bill with lower tariffs was finally passed, and another compromise was made to keep the country together.

http://sectionalismtosecession.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/1/3/12130294/2135647_orig.jpg?415

One of the examples that the Congress did to keep the Union as a whole were the various compromises the Union made to keep the North and the South relatively calm. Congress did this to keep the balance between slave and free states, as it had to be maintained. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, for example, was devised to exclude slavery from the area north of the Ohio River, and slaveholders moved west to new Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi. In 1820, a compromise called the Missouri Compromise was made by Congress to solve another crisis that came up by admitting Maine to the Union as a free state.

Although the Civil War took 4 years to finally end and caused many deaths and injuries, it also freed thousands of African Americans from slavery and brought equality between the Whites and the African race.

Modern Slavery

Immigrate Essay

Chinese-Indonesians

The Chinese and the Chinese immigration to Indonesia:

        Chinese-Indonesians, are Chinese descendants who moved from China to Indonesia in the late 1800's to 1930's. They mostly immigrated from the Southern parts of China, and the rise 

and fall of dynasties in the country were one of the reasons why people moved. These Chinese immigrants were then called the Tionghoa, and they moved when Indonesia was under the rule of the Dutch colonial. They immigrated because most of the people in China were extremely poor, and they needed to find wealth to take care of their families. After immigrating to Indonesia, most of these Chinese immigrants worked as merchants supplying resources for the Dutch, and the majority of them worked as a contract worker, under the Dutch colony. The first wave of Chinese immigrants to immigrate were at the end of the 1800's, and they traveled by sea, directly through the Maritime of Southeast Asia. 

        The largest waves of Chinese migration happened during the earlier colonial era seeking to find new opportunities of trade.  During the 1910-20's, another wave of Chinese immigrants came to Indonesia because China was in war with Japan, and people were looking for a safer and better place to live in. During this time, most of them became businessman, and so the Chinese Indonesians started to become wealthier than the Native people. Race relations between the Chinese-Indonesians and native Indonesians have always been a problem and still is up to the present. Some commentators trace this to the Dutch years when colonial policy favoured the ethnic Chinese, and so they gave them a head start in establishing their economic dominance over the region.

         In general, there were three waves of Chinese to Southeast Asia. The first wave was motivated by trade dating back to the 15th century, the second wave was around the time of the Opium Wars (A war between England and China during 1856-1860) and the third wave was around the first half of the 20th century. In the 1960's, many Chinese Indonesians migrated back to China, or to a different country because of a political riot that occurred against the Chinese Indonesians. While others moved back to home, some moved to different countries, for example, the United States. 

Chinese-Indonesian Americans

The Chinese-Indonesians and their immigration to America:

        A few of the Chinese-Indonesians immigrated to the United States in the 1950's, mostly to study at American universities, and to get better education. As it is stated above, some Chinese Indonesians migrated to different countries such as America, since Indonesia had a political riot against the Chinese Indonesians. During those years, some American universities started providing scholarships for the Chinese Indonesians who worked in Indonesian universities. In the 1960's, because there were a number of political and ethnical issues, several thousands Indonesians and Chinese-Indonesians migrated to the United States. However, this immigration wave only lasted for a short while, due to the fact that Indonesia's political riots subsided quickly, and also because of the limitations of the number of immigrants allowed to pass through America. Some Chinese Indonesians still immigrate for more job and economic opportunities. 

        Overall, the population of Chinese-Indonesians and Indonesians in America is very low compared to the population of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants who immigrated to America too. According to EveryCulture.com, of the 6,876,394 Asian population in the United States, only 0.4% are from Indonesia. One of the reasons why not many Chinese-Indonesians migrate to the U.S, was because doing business was relatively a lot easier in Indonesia. The majority of Chinese-Indonesians usually lives large cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York and Chicago. This is partly because of the improved job opportunities of these areas, and because these cities have established Asian American communities.  

        Immigration for the Chinese-Indonesian Americans have been difficult because Indonesians are extremely attached to the traditions of their homeland. For their culture and food, they mostly stick to what they know. For example, rice is an essential ingredient to the Indonesian meals and diet. During special holidays or events of America, the Chinese-Indonesian Americans would celebrate it by cooking their own dietary customs. For everyday meals, some Indonesians enjoy and are able to eat American food, while some others prefer their own traditional food from their homeland. 

        

        In recent years, many Chinese-Indonesians have immigrated to the United States to go to American colleges or universities. After going to school for a long time, most of them would apply for   permanent residency or for citizenship. The number of Chinese-Indonesian students in America have grown steadily for a long time. Also, because there are more immigrants coming to the States, the language of Chinese and Indonesian are increasing in the country. Although there are two main religions in Indonesia (Islam and Christian), the majority of people who migrated are Christians. 

       
        There are barely anything to say about the history of Chinese-Indonesian Americans long ago, because the Chinese-Indonesians didn't start immigrating until the early 1990's. It was very recent when a lot of Indonesians finally moved to the U.S to seek for better education and life, because they never felt the need to move out of their homeland. Even though Chinese-Indonesians have just finally started to immigrate to the United States, it still has an impact to the American culture, making it more diverse in language, food, religion and more. 

Multicultural America Project

This website was created as part of my Social Studies class as we learned about American history. In this website I will not only be explaining about the history of America, but also about my family's history, and why people from the same ethnic background as myself immigrate to the United States. 

Click here for the website

Label Test

UN Day Reflection

During RLA, we had a poetry club where some of us are anonymously chosen to read our poems out loud to the whole audience. This really boosted some people’s confidence in order to speak loud and clear.

During Math, our main target learning was to understand how to make the right decisions around the world. We really connected with it and it gave us a chance to understand how difficult it is to make real decisions for real world problems.

During the food festival, we really got a chance to taste all kinds of food around the world. It was a great experience, and it was really fun for all of us.

During science, as we played the game that was described above, some teams started to realize that other teams had better resources and help to get them to win faster. Once we were finished with the game, our teachers then told us why they made the game unfair. This led us to realize that throughout the world, there are countries that are feeling the same as we did when playing the game. Some countries have better access to other resources, and they might be allies with other countries, and so that gives them an advantage. While other countries might not be lucky. Countries that are developing might not have the money or resources to get food, water, goods and to build new shelter.

During PE, we got to experience what it’s like for the women in Africa. It wasn’t fun or a very great experience, but it was a good one for learning something new. We got a chance to know what they feel everyday, and if we can imagine that they have to carry two gallons of water to their villages back every single day. When I was finished with the two laps around the field, my hands started to hurt and my shoulder was hurting. And then I realized that this was the whole point of why we did it. To know that the girls there have to walk 6km everyday carrying a big bucket of water made me understand their situation much more.

I would like to learn more about the real world problem countries and how people make those hard decisions. It really makes me wonder because even during the decision game we had to do during Math, the groups had some trouble deciding what their decision would be and we couldn’t stop arguing. If we found that hard, I really want to know how the people out there make decisions.

If I could do UN Day again, I would really like to keep the food festival. It was the best experience out of all for me, and I think it would be great for others too. I wouldn’t change anything because I think that UN Day was really fun and I really enjoyed it.

ITN Reflection

1.  What makes a great “In the News” presentation?  Give 2 to 3 examples.

A great ‘In the News’ presentation is when the ITN document is filled in clearly, and specifically, and when a presentation uses the Tell n Show method. Everything is dropped in the Social Studies dropbox before the presentation, labeled correctly. The document should be correct and clearly filled with effort and consistency. The presentation should be clear, with eye contact, a strong voice with expression, a smooth pace, and controlled movements and gestures. It also

2.  What feedback did you receive about your “In the News” presentation last semester.  

a)  What went well for you?

My presentation went really well, it was clear, detailed and thoroughly explained and practiced. I projected my voice, and I made eye contact with the audience in front of me, with no uncontrolled gestures or movements. My presentation had the Tell n Show method, with barely any text, and a clear layout that is easy to understand.

b)  What areas do you need to focus on and improve?

I need to improve on my ITN document and make it more thorough, with clear explanations that are clearly and correctly explained. I need to put more effort and time to writing it, and balance out the time between the presentation and document.

My goal is….

My goal is to have a clearly explained ITN document, done with effort and consistency.

I will achieve it by…

I will achieve it by putting more time into writing it, with more effort.

I will know I have a achieved it when...

When I get a good grade for my ITN document, or when I compare it with my other ITN document from last semester and see if I have improved.

DCA

1. Respect and Protect Yourself
2. Respect and Protect Others
3. Respect and Protect Intellectual Property
4. Respect and Protect Property
5. Why is DCA important? Why do schools have these agreements?

The DCA is important because it helps to prevent cyber-bullying. It also helps to stop the illegal spread of copyrighted material.

Schools have these agreements because they want to provide good and safe learning environments for all the students at their school.

Creating Class Labels