My family and I ready for the Diwali ceremony. Ready with Indian dresses and the accessories that go with it. Diwali ceremony taking place in the office, since it occurs in every place you own.
One day of a year, every Indian home is practicing the same prayer and ceremony. Indians, who are from different regions and speak different languages, are all together celebrating this day full of prayers, lights and happiness. It is not the same day every year, but it’s around the same time.
History
There are different stories that are believed in different regions in India, but the most famous one is the one of Lord Rama
The King of Ayodhya – an ancient city in India, King Dashrata had three wives. His third wife wanted her son to be next to the throne, instead of Rama, who was the son of the first wife. The third wife insisted the King to send Rama to the forest for fourteen year and so he did, Rama, with his wife Sita (who is considered as a reincarnation or a form of Lakshmi) and one of his brothers, Lakshman. During his exile, Rama defeated the demon Ravana and returned home to Ayodhya, where he was welcomed with lighting clay lamps in honor of victory over evil, and he was crowned king of Ayodhya.
Five-Day Ceremony
Diwali is celebrated in five days. The first day we spring clean our home and buy some new things for the house. We change bed sheets and clean every corner preparing and making the homemade sweets, like jamus and mithais needed for the next day’s prayers.
The third day is Diwali, where dressing up with new clothes, prayers ad eating sweets happens. The fourth and fifth day is the start of the New Year. It also signifies the start of a new financial year, full of good luck.
The Day of Diwali
The day starts with warm wishes from family and friends. There are lit candles all over the house and the lights are turned on, even with daylight. It signifies inner light that protects us from spiritual darkness. We eat a bhaji (a mix of seven vegetables in a sauce) for lunch, representing seven days of the week.
We get dresses in a whole new wardrobe, and we wear Indian dresses and the accessories that go with it, ready for the ceremony, which is repeated in every property you own, or consider yours, like your house, your office, etc.
We do a ceremony where we clean and praise Lakshmi and Ganesh. Lakshmi is represented by many gold coins and Ganesh is represented with a coconut with a Ganesh sign on it. Each person puts milk, water, flowers, and rice on each of the ritual items. We also put for them a fruit and a sweet, which after that is considered holy and sacred.
After that, we do aarti to a Lakshmi song, towards the symbols representing Gods. Not long after, we take the fire used for the aarti and lets its smoke go all over the home, for t he good spirits to go all over the house and to now tell Lakshmi she is welcome in our house. You also take the remainder of the water used for the ceremony and sprinkle it all over the house, for the same purpose. Finally, we get to eat the sweets and enjoy the New Year and kids usually get a gift, but its usually money.
I chose Mary Spirit, because throughout the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, it talks about her dreams and how she react to them by staying in the basement for years, and finally going out to try and achieve her goals, but it never happened. She struggles to express to everyone what she wants, she struggles of being a Native American of the Spokane Tribe and knowing that she cannot do anything with her life.
Arnold, her younger brother was a big role model for her because he left to go to a white school, so she thought that she could leave he reservation too, which she did, she got married and went to another reservation in Montana, but she was happier there. Arnold taught her that if you have a dream you could go out of the way to fulfill it.
I chose a dream catcher because its Native American, it symbolizes catching your dreams and letting go your nightmares and its supposed to be put near your sleep, because when your sleeping its when you dream. I also chose it because we were talking about dreams, dreams going nowhere. On the net I show some of her dreams that never came true, and since it’s on the net it symbolizes like it’s stuck and can’t get through. On the feathers hanging, I put some obstacles and struggles that she faced while trying to achieve her dream. It means that the obstacles are there pulling her dream down so she cannot achieve them, and that’s why the dreams didn’t pass through the net.
On the bottom of the dream catcher I have some obstacles, like a card, because she use to gamble, a wine cork, because she used to drink a lot and she has an alcoholic background, and a key, because she was locked in the basement for seven years.
She wanted to leave the Spokane reservation, which she did by getting married to another Native American, but she thought that she could fulfill her dream of being a writer and writing romance novels, but her life didn’t take her much far from there. On the dream catcher, I put a pen to symbolize writing, and a heart to symbolize romance novels that she wanted to write, also how she wanted to get married and leave the reservation.
An element of art I had in mind was color. I used all subtle colors to express dreams that didn’t go anywhere, they were lost, and they were not bright, although on the net, the obstacles were bright pink, symbolizing bright dreams. I also used texture; there is a lot to feel in the dream catcher, rocks, feathers and obstacles. Also, I used some principles of design like variety, proportion, movement and balance. There are a variety of things on the dream catcher, all over the dream catcher so there is movement to take your eyes throughout the whole dream catcher. I added a lot of things, related to her dreams, obstacles and Native American things that make up who Mary Spirit is.
Should we be what we want or what others want us to be? In the books The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros there are many characters that have a dream to do something, but they are expected to do something else because of society and the people surrounding them. The authors prove how Arnold Spirit, Mary Spirit and Marin’s responsibility to their community and tribe take precedence over their own goals, even though it shouldn’t.
Arnold Spirit left the reservation to follow his dreams and get a good education. He is a leader and a risk-taker for achieving his goals, but his tribe was not that happy. “You’ll be the first one to leave the rez this way, The Indians around here are going to be angry with you” (Alexie 47). His mom explained to him that it’s a good opportunity but that he was going to let his tribe down. No one expected him to leave to go study in a white school, and once he did everyone else on the rez was mad, except for his family, and stopped talking to him, including Rowdy, his best friend. They would just shut the door on his face and refuse to talk to him. At the end of the book, everyone was happy for him and Rowdy too; Rowdy told Arnold “You’re going to keep moving all over the world in search for food and water and grazing land. That’s pretty cool” (Alexie 230). Even though Arnold is expected to do something else by his reservation, he went out of his ways to achieve his individual goal first.
Mary Spirit was quite similar to her brother. She was expected to stay on the reservation just like him, but she wanted to go out to be a writer just like him. She left the reservation to go to another reservation, thinking she could achieve her goal, but she didn’t. “She kept writing in her book. And she kept up working up the courage to show it to somebody and then she just stopped” (Alexie 39). Mr. P told Arnold. She just stopped and lived in the basement for seven years. She lost hope because she knew her tribe was not going to approve. But she got inspired to leave by her younger brother Arnold. “I love it here in Montana. It’s beautiful. It was a dream come true! I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana” (Alexie 99-100). Her responsibility took precedence over her goals when it comes to writing novels, but it didn’t when it came to leaving the reservation.
Marin, was waiting for someone to come, Her goal was to leave and have someone who loved her and took care of her, but she didn’t have a own personal goal, she just wanted to leave, she was depending on someone. “Marin under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life” (Cisneros 27). She had no hope for herself, but she didn’t want her responsibility to her community to take precedence on what she wanted. She was expected to stay in the Hispanic family and to be a housewife locked up in her house. She wanted to leave Mango Street and her family, and wanted to build her own family, but most probably she was going to be a housewife and no hope for her personal life, because she was depending on someone. She didn’t do anything about her own
Mostly, in both the books, people’s responsibility to their community was more important, and not their goals. Many people didn’t get anywhere with their individual goals, like Marin. Some got half of what they wanted, like Mary. However, others, like Arnold, got what they wanted by fighting and never giving up and thanks to him I think that our personal goals are priority then comes our responsibility to our community and what they expect of us.
Degradation of Native Americans – Lack of Quality Education
Tuesday afternoon a drive through the Spokane Reservation, we see the local school, Native Americans in secondhand clothes, drunkards and a group of Native American boys playing soccer barefoot surrounded by worn down houses.
The Native Americans were put in reservations because most Americans saw them as an obstacle to America’s growth. Today there are more than half a million Native Americans in the United States and millions more elsewhere in the Americas. Still trying to cope with adjustment to white civilization, they are in all stages of development. A few have made money from oil and other natural sources found on their lands, but many live at near-starvation levels. Relocation programs have taken hundreds of Native Americans to work in cities; thousands of others cling to the security of their reservations, hoping to gain education and assistance necessary to develop the resources of their lands and become self-sustaining. Generally, the Native Americans are still proud of their traditions and heritage. But Native Americans generally also recognize that their standards of living must be raised.
We stop by a small house, which is Spirit family’s house. From one side of the street, we see the house and it doesn’t seem so safe, its not well painted and it has crumbling bricks. We go over and knock on the front door and a drunk man, with a beer belly and an unshaved beard opens the door.
“Where is hope? Who has hope?” –Arnold Spirit
“Who are you? What do you want?” The man said
We try to respond that we want to talk to Arnold Spirit, but Arnold cuts us off coming over and tellin g his dad he will take over from there. He invites us in and all we see are plastic chairs, tables, and room doors open to see mattresses on the floor. Arnold, who is also known as Junior in the reservation, is a Native American teenager with a lot of disorders, but a really good basketball player, he dropped out from the Native Americans school, Wellpinit, to go to a white school, Reardan, because his teacher inspired him. Arnold rearranges some chairs and points out to a chair so I can sit on it and then he sits on another plastic chair in front of me and waits…
“At the start in Reardan, it was difficult I admit it but there was no way back, Rowdy, my best friend was angry and my parents wouldn’t let me change back to my old school, Wellpinit, I just had to accustom. Now I feel popular, I can talk to everyone with out him or her first saying get out of my way redskin.” Arnold said.
Above is a drawing taken from the book and this is how Arnold describes his feeling of being Native American going to a white school http://www.saraheachday.com
“I actually like Reardan way better, Penelope and Roger know I’m poor and that I’m Native American and I don’t get bullied about it, they’re actually my friends. But in Wellpinit, even though I’m Native American like them, I got bullied. Also, the education in Reardan is better, even though it’s a small town, its great and I can actually do something with my life, I have dreams and I can live up to them. Well, like my sister, before she died and after she got married, she was independent and she got the chance to see what the real world looks like from other perspectives than the basement.” Arnold adds.
As we were concluding the interview, we hear a knock on the door and Arnold gets up and answers. His face expressed he was surprised to see a man at his house, I overheard him calling him Mr. P, and then I recall that Mr. P was the teacher who inspired Arnold to go to Reardan. I was happy to see him, because now I could ask him some questions too. I walk over there and they look at me weirdly, I introduce myself and I ask if I could talk with him and very kindly he agrees. We go out to the back porch and we all three sit down there. Mr. P and Arnold start talking about Reardan, but then there is a silence so I start asking Mr. P.
“I didn’t mean to kill the Native Americans to save the child literally, what I mean is, we were meant to make them give up being an Native Americans, the culture, the songs, the stories, the dancing and the language but that was back in the bad days. I used to treat them really bad and I regret it all now. ” Mr. P said.
“I chose Arnold because he is a smart kid, he has hopes and dreams and I know that if he stays here he will end up like every one else here. He has to go out, he has to bring pride to this reservation, he deserves better than this and he can be something in life. On the whole, the kids who go to Willpinit are just for a pass time, we all know how the kids in the rez are going to end up, they’re going to end up like their parents, even though they have hopes and dreams, they’re going to be crushed because they keep staying on the rez, and on the rez, you cant succeed and fulfill your dreams” Mr. P adds.
The logo and the name of the NFL team the Redskins they have started a whole controversy with their mascot (A Native American.) http://www.pbs.org/
We have learned about Degradation of Native Americans especially in the perspective of Education. In the future we see a change and hope for Native Americans, because now they can live all over America, although some choose to stay in the reservations.
The House on Mango Street gender roles and expectations prezi
Group: Daniela Girlado, Valeria Reyes, Carlos Sánchez-Sicilia, Emily Duque and Tanya Mukhi
My year was quite rough at the start, adjusting to a new province, house and school. But everything turned out better than I expected. I’ve never moved around and it was a total new experience.
I am from shoeboxes, Nine West and shoe bite band aids. I am from the apartment with the ocean view, from the shiny marble floor and the big refrigerators. I am from the palm tress and living next to the water, Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, it doesn’t really matter. I am from sitting at home on Sundays watching Sunday football and from going out for family lunch on Saturdays.
I am from wearing eyeglasses, but then switching to contact lenses, from eating a heavy lunch and a light dinner. From Kamal and Raveena Mukhi. I am from turn off the lights and close the door, from put it back from where you found it, and from stop biting your nails.
I am from Guru’s and Lord Krishna, from bows and arrows and from the Bhagwat Gita. I am from Sindh India, curry and spicy foods. But I’m also from Panama, polleras and montunos. I’m from leaving Liberia to come to Panama because of the Civil War, from the working granddad since he was fourteen and from the mom who couldn’t say otorrinolaringología
I am from Wing Zone and Don Lee takeout, Thai chili chicken wings and sweet and sour pork. From the people who can’t make up their minds, from being a “tomboy” to a “girly girl”, from being “daddy’s princess” to a “spoilt brat”. I am from the pictures kept in a big box on the top of my parents closet, the pictures that determine who I am and where I’m from.
Tanya M 