The monologue that most interested me was the Vet Story by Seema Sueko. It interested me because when I watched it many people came to mind. The monologue itself was about a veteran who fought in Afghanistan and now has a hard time intergrating back into notmal society. He struggles to interact  with his family as he does not want them to see him as a killer. Despite his efforts, he unintentionally hits his daughter when she triggers a flash back from the war. Although he is proud to be a solider, he claims that he has lost his innocence in the call of duty. Essentially, he realized that even though the war has ended, his life will never be the same.

While watching the monologue I began to think about my grandparents, those on my father’s side. I never had the oppurtunity to meet them as they died before I was born. They lived in Jamaica and were police officers. Unfortunately they were unable to spend much time with their families because of their professions. They would only eat after they had finished working and they almost always put their job before their health. While they were honored for protecting their community, they had to sacrifice their personal lives in order to do so. This also makes me worry about my friends who have chosen to join the military after graduating high school. I hope that the experience of being a part of the army strengthens them instead of harming them.

After going through these My America videos, I found one to be particularly interesting and captivating to me. In FLATLAND by Lauren Yee, performed by Johnny Wu, an Asian-American male named Pao is discussing in front of a class about his Hmong heritage in honor of Asian Pacific Islander Heritage month. He explains it in a way where he believes that not many people know of the Hmong people or that they already have a conceived notion about them. Many Hmong people and other Asian immigrants, live in city environments in hopes to establish close knit ethnic communities. I felt that the character, Pao, represented this young urban Asian-American, who was surrounded by people who were oblivious to the Hmong culture. Even though he is clearly American and most likely grew up in this country, it seems that he wanted to prove his culture to be extremely exotic which was shown when he mentioned it’s popular eating tigers and snakes in his culture, when really it wasn’t. I felt that Pao exaggerated his culture to make it seem like it was really foreign like many people would had expected but really it’s similar to those of other cultures in America. As an Asian-American, I understand the idea of people expecting you to be different and exotic, even though you grew up in America and have been surrounded around many American traditions and ideas. Yet at the same time, I do feel the want to stand out as being different and to teach people about my culture and how it is different from others. There are so many different types of Asian-Americans that have families that come from all over Asia. Even in China, where my family is from, there are different regions that develop different cultures and ultimately are classified as different Chinese people. Even though I live in a city that is so diverse, I still witness encounters where people do group together many Asian cultures as if they were all very similar or if not the same, even though each one is distinct.

The power of a name is incredible, one word that owns you for the rest of your life unless of course it is changed. Melanie explores her American story by exploiting how her name as well as her fathers name format was created. This particular story really stuck to me because when I moved to America with my family nearly sixteen years ago, my father had also changed my name so it would fit into the American custom easily. Though this is a story I had learned later in the years, it was truly fascinating knowing I am not really who I ought to be.

My name is Shawlin Azad Auchal, the youngest daughter of the Azad family. But my college ID, facebook page, instagram cover and even my social security know me as Auchal Azad. Just a simple first and last name, not some complicated first name with your fathers last name as your middle name and then your actual name as your last. “Because that would be too confusing for the teachers who were American” my father had said when I asked why he changed my name. “We didn’t want you to have any trouble in this country,” reassured my mother.  And that is when I had realized just like Melanie I was Auchal Azad but I also wasn’t Auchal Azad. Its just a trickery of the name.

This particular monologue is about a guy who went away in the military and, after coming back home, realized he was a completely different person. The guy claimed that he lost his “innocence” while being away in the war. Even though this man is proud to be in the army, he is angry about the fact that he is a changed man. He doesn’t want his family to see the new side of him, the side that kills innocent people back in Afghanistan. He recalled an experienced in which he yelled at a little Afghani girl and put a gun in her mother’s mouth. Then he told an incident involving his own daughter. His daughter woke up one day excited and called him but he reacted as he was still in Afghanistan, as he “shoved” his forearm under her chin. After that day, as he claims, his daughter wouldn’t look at him anymore. I believe this monologue is basically saying that you have to make some kind of sacrifice in order to go out and fight for your country.

This monologue would speak out to most of us, since we just graduated from high school and have friends who went in the marines. I personally have a close friend, named Matt,  who went in the army. Matt and I played lacrosse together in high school and he was also the captain of our football team. Throughout high school, he showed leadership and together we brought the city lacrosse championship trophy to our high school. What scares me is the fact that he will not be the same person the next time I see him, just like the man in the video.

After clicking off of countless monologues, “STILL” by Naomi Iizuka was the one where I felt that indescribable feeling we get when something just “clicks” within us and makes our heart sink just a fraction, but even that slight shift is enough to know that this is the one.

“STILL” is about finding your own peace among the hustle and bustle of everything around you. For some odd reason, everything has to be constantly moving and changing. When you think you’ve finally found the right job, or right relationship, or whatever it is that you’ve been searching for, there’s always something that has to go wrong. And from then on, it’s back at square one.

This monologue resonates with me because of how honest and relatable it is. Despite countless attempts at adapting or venturing out, there always has to be a wrench somewhere. I can vouch for Naomi in regards to the idea that being at ease with ourselves tends to come from unexpected, little things in life.

Naomi’s description of feeling the “life buzzing right through” her as she lay in the grass is where she says she became “still” — the ephemeral clarity satiating her mind and America.

The National Anthem is the greatest source of American dignity. It is through this song that people unite, together as one. After watching a couple monologues I came upon this one and it really hit home. For two reasons, one being the current problem that we face today, in which certain athletes feel that it is ok to protest by not sharing in standing along with other teammates before their games while the anthem is sung. The other being that this past weekend was the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The anthem is performed to show gratitude and respect to loved ones fighting for our country. I find it ignorant and disrespectful for certain people to feel exempt from showing their respect to the true soldiers of our country because they feel like their race is being oppressed.

When the Anthem is sung we must put our head in that moment and focus on nothing else but the Red, White and Blue. These colors link every single American. I feel like the monologue showed that the Anthem has lost peoples attention and has lost a real meaning to them. Being an American is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAAcHq5Q5Hg&list=PLRi2rIUBS5i60etCcCrDvvXOzBFwp5x-p&index=34

After watching all fifty videos,the one I have found the most gripping is” One evening on the #14 bus” by Christina Anderson.  The monologue starts with a woman, performed by  Pascale Armand, asking many people on the bus if she can use their phone to make a quick phone call to  her sister.  She claims it is an emergency because she needs to get in contact with her sister who is about to leave because of a mistake she had made. She yearns to apologize to her sister. However, as expected, everyone is not lending her the phone. Her comments such as ,” I’m not a thief”, “I’m not crazy”, and “I’m not dirty,” emphasizes the sad  reality of insensitivity and disinterest people have for others. Even though the actress yearns for borrowing a phone to make a emergency phone call, everyone is indifferent and unconcerned. This type of apathy from the people around you can be also highlighted by how the people in the video were taking pictures to upload on social media to ridicule the woman.

This specific monologue left a strong impression on me because I can relate to her experience so well. Feeling neglected is very common in America. People can be so  cold and could care less about others.  There are countless amount of times when I felt like a disturbance because of the indifference of others.

Nate got “busted” at 19 and was sentenced to five years in prison for ten dollars of marijuana in his pocket.  Nothing serious or dangerous, just a plain old drug that one can argue is safer than alcohol and cigarettes. It goes to show that minor offenses can lead to harsh punishments. He did his time and when he got out he promised himself he would be better, he would change. This seems like a common motto for criminals, a common goal that never seems to be accomplished. He explaines that he had to pay for five years of child support that he owed and for the routine drugs tests that he was forced to take and for the monthly wages of the parole officer and for the public offender who advised him to plea guilty. He made 13 cents and hour incarcerated and couldn’t get a job due to his criminal past.

The prison system is completely broken. How can criminals change if the system is set up for them to continue in their current lifestyles. They are left in a massive amount of debt with no way to pay for it. How are they supposed to get a job? No one is going to hire them. They worked in the prison. Correction.  Were enslaved in the prison, getting paid cents by the hour. In reality once you commit a crime your life is over. No chance of recovering, no chance of changing, no chance of living. Yes ,living Isn’t being forced to sell drugs for money, living isn’t being judged for the rest of ones life. Living is opportunity, change, and freedom from the past.

“Reagan spent millions, the drug war.  They have to pick an enemy. Who are they going to pick? Who are they going to take the vote from? Who are they going to put in jail?Harvard or the hood”? Is it stereotypical to think the poor are doing the drugs. Rest assured that nerds, the rich, the dumb, the poor, they all do drugs. Which ones have the least influence and are defenseless?

Nate is a prime example of those who have been failed by the U.S. prison system. Like Nate, many people who are incarcerated at a young age have harsh lives after their release. For those,  punishments for felonies are far longer than just a jail sentence.  It’s very hard for felons to get jobs when employers take criminal records into consideration. On top of it being difficult to get a steady flow of income, inmates like Nate would have to deal with paying for visits with their parole officers. The line ‘I gotta pay the public defender who advised me to plead guilty’ stood out to me.

The U.S. prison system is so focused on punishment that second chances are next to none. Instead of working on rehabilitation, we’re turning inmates into either repeated offenders or society’s outcasts. Felons should be given the right to receiving federal aid and the right to vote, if not the chance to be treated equally to everyone else once they have done their time. I also thought of the monologue in a broader sense where I felt like we should look past people’s previous issues and look more towards how a person has changed for the better.