For the Creative Re-Mix, I will be doing creative writing in the form of a poem on how the Palestinians are living under the Israeli government policy.

This clip fits in with displacement because it shows how someone with a minimum wage can have a hard time living a life which they do not necessarily fit in. Hayley Smith, the daughter, tries to live off without her parent with minimum wage and she finds it hard because it is not enough to get by so she still lives with her parent.  This shows displacement because, in a society where the minimum wage is $15, it is still difficult for people who can barely pay for their rent especially living in New York. After the dad, Stan Smith refuses to believe that his daughter cannot live off by a certain amount of money, he goes out and experiences it himself. Thus, realizing he was wrong.

Gentrification
By: Sherman Alexie

Let us remember the wasps

That hibernated in the walls

Of the house next door. Its walls

Bulged with twenty pounds of wasps

And nest, twenty pounds of black

Knots and buzzing fists. We slept

Unaware that the wasps slept

So near us. We slept in black

Comfort, wrapped in our cocoons,

While death’s familiars swarmed

Unto themselves, but could have swarmed

Unto us. Do not trust cocoons.

That’s the lesson of this poem.

Or this: Luck is beautiful.

So let us praise our beautiful

White neighbor. Let us write poems

For she who found that wasp nest

While remodeling the wreck.

But let us remember that wreck

Was, for five decades, the nest

For a black man and his father.

Both men were sick and neglected,

So they knew how to neglect.

But kind death stopped for the father

And cruelly left behind the son,

Whose siblings quickly sold the house

Because it was only a house.

For months, that drunk and displaced son

Appeared on our street like a ghost.

Distraught, he sat in his car and wept

Because nobody else had wept

Enough for his father, whose ghost

Took the form of ten thousand wasps.

That’s the lesson of this poem:

Grief is as dangerous and unpredictable

As a twenty-pound nest of wasps.

Or this: Houses are not haunted

By the dead. So let us pray

For the living. Let us pray

For the wasps and sons who haunt us.

Gentrification is the process of repairing and rebuilding homes and businesses in an urban neighborhood accompanied by an influx of middle-class or affluent people and that often results in the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents. Alexie uses the term “Wasps” to compare the discomfort of displacement and grief. A wasp is a symbol that controls over your life circumstances. It also signifies evolution, progress, development, and order. This poem relates the term grief to a wasp in many ways. Alexie shows the true meaning behind this poem by stating “That’s the lesson of this poem: Grief is as dangerous and unpredictable as a twenty-pound nest of wasps.”

1. How does gentrification cause displacement and lead to a social issue?
2. How did gentrification start? Is there a huge difference between the term gentrification and displacement?

In “Interpreter Of Maladies”,  Jhumpa Lahiri uses imagery to convey the central idea of the difficulty of communication between adults. Through the use of imagery, Lahiri shows that the belief of love and marriage can easily cross cultural boundaries. While reading the text, I realize how much of a disconnection there is between the Das family and Mr. Kapasi. Since “Interpreter of Maladies” is told from a third person point of view, the sense of Mr. Kapasi is based on a reflection on him towards the Das family. Through this point of view, Lahiri focuses that attention of the disconnection between Mr. Das and Mr. Kapasi.

The difficulty of communication is repeated in the text. The quote “The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors.” (Paragraph 2), shows the differentiation between Indians and Indian Americans. Mr. Kapasi describes how the Das family are and are not Indians. This makes Him think that he can communicate intimately with Mrs. Das as he feels attracted to her. The cultural gap leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding for Mr. Kapasi and everyone involved. For example, when Mrs. Das reveals her affair to Mr. Kapasi, he feels disgusted towards her.

Front Door
by Imtiaz Dharker

Wherever I have lived,
walking out of the front door
every morning
means crossing over
to a foreign country.

One language inside the house,
another out.
The food and clothes
and customs change.
The fingers on my hand turn
into forks.

I call it adaptation
when my tongue switches
from one grammar to another,
but the truth is I’m addicted now,
high on the rush
of daily displacement,
speeding to a different time zone,
heading into altered weather,
landing as another person.

Don’t think, I haven’t noticed
you’re on the same trip too.

ReplyForward

1. Moving into a new neighborhood.
2. leave- taking (family)
3. Florida, a meaningful place for m.