Author: h.khan5

Thesis: West Side Story illustrates the real conflict immigrants faced when coming to New York, yet despite being targeted they were still able to thrive.

Paragraph One: Brief Summary of West Side Story and how it relates to my thesis/argument

Paragraph Two: Introduce Whalen, Carmen Teresa and Victor Vazquez-Hernandez, The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives (especially “Colonialism, Citizenship, and the making of the Puerto Rican Diaspora” and “Jesus Colon and the making of the New York Community”) Discuss how it relates to West Side Story

Paragraph Three: Introduce NYT Article “The Puerto Rican Problem” which discusses how Puerto Ricans in New York were being targeted and almost treated as second class citizens

Paragraph Four: Discuss NYT Article “Police Move to Win Puerto Rican Amity: City to Tell ‘Every Cop’ to Mend Relations With Puerto Ricans” which discusses NY’s attempt to rekindle positive relations with the Puerto Rican community after years of conflict. Introduce idea of Puerto Ricans becoming more accepted in society and NY

Paragraph Five: NYT Article “City’s 2d-Generation Puerto Ricans Rising From Poverty: Puerto Ricans Rising From Poverty” which discusses how 2nd generation Puerto Ricans in New York were beginning to rise and thrive.

Conclusion: Restate Thesis, tie in with movie.

1. The ‘Puerto Rican’ Problem: Available to me via The New York Times http://search.proquest.com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/114876334/7B48B01E7FF14078PQ/81?accountid=8500
2. City’s 2-d Generation Puerto Ricans Rising From Poverty: Available to me via The New York Times http://search.proquest.com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/118211815/7B48B01E7FF14078PQ/5?accountid=8500
3. Police Move to Win Puerto Rican Amity: City to Tell ‘Every Cop’ to Mend Relations with Puerto Ricans: Available to me via The New York Times http://search.proquest.com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/115645920/7B48B01E7FF14078PQ/35?accountid=8500
4. West Side Story Review by Roger Ebert http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-west-side-story-1961
5. Whalen, Carmen Teresa and Victor Vazquez-Hernandez, The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives (especially “Colonialism, Citizenship, and the making of the Puerto Rican Diaspora” and “Jesus Colon and the making of the New York Community”): Available to me via the Newman Library Database
6. Carol Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: Whiteness, Immigration, and Race in the US during the late 1950s.” Studies in Musical Theater 3,1 (2009)

For the final paper, I will be doing option one, a film analysis of West Side Story

Westside Story does an excellent job showing us the state of race relations. It seems as the biggest difference between the Jets and the Sharks is race. The Jets are all white and American, but the Jets are all from Puerto Rico. Throughout the story we’ve been able to see just how tense things are between the two groups, with large fights becoming a possibility very often as a result of members feeling such strong hatred towards each other. The fact that there was such a strong division between the Jets and Sharks really shows how bad things between Americans and Puerto Ricans were at the time. With more and more people coming to America from Puerto Rico, some of us were not as welcome as we’d like to believe. There were many instances of Americans feeling superior to the Puerto Ricans, and some even questioned why Puerto Ricans were even coming to the United States. Sometimes, Puerto Ricans were blamed for in an increase in crime rate. It’s very interesting to see how all the Puerto Ricans come together to form their own group, the Sharks. Because Puerto Ricans weren’t very liked, and were all considered to be on the lower end of the social hierarchy, they all came together to form their own group and together, they didn’t let anyone tell them that they were better than them. Even the Jets, who were born and raised in New York, had to deal with the Sharks multiple times, and the tension between the two groups frequently resulted in large groups of members fighting each other. Despite their racial differences, the Sharks weren’t going to let anyone put them down, especially not the Jets.

Both W. Seabrook’s The Magic Island and the movie White Zombie explore the idea of magic and voodoo in Haiti. While White Zombie focused primarily on zombies, Magic Island also emphasized other superstitions that were feared in Haitian culture. Immediately, I noticed that the zombies shown in White Zombie and The Magic Island are very different from the zombies we are familiar with today. In most TV shows, video games and other forms of media, zombies are portrayed as completely brainless and unaware, only seeking human flesh. However, in Haiti based on the movie and the reading, it seems as if zombies were usually under some sort of spell, or under somebody else’s control and prepared to do their bidding. It is important to note that the zombie masters/creators were usually white. By having these white masters, controlling zombies who had absolutely no say in what they were forced to do, it definitely draws a parallel with how slavery was in Haiti at the time. The zombie masters could very easily be compared to the slave masters, as can the zombies to the slaves.

One specific example of this can be seen in the White Zombie Von Gelder decides he is going to kill Charles Beaumont. While Charles had already been poisoned, his only hope had been Dr. Bruner, however, Von Gelder summoned his squad of zombies, which easily overpowered him and carried him away. The zombies were pretty much forced to do whatever their master pleased, as they didn’t have the brain to object. Similar to how slaves in Haiti were often forced to do their owner’s work and were so oppressed that it was very difficult for them to do otherwise.

Today, I went to the African Burial Ground National Monument and it was definitely one of the more interesting trips we’d been on. First of all, I definitely was not expecting security to be so strict. As the first person to arrive, I initially thought I was in the wrong place, but immediately after I completed security and entered the exhibit I realized I was wrong. It was a very nicely set up exhibit with a lot of information to explore. I thought it was particularly interesting how the burial ground had only been rediscovered in 1991, which was significantly later than I expected. How could something so sacred and serious be forgotten about for so long? Another part of the monument I found very interesting was a bit more hidden in the back, was the “Laws Affecting Africans in New York” which stated things like “Any slave convicted of conspiring with others to revolt against whites will be put to death”, as well as a plethora of other laws which were pretty ridiculous. Some laws were so strict, it really reminded me of the cruelty mentioned in the reading from Reaper’s Garden. The amount of control exercised by slave masters definitely had similarities to some of the laws that were in effect in New York from the 1600s to the early 1700s. However, what was by far the most interesting tactic used by slaveowners was displaying dead bodies to “impress” the Africans with their power of the deads’ spiritual fate.

1. How did it take so long for people to discover that they were building on an African Burial ground?
2. Did mutilating dead bodies really impress Africans with the slave owner’s power?

“Yet the fact that a number of slaves were prepared to resort to violence was sufficient to give white Jamaicans pause.”

I found this part of the passage to be particularly interesting because I think it illustrates that tensions between white Jamaicans and slaves were on the rise, and it was getting to the point were some slaves weren’t very concerned with the repercussions they’d face. During Thistlewood’s thirty-seven years in Jamaica, he had encountered only a few revolts which took place mostly in the 1760s. As more and more time passed, it was quite clear that slaves were growing impatient with the conditions they were living in. Although slaves were usually dealt with severe punishments for lashing out, some slaves definitely stopped caring. Thistlewood remarks that there were several instances in which he had to defend himself against slaves, and he encountered slaves carrying guns. There were several instances when Thistlewood realized that being white in Jamaica was more dangerous than many thought. However, there were also tensions between the slaves as well, because many of them came from a variety of lands, so there was no real connection between any of them other than they were all slaves. All these divisions between the varying groups of people in Jamaica could definitely be held responsible for the tensions between slaves and masters.

1. The passage says that Thistlewood noticed whites were in danger as soon as he arrived in Jamaica, why’d he stay for 37 years?
2. Why did Thistlewood break laws that were meant to protect whites in Jamaica if he had already had bad experiences with slaves.

“The various other ethnic, class, caste, racial and political divisions on the island – between English, Scots, Irish and Jews; white traders and indentured servants, mulattos or “coloureds,” free blacks and Marrons;…”

I found this part of the passage to be particularly interesting because it really shows just how separated people in Jamaica were. Racism, and slavery were so strong that there were so many new and different classifications assigned to people to keep as few people in power as possible. By creating so many different “races” and ethnicities, fewer and fewer people are able to consider themselves white, which keeps many people out of power. In Jamaica, few people were in power and those who were had greater influence outside the sugar-planting industry. The elite had control of land as well as the banks. Additionally, the elite were known for how cruel they were to their slaves. They would do whatever was necessary to keep their slaves in check and to destroy any sort of rebellion.  This type of extreme oppression became so normal in Jamaica, to keep it that way it seems as if this invention of new categories to put people in was created to ensure the Jamaican way of life for the elites remains the same. This system of inequality is what kept majority of Jamaican people oppressed for so long. The state of Jamaica was in such poor shape with all this inequality and slavery that the passage claims a visitor from England showed remorse for the country. A spacious country with so many slaves that have never tasted liberty or freedom is surely something to feel remorseful about.

1. Would Jamaica be any different if sugar cane was not the main crop grown?
2. How would this change impact trade relations with Jamaica’s partners?

“Although the rebels established hidden caches of arms and organized themselves into military units on some estates, there is considerable evidence that they actually intended to mount an armed general strike rather than an all-out war.”

I thought this part of the text was particularly interesting because out of most of the readings we’ve had, this seems to be one of the few instances of where the oppressed people revolted in such a way. Not only that, but for slaves to revolt by forming their own little army to overthrow their oppressors. This time, they had lethal weapons and were even able to force out the militia is certain estates. Particularly interesting is the fact that despite their position and ability, the slaves originally did not intend to have a violent rebellion. They had “sit down” strikes prior to any violence. However, what made this much more problematic was the fact that a rumor had spread stating that the slaves were actually freed, but their own masters did not tell them and as a result, the rebel slaves took it upon themselves to do damage to their owners’ crops to instead do damage to their harvest instead of physically attacking their own masters. It is very interesting that despite the rebel slaves’ ability to inflict great damage on those who had oppressed them, they frequently took a nonviolent approach to things. It goes to show that the slaves were not nearly as barbaric or animalistic as many thought.This nonviolent approach gave way to the rebellion spreading throughout a vast area of Jamaica and after all was said and done the rebel slaves had done considerable damage to over 200 estates, making sure their pleas were heard loud and clear.

1. Would the rebellion have turned out differently if the rebels had a more violent approach?
2. Was there any validity to any of the rumors which created any uproar among the rebels?

“dominion of the master had to be absolute…but that absoluteness made the master something other than human as well”

I certainly agree with Colin Dayan when he stated this quote in Égalite for All. Considering how slave owners were allowed to treat their slaves, the power which they had over them turned them into monsters. Slave owners weren’t given many restrictions in terms of how they could treat their slaves. There is no denying that in many cases slaves were treated like animals or worse. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, we can really see some of the horrors slaves would encounter first hand. “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” [1]. Here, Douglass directly compares the treatment of the slaves to the treatment of horses, stating that slaves knew as little about themselves as horses did, because slave masters wanted to keep their slaves as unaware of their lives as possible. Later in the reading Douglass also shares that he isn’t even too sure of who his own father is, and rarely is able to see her mother because if she makes the journey to see him she’ll be whipped. When his mother passed, he was not even able to see her while she was sick, dead or being buried which is cruel. The Dred Scott decision further showed the absolute control masters had over their slaves when Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in a free state and then returned to his original residence in Missouri was still kept as a slave despite his masters death. “It is too clear for dispute, that the enslaves African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the the people who framed and adopted this declaration…” (345). This further shows how slave masters had achieved such absolute power of their slaves, when they were even able to exclude them from the rights given by the Declaration of Independence which even stated that “all men are created equal”. Yet despite the fact it cleared mentions all men, slaves were still excluded under the claim that they didn’t contribute to its creation.