Author: Martha Gomez

The picture I choose was a picture I took in November last year. I remember taking this picture as I was walking by the Bailey Fountain in Brooklyn. It was a nice, windy day and using editing tools I really wanted to enhance beauty of the nature along with a relaxing view. One of the elements I used to do this was by increasing the contrast which helped the trees and the fountain pop out more as a way to admire how it looks. It was also meant to make them look sharper so that the viewer can really see the branches on the tree, the structure of the fountain and the building behind it. In addition to that I also slightly changed the hue of the picture with a dark shade of blue. This was meant to give that cool and a bit windy feel to the sky as the viewer visualizes themselves there. As well as, emphasize the autumn feeling that allows us to relax and enjoy the beauty of nature depicted by the lively colors of the leaves. The message of this image could be to enjoy life as much as possible, and when things don’t go as planned, we can look to nature for relaxation and new fresh start.

Link: Blog 10 Picture

The exercise I chose to do was exercise #3. I started off by reading the comments my partner made and tried my best to revise my essay so that it can clarify some of the concerns my peer had as they were reading my essay. Having these comments really helped me realize what I could change in my essay and how I can organize my essay moving forward, especially since that was something I was struggling with. Having done this exercise I was able to gather my ideas as to what I can add to my essay and also try to keep in mind the question, “How would my essay sound from a reader’s perspective?”. By keeping this in mind, I will be able to make changes to my essay as I go back and revise it again, just as I did with this exercise.

The piece of artwork that I chose is a movie that was released in 2008, called “Under the Same Moon”. It was written by Ligiah Villalobos and directed by Patricia Riggen. The movie depicts the pain of a Mexican mother who makes the tough decision of leaving behind her child and family in order to seek a better life for her child as well as herself. It specifically focuses on the relationship between a mother and her child who have to go through hardships in order to reunite again in the U.S. I believe this movie wants to share with us the broader image of illegal immigrants who cross the border in order to seek a better life in the U.S. This movie shows the desperation of a child who wants to reunite with his mother but has to overcome heavy obstacles: first he must find a way of crossing over the border, 2nd he must find a way to locate his mother without knowing any English.

I chose this piece of artwork because I really enjoyed this movie when I first watched it a long time ago. Since then it has been one of my favorite movies and I think it shares a beautiful yet eye-opening story of what undocumented immigrants have to go through just to seek a better life in a country they have never been to and don’t know the language of.

1. How does this piece’s rhetorical properties contribute to its meaning? (think blending of image/ text, tone, audience, color, design, etc)

The piece I chose is, “Pandemic Haiku” by Gregg Bordowitz it has a unique use of the Haiku format, which is a poem consisting of only 3 lines each. Bordowitz’s piece stood out as he used only a couple lines for each page. I found this interesting and unique because it is something I have not personally seen other writers/poets do. I feel like Bordowitz’s choice of spacing out each stanza really helped enhance the feeling of “living during a pandemic”, while I read the poem for the first time. As we are recovering from a pandemic now, this poem is very relatable to us an audience who have experienced similar things mentioned in the poem. The poem is very relatable because it describes how one felt or what our daily lives were like during the beginning of the pandemic until this day.

2. How does the text resonate with social or political concerns of the present?

The poem resonates with the social concerns of the present because we have experienced similar things to what is mentioned in the peom. For example, when the author mentions, “Time to be alone, To listen to my music, No interruptions” it something I can relate to, especially during the beginning of the pandemic. I spent a lot of time alone in my room without going out or spending time with friends and family. Everything had changed and we had to isolate ourselves from others, just as the poem described. Even as things are slowly returning back to normal I noticed that I had built a bit of social anxiety when I had first returned back to in person classes. To add on, I believe that this wasn’t only the case for me, but there were/are many other students who experienced the same thing.

3. What conclusions can you draw from this text to build an argument for what impact art might make on political or social concerns?

A piece of art, like the “Pandemic Haiku” by Gregg Bordowitz shares the experience of life during the pandemic and dealing with Covid 19. Its relatable aspect allowed us to follow along and reflect on social concerns developed by the pandemic. One being, the increasing amounts of social anxiety on students who are now returning to in person classes. Many, like myself, have developed social anxiety after spending a long period of time being isolated and attending classes electronically, through Zoom. Making it difficult for us to return back to how we were and how life was before the pandemic.

After completing my sentence analysis, I noticed that I tend to use more compound sentences, throughout the two paragraphs that I chose from my essay, compared to simple sentences and complex sentences. I’m not surprised by my results as I am aware that I tend to be very wordy when it comes to my writing. I noticed that the couple of simple sentences that I used were to enhance my writing by making a statement or asking a question to grab the attention of my audience. I believe that in order to make my writing better, in this case, my comparative analysis essay, I should try to use more of the other sentence types. This might help my essay look and sound more even. I could possibly use more complex sentences when I analyze a quote. This will allow me to go more in-depth into what the quote is trying to show and how it connects to the overall message I intend to write about. In addition to that I realized that while I was writing my draft, I didn’t really focus on brainstorming all of my ideas and evidence onto a separate sheet of paper. Instead, I allowed my thoughts to keep running while I was working on my essay, which may have been the reason why certain sections sound repetitive or wordy. I noticed that I mainly struggle with that but for this essay, I can try to first process my ideas and then add them to my paper later on.

In both articles, “Racial Capitalocene” by Francoise Verges and “New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants” by Sophie Kasakove share a common theme, in which race plays a huge role on environmental racism and it is mainly targeted on communities of color. As mentioned by the author in “Racial Capitolocene”, “A report was made in which showed that race was the single most important factor in determining where toxic waste facilities were sited in the United States and that the siting of these facilities in communities of color was the intentional result of local, state, and federal land-use policies.” Here this illustrates how unethical these facilities are placed across the U.S and most of these facilities primarily located near communities with more people of color. Another example would be a quote from the “New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants” article, which discusses about the effects of natural disasters, like hurricane Sandy, on middle-class families and specifically black families. These families weren’t able to afford to stay in their homes and with the lack of support from the government they were forced to leave their homes. In the text it says, “After Sandy, it became even harder; the government programs designed to help people with recovery costs have been notoriously inadequate. Many people dropped out of Build It Back, New York City’s largest post-Sandy assistance program, because of delays, paperwork issues, and shoddy construction work.” During this time the assistance program backfired on aiding the community in such a effective and efficient way. A lot of communities were affected by the results of Hurricane Sandy however the communities that were filled with people of color were being effected because they were not able to resolve their problems quicker.

I have experienced the effects of neoliberalism as a resident of New York City. Living in Brooklyn, I have seen how much prices have increased overtime. Espesially after the huge outbreak of Covid 19, the prices around where I live have increased even more. Supermarkets, deli’s, and convenience stores increased their prices in fruits, vegetables, meat and even chicken. Although, I have lived in Brooklyn for so long I don’t remember the last time my family has gone to eat at a restaurant or cafe around here due to how pricey everything has gotten. Our nearest supermarket, which we had gone to weekly to do our grocery shopping was remodeled and was placed under a different company. This affected us as we couldn’t find certain products we used, compared to before therfore it became extremely difficult to afford groceries there. It was clear their target was leaning more towards the white community and wealthier people. Prices increased from around $8 to $15 for both meat and chicken. The huge increase in price led us into having to look for other supermarkets. Even after doing so, not long after, the prices in the current supermarket we go to have been increasing as well. As of recently, I’ve also noticed that my nearest convience store increased their prices for a box of chocolate chip cookies from $4.99 to now $5.99, which further supports the effects of inflation and neoliberalism. Lastly, this relates to Dickinson’s text as wealthier people are least likely to be affected by inflation in NYC, however, miniorities and lower class people are left behind without much support from the government. Leading them into having to deal with insanely high prices not only to buy food at their nearest supermarket, deli or restaurant, but they also have to worry about having to maintain a roof over their heads with how much rent money has increased as well.

Hi, my name is Martha. I am currently a Freshman at Baruch and my major is Real Estate. The piece of art I chose is a picture I took of my nearest local park, Prospect Park. This park has given me so many memories as I would come here often with my family to play, eat, talk, and have fun. There are many fun and joyful memories I have made at the park with my family especially with my cousins with whom I share a close relationship. Being Mexican-American, one of the main sports my family and I love to watch and play is football. Looking back at it now I remember all the times we have played soccer/football at the park and would end up exhausted afterwards. At times my parents would also join to play and we would form teams and play against each other. This represents me because I have a strong bond with my family and the park has helped us create so many fun memories to look back on from time to time.

Apart from that I have always enjoyed walking around the park and looking at the scenery. Therefore when I would want to spend some time thinking or clearing out my mind and destress, I walk around the park and it helps me relax. Sometimes I even go to the park to spend some time alone, which also represents the type of person I am because I value spending time for myself apart from everyone else at home as well.