The Maya are to the Native Americans as the Spanish are to the English settlers. According to the article, “Genocide in Guatemala (1981-1983)” published by the Holocaust Museum Houston website, Guatemala was in a civil war from 1960 to 1996 due to economic and political inequalities. In the 1970s, the native Maya people began to protest against the government in an effort to increase equality, as well as integrating the Maya language and culture into the country. A decade later, Operation Sophia was enacted by the Guatemalan government to end the guerrilla warfare, which targeted the Maya who were suspected to be supporters. Continue reading “Tree Girl: In what classroom does it belong?”

Hypothetically speaking, if I had anger problems such as Cole in the book Touching Spirit Bear, and was subjected to a circle of justice after nearly killing a fellow classmate, the best course of action would be to place me into a mental institution until I was deemed fit to return to society by a psychologist/psychiatrist. Cole only had to deal with anger problems, which stemmed from his abusive father and absent mother. I, on the other hand, suffer from depression and anxiety – if in this strange scenario, I was struggling with anger management issues too, the only place that could possibly heal me would be a psychiatric facility.

Continue reading “Toughing Spirit Bear: Myself in Cole’s Shoes”

Dear baby sis,

Don’t be like Will Grayson (the straight one, who uses proper grammar in his portion of the story). “Don’t care too much” and “Shut up” are not ideal rules to live your life by. It didn’t work out for Will, and he ended up ditching them because of how restrictive they are. You know that we were put on this Earth to express our agency – the war in heaven was caused because some didn’t want to risk their agency leading them down a dark and miserable path. We need a pinch of salt to make things even sweeter.

Continue reading “Will Grayson, will grayson: A letter to my sister”

This book is wonderful. Everyone and their pets should read this.

Continue reading “Brown Girl Dreaming”

My sociology professor, Professor Van Alstyne, at Centralia College taught me that race was completely social, that the human species did not have races. From that point on, I rejected the word race and prefer ethnicity, because ethnicity is what race is trying to be. Coates is right: race came from racism. Ethnicity came from diversity. I don’t care if we are semi-aware that race is a social construct – it is actually a biological term, and we are using it wrong so I will not use it that way. (That also means I hate using the word black and white, because it refers to race, so I try my damnedest to say Caucasian and African-American instead.)

As I was reading this book, and thinking about Professor Van Alstyne’s anthropology and sociology classes, I remembered something that happened to me a few years ago during my last quarter at Centralia College.

Continue reading “Between the World and Me”

If you want to tell a story about how twisted the future will become, and tell it in a satirical manner, be sure to make the main character have more substance than the side ones. Otherwise, you come off as a bitching talentless hack.

(And yeah, this was published in 2002, but that just makes this novel feel like one of those crappy teen movies from the 90’s.)

Continue reading “Feed (aka I need some weed to get through this)”

Let me just put this out there: dystopian novels are being written to death, therefore I am not a fan. I am one of those people who avoids fads like the plague, and then when it dies down I will look into it. When too many people are into something, the appeal is instantly lost for me. Only when it is a rarity, has a small scattered community of followers, then will I approach.

Continue reading “The Age of Miracles”

This novel, titled Marcelo in the Real World, features a main character with high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome (as of 2007 when this book was published). This book review is less a review and more a discussion about autism.

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First things first, Asperger’s Syndrome does not exist anymore, not since 2013. The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) scrapped the name, and other developmental disorders, moving them under the umbrella term Autism Spectrum Disorder. Within that, there is a range (hence “spectrum” in the title) of mild (high-functioning) to severe (low-functioning) forms of autism. Asperger’s is now on the mild end of ASD.

Continue reading “Marcelo in the Autism Spectrum”