Cultural diversity in professional comm Essay Example for Free

Cultural diversity in professional comm Essay While America fought World War II in Europe, riots broke out in the streets of Los Angeles targeting young Latinos. They strived for the same freedom enjoyed by whites, but were treated as poorly as African Americans of the era. In effect, they tried to disassociate themselves from this faction. Young Latino men referred to themselves as pachucos and sported oversize suits known as zoot suits. In the film Zoot Suit Riots, Joseph Tovares remarkably portrayed the difficult lives of Mexican Americans in the 1940s. Zoot Suit Riots is a powerful film that explores the complicated racial tensions, as well as the changing social and political scene leading up to the riots in the streets of Los Angeles in the summer of 1943. White Americans, police and service men targeted Latinos with their racist attitudes. Tovares argues that these Mexican American adolescents were victims, but they also stood up for themselves and fought back to gain the respect they felt they deserved. This generation of Americanized Latino children wanted to be recognized as American on their own terms. To distinguish themselves from their parents’ generation, they became zoot suitors, but learned that was not enough as racism was a widespread phenomenon across America. Tovares accurately portrays the lives of Mexican Americans victimized by highlighting the Sleepy Lagoon Case. To white Americans in Los Angeles, the murder was proof that Mexican American crime was spiraling out of control. Tovares, however, uses this as evidence to support that they were mistreated because the Mexican American suspects taken into custody all wore zoot suits. This reinforced the opinion white Americans had of Mexican Americans and their apprehension of men in zoot suits. He also interviewed both Mexican Americans and White Americans who lived during this event, even some participants in the riots. His use of oral history throughout the film is captivating as you hear the voice and emotional reaction of a person who actually experienced these riots. Tovares interviews Hank Leyyas sister, an important defendant in the case, who lived through the crime, the trail, the city, everything. She remembers it all and how much it affected her brother’s life. Her emotions when describing the riots helps the viewer understand how people were affected. Sailors of the time admitted in their interviews to attacking Mexican Americans and Mexican Americans admitted to reciprocating the behavior. Tovares’ film reflects on the racist abuse Mexican Americans received not only from White American citizens, but also from authority figures. Edward Escobar’s historical article, Zoot-Suiters and Cops, supports Tovares’ argument that zoot suitors were seen as dangers to society and this brought upon the attacks on them, but Escobar focuses more on the police aspect of the riots. Escobar argues, â€Å"Police, along with local civic leaders, believed that Mexican American youth, especially young males, were inclined toward violent crime. This belief merged with police officers’ frustration over their inability to crack down on the alleged lawbreakers and led to their allowing servicemen to beat and humiliate the zoot-suiters† (Escobar, 1996). Tovares agrees that police were problematic, but focuses more on the Sleepy Lagoon Case involving Mexican and White Americans who participated or lived during the riots. Escobar states that the LAPD consistently arrested Mexican Americans at a higher rate than the general population. During the war these numbers increased, especially arresting young Mexican Americans. However, Escobar argues that police officials misinterpreted their own statistics. Reported crime actually fell during 1942 and 1943, the years of the alleged crime wave. These â€Å"increases in arrests resulted more from changes in the law and in police practices than from changes in Mexican American behavior. Specifically, new immigration and draft laws for adults and curfew ordinances for juveniles, created new classes of laws that Mexican Americans violated, increasing the arrest statistics† (Escobar, 1996). The LAPD also employed selective enforcement in barrios than in white sections like the curfew ordinance as an example. This evidence strongly supports Escobar’s argument that the LAPD was more inclined towards the harsh treatment of Mexican Americans. Escobar focuses more on this than Tovares did throughout the film. While Tovares and Escobar both focus on the discrimination zoot suiters felt, Thomas Guglielmo shifts his focus to Mexican American racism was not only in Los Angeles but also in Texas in his historical article, Fighting for Caucasian Rights. Guglielmo argues that Mexican Americans who were born in the United States showed that they only cared about the United States but needed to be looked at again. They seemed active, focusing on being American, distant from Mexico but really these Mexican American’s due to the Good Neighbor policy still identified themselves with Mexico. Compared to Tovares, Guglielmo looks at American battles in Texas and legislative matter compared to the Los Angeles zoot suit riots. Guglielmo goes against Tovares perspective and says that there is more to Mexican American racism outside of Los Angeles. During the war more people of Mexican descent lived in Texas than any other state. These Mexican Americans that lived here are fighting for equality through legislation unlike the Mexican American’s in Los Angeles who are fighting for the same but by rebelling out through wearing zoot suits and adapting to that way of life. Both Toraves and Escobar perspective is on zoot suiters and police interaction where as Guglielmo focuses more on just Mexican Americans in Texas. Guglielmo argument is not as convincing to me because he focuses too much on legislation and Mexico compared to Toraves and Escobar focus on the discrimination Mexican Americans faced during the war that resulted in the riots. Toraves, Escobar and Guglielmo all highlight the struggle Mexican American’s faced fighting for equality, just presented it in different ways. Tovares strongly emphasized why the Mexican Americans wanted to break free. They were tired of being told what to do, where to go, what to wear. They created an image for themselves that separated them from everyone else. Escobar stated that the zoot suit phenomenon resulted primarily from the racism, discrimination, and extreme poverty that people of Mexican descent faced in the United States (Escobar, 1996). It did not necessarily give Mexican American’s more rights and equality’s that they fought for indirectly but brought national attention to their race that they needed to bring attention to fight for themselves. CITATION: Esobar. Zoot-suiters and Cops: Chicano Youth and the Los Angeles Police Department during World War II. 284-303. 1996 Guglielmo. Fighting for Caucasian Rights: Mexicans, Mexican Americans and the transnational struggle for Civil Rights in World War II Texas. 1212-1237. 2006 Tovares, Joseph, dir. Zoot Suit Riots. 2002. PBS Home Video. DVD-ROM.

Essay --

In the essay â€Å"In Praise of Margins,† the author Ian Frazier explains the idea that margins are needed in people’s lives to prevent us from going insane. He believes that as the world gets more jammed up and complicated, that people need margins where they can express themselves how they want and try new things without people judging one another. He states that â€Å"as the world gets more jammed up, we need margins†¦ where you can try out odd ideas that you might be afraid to admit to with people looking on. When Frazier was a child, he would go out in the woods and play with his friends, not worrying about anything and just freeing his mind. His imagination was limitless and he felt like he could do whatever he wanted to do without being afraid of other people’s reaction. Frazier conveys the idea that we need a break from our busy purpose-filled lives, and take a step away from reality. I agree with Frazier and his views on margins because a lot of the time we need a break from the wild day to day routine that people are involved in. If we take place in marginal activities or find our own marginal place, then we will be much more successful at our goals in life. Marginal paces are very valuable in our life and people should somehow incorporate it their daily lives in order to free themselves from their stressful life. As a child, I experienced a world of imagination where I was able to do anything I wanted and take my mind out of the world that I lived in. Whether it was a certain activity I was involved in or a specific place I went to, I got to clear my mind of all the things that were bothering me. Even to this day I still go to my own marginal place. With all the stress that college has like finals... ... all, people need and should have marginal places, activities, and things in order to be successful in their life. Having margins in your life makes it easier to think about difficult decisions and it can be less stressful when dealing with complex situations. I agree with Frazier’s views on marginal places, activities, and things, and think that everyone should have their own marginal place or activity. According to Frazier, â€Å"a book without margins is impossible to read†. This proclamation imposes that attempting to live your life without margins would be ineffective, and you would end up facing more and more problems, causing your life to be more stressful. If people incorporate margins in their life, and escape from reality for a brief period of time, then they can achieve their goals in a less stressful way, and end up feeling better as a person.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Response to Literature Essay

Society is a judgmental and rejecting place. It only allows uniform individuals to be in this society which discards anyone’s individuality and pride. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched alienates the patients’ individualities which only allows them to never progress in their mental health. The society rejects the people who are not normal. In this case, the people are the ones with mental disorders. Kesey’s anti-establishment point of view against society portrays that the government misuses power to manipulate society which leads to the suppression of individuality through the literary devices analogy, metaphor, and symbolism. Ken Kesey conveys his theme by vividly explaining the â€Å"pecking party†. As one of the treatments, Nurse Ratched holds group therapy for the patients. During the group therapy session, McMurphy notices that the Nurse ignites all the conflict at first so he explains, â€Å"The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it† (Kesey 57). McMurphy is trying to explain the abusiveness of Nurse Ratched’s power. This analogy supports Kesey’s message of how society rejects and leads to the suppression of individuals. Kesey uses the chickens to represent the patients and the â€Å"first peck† would represent Nurse Ratched because she manipulates an individual which causes uneasiness to the patient which will never be the cure for one who is mental to get better. After McMurphy goes on about the pecking party, he says one more thing to Harding about the pecking party, â€Å"You want to know who pecks that first peck? † (58). McMurphy’s rhetorical question signifies his opinion even more. This allows not only Harding, but the rest of the patients to see how Nurse Ratched is just another person and how they should not let her take complete control over them. Kesey furthers his analogy after the pecking party image because it reveals and justifies who really does â€Å"peck that first peck†. This relates to the theme because Nurse Ratched represents the government while the patients represent society; concluding that the government continuously pecks at the individuals who feel that they are not a part of society. Overall, the pecking party is an analogy of how society suppresses one’s individuality because to be an individual one must â€Å"get better† like the patients attempt to do; but all they are doing are taking steps back due to Nurse Ratched. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey demonstrates his use of metaphors through machinery comparisons to portray the theme of suppression of an individual. When Bromden characterizes Nurse Ratched he says, â€Å"So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load. † (5). Bromden sees Nurse Ratched as machinery and not as a human being. This supports the fact that the ward is like a factory, just waiting to make patients into â€Å"products†. Kesey uses metaphor to compare Nurse Ratched to machinery because this describes her persona perfectly. Like a machine, Nurse Ratched is very smooth and calm about things at first but like every machine there are flaws. When Nurse Ratched meets her flaws, that is when things begin to go haywire like a machine. It can either breakdown or malfunction but it is always repairable. When Bromden has the dream about Blastic, he thinks â€Å"†¦I was looking to see – just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass† (88). The significance of Bromden’s dream is that it represents how the ward is inhumane because â€Å"a shower of rust and ashes† fell out of Blastic’s body instead of human organs. Kesey exemplifies metaphor through Bromden’s dream by explaining how society’s standards of being â€Å"accepted† can transform one to be inhumane and to lose their individuality. Overall, these comparisons relate to the theme having the machines represent a form of government, standing in the way, or suppressing, the individual, or society. This can support the main theme that society abuses their power to manipulate and suppress the individuality of others. Fog is used by Kesey to demonstrate them and to symbolize the aloneness and individuality of a patient. Bromden describes the effects of fog when he thinks, â€Å"I don’t have to end up at that door if I stay still when the fog comes over me and just keep quiet† (132). This explains how much control Nurse Ratched had over the patients. It demonstrates how something like fog takes away their individuality be they â€Å"just keep quiet†. The fog symbolizes a safe zone and aloneness for the patients because Nurse Ratched had so much authority over the patients that it was like a crib holding them while she was out. Kesey’s theme is supported in this because society takes away individuality as well as fog does. One characteristic they both share is the way they manipulate and abuse their power. Bromden also thinks about fog when he said, â€Å"You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself† (131). Bromden describes how the patients were almost forced to be in the fog because â€Å"you could relax and lose yourself† and that the time that is all the patients really want. The fog also symbolizes a scapegoat for the patients so they don’t have to face all the challenges ahead because â€Å"you had a choice†. A simple break from everything, especially Nurse Ratched. This furthers Kesey’s message of how the fog is another form of control from Nurse Ratched, in which she abuses her power by manipulating her patients so they cannot get better. Ken Kesey uses analogy, metaphor, and symbolism to demonstrate how society uses their power to manipulate others which leads to a suppressed individual. He uses examples from the ward to compare the real outside world with a mental asylum. This world and society focus too much on how to fit in and it has become more of a moral thing to fit in than to be one’s self. Kesey blames it on the establishment that people are suppressed of their individuality, but is that really true? It has become a custom rather than a rule and that needs to change; and it starts from being a leader and an individual rather than a follower. The real story of individuals is not within the establishment, but it is within a person. To express that is to depending on the person and that is the problem in our society, no one likes to be that person to step up and be the first to go. But if someone were to do it, our society would change instantly.

Should Companies Have the Right to Monitor Employees’...

Should Companies Have The Right To Monitor Employees’ E-mails And Phone Conversations? Employees watch out when using communication, whether e-mail or phone, at work, you never know who may be listening. Should companies have the right to monitor employees’ e-mails and phone conversation? Most studies believe that they, employers, do have the right to monitor the e-mail and phone conversations of their employees, as long as they are notified of the fact. There is a tremendous amount of literature on this issue but it all seems to lean towards the right of the employers. The most notable law enacted law that allows employee monitoring was in 1986. It was the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (it.ojp.gov). Although the†¦show more content†¦They believe that just because someone becomes your employee doesn’t mean they give up all their privacy rights. In one instance, it was argued that if an employee wrote a note to a friend with a work pencil and paper would this make it applicable to monitoring by the employer, as it was written with their pencil and paper. This is what employers are arguing when they state that they an employee is using their electronics, so therefore monitoring is applicable. Still others would argue that privacy in the workplace is a moral matter (Michael J. Meyer, SCU Professor). â€Å"they are entitled to respect, which requires attention to their privacy. If a boss were to monitor every conversation or move, most of us would think of such an environment as more like a prison then a humane workp lace.† But in the case of phone calls or e-mails some would believe that (William Parent, â€Å"Privacy and Morality and the Law†) there should be put in place criteria for determining which invasion of privacy is justifiable. William Parent proposes that the employer should apply six questions to review whether their act of monitoring is allowable or not and that this would offer guidance. But most would agree that while it is legal for employers to monitor, it does not make it right. Realistically, most workers are at work sometimes more than forty hours per week. So if they take the time to make a personal phone call during thatShow MoreRelatedThe Rights and Ethics of Employees with Respect to Privacy at Work788 Words   |  4 PagesDania Afif El-Achmar The Rights and Ethics of Employees with Respect to Privacy at Work Widespread use of electronic communications media such as e-mail and information resources such as the Internet has prompted many employers to engage in elect ronic surveillance of their employees. Employers are monitoring—and even recording—employees’ personal phone calls, e-mails, and workplace conversations. 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