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#3

Since about eighth grade I’ve had an interest in clothes and accessories; I’ve always loved shopping at Forever21 (although I’m now learning about sustainable fashion--honestly I can’t afford it at the moment) and finding things that I think are cute and comfortable. I’ve never been into following trends. In fact, I will deliberately not buy something if I’m told it’s ‘in’. My school outfit is usually black or grey sweatpants, a graphic tee, and a cozy sweater if it’s  chilly. I like Converse or Vans, and accessorize with my two favorite silver necklaces that I wear every day. It’s funny because I have lots of other jewelry--such as loads of earrings, rings, statement necklaces, and a good watch--but I never think to put those things on before heading out. I also have almost ten different purses/bags, but usually stick with my favorite grey velvet mini backpack. I learned about two years ago that I needed to stop buying jewelry and bags because I’ve recognized that it goes to waste. 

Lately I’ve gravitated to neutral colored clothing, and styles that are comfortable and slightly oversized. My goal is not to draw attention to myself with bold prints or styles of clothes; I enjoy going under the radar. However, since I personally like looking (what I consider to be) stylish, I do still put effort in putting together outfits that match and don’t make me look like I’ve given up on my appearance. However, I don’t want to look like I put in any effort! I’ve found that if I’m in public in an outfit that’s either mismatched or looks like I’m trying too hard, I’ll be really uncomfortable in social situations, so I aim for a healthy middle ground. By now though I have it about down to key pieces that I puzzle together, so it’s not at all a complicated part of my day. In fact--not counting shower time--I can be ready in about twenty minutes. Concerning makeup, I’ve never really been into it. The most I’ll wear is blush, mascara, and lip balm; maybe twice a year I’ll wear eyeliner. The reason behind my lack of makeup interest is simply that I don’t know how to make it look good, and I’m happy with my face without the makeup, so why bother. Almost forgot to mention my hairstyle, which I just throw up into a loose bun with a velvet scrunchie (I have about ten of various colors); I pin down flyaway hairs with black bobby pins, and it usually takes four. My final thoughts on my appearance is that I’m pretty secure with my physical look, in tune with my laid-back personality, and don’t feel like trying to portray a trendy message with my clothes, makeup, or hair. I would rather be comfortable, while still looking cute (my idea of cute) in an understated way.  

[kbvisualjournals]

#2

The United States has a history of exclusionary practices, each set against a specific race at different points in time when a certain race was seen as dangerous or inconvenient to the country. First, in 1882 the United States passed legislation—called the Chinese Exclusion Act—that disallowed immigration into America from the Chinese race specifically. This Act was the American government’s response to the anti-Chinese sentiments sweeping the nation at the time, especially in the West. Those who benefitted from the exclusion of Chinese from mainstream American society were white Americans, because it was their racist hostility and intolerance that prompted the enactment of the legislation in the first place. Americans in the West stereotyped the Chinese as “degraded, exotic, dangerous, and competitors for jobs and wages”; therefore, due partly to white Americans fear of job loss to the Chinese, and partly to the anti-Chinese racism that occurred in early American national culture, white Americans were the beneficiaries of the Chinese Exclusion Act (Britannica). In the 1930s, the United States began deporting individuals of Mexican descent, eventually kicking almost two million people out of the country; shockingly, 60 percent of those deported were U.S. citizens. This ‘Mexican repatriation’, as the government termed it, was a response to the Great Depression that hit the country in 1929. At this time, the country had no way to deal with unemployment, so the administration's solution was to deport people in an effort to give jobs to those considered racially superior (i.e. Anglo-Americans). Therefore, the people who benefitted from the exclusion of Mexican Americans from American society was Anglo-Americans; under the belief that Mexican presence was the reason for their unemployment, white Americans had no problem with their removal. One reason that Mexicans were being focused on for deportation as opposed to Europeans was that Mexico's border is closer, making it the easiest and cheapest option. However, the main reason for Mexican depatriation was racism. In 1942—as a response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor a couple months prior—President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed legislation authorizing the removal and containment of people of Japanese ancestry in the West Coast into concentration camps. The American government implied that they were protecting the Japanese by relocating them from their homes to camps such as Manzanar; in actuality, Pearl Harbor had “intensified racial prejudices and led to fear of potential sabotage and espionage by Japanese Americans” (NPS). Therefore, the only beneficiaries of this event were non-Japanese individuals in America whose anxieties were calmed by the fact that their society was no longer ‘at risk’. According to the National Park Service, “about two-thirds of all Japanese Americans interned at Manzanar were American citizens by birth. The remainder were aliens, many of whom had lived in the United States for decades, but who, by law, were denied citizenship” (NPS). These three cases of exclusionary practices in American history had the common purpose of working in favor of Anglo-Americans, and the common outcome of committing wrongdoing to legal U.S. citizens based solely on their foreign ancestry. A contemporary social justice issue that relates to the three aforementioned injustices is the ‘Muslim ban’ of early 2017. This travel ban was enacted by President Trump when he signed an Executive Order banning foreigners from seven nations—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—from entering the country for 90 days; it also suspended the entry of Syrian refugees indefinitely, and prohibited entry to refugees of other countries for 120 days (NYTimes). This ban—much like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Mexican Depatriation in the 1930s, and the internment of Japanese Americans that began in 1942—was rooted in racism.

Works Cited

"Japanese Americans at Manzanar." National Park Service, 28 Feb. 2015, www.nps.gov/manz/learn/historyculture/japanese-americans-at-manzanar.htm (Links to an external site.). Accessed 13 Oct. 2018.

Parlapiano, Alicia, and Anjali Singhvi. “Trump’s Immigration Ban: Who is Barred and Who is Not.” The New York Times, 3 Feb. 2017, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/31/us/politics. Accessed 13 Oct. 2018.

Wu, Yuning. “Chinese Exclusion Act.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 May 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Exclusion-Act. Accessed 13 Oct. 2018.

[kbvisualjournals]

#1

The rhetorical situation is made up of different elements; I would like to focus on two here, the writer’s stance and the audience. First, the writer’s stance refers to the writer’s attitude and emotional state. The audience will consider how the writer positions him or herself in regards to them; in other words, how does the writer know the audience, how does the writer establish authority, and what is the writer’s position in terms of genre? Writing can come across in several ways, such as an intellectual conversation between two individuals, or as a speech for a diverse group of people. Within this element of writer’s stance, the writer’s epistemology comes into play. Epistemology will help determine whether the writer offers a justified belief or merely an opinion; when investigating the writer’s epistemology, the audience will look at what seems important to the writer, the writer’s claims, and what the writer regards as evidence. The writer’s stance can be applied to visual arts because whatever image the artist creates is done so with a certain intention. The motivation behind the artist’s work, or the message that the artist wants to convey, is related to the artist’s stance.

Second, an audience analysis is another element of the rhetorical situation that comes in handy during the creative process. When analyzing the audience, consider the audience’s typical expectations for the given genre, language, evidence, and purpose. The writer should anticipate what the audience already knows, what gaps in the audience’s knowledge need to be filled, and what information the audience will value or challenge. The writer then needs to decide how much time they want to spend filling the gaps of knowledge, and what their method will be in doing so. The audience analysis also translates into visual arts. When brainstorming their next project, the artist will want to consider the audience’s prior knowledge and expectations in order to create a piece that the audience can relate to.

In this image from Art Speigelman’s graphic novel, titled MAUS, he depicts the German Nazi’s as cats and the Jewish people as mice in order to convey his stance (or attitude) that the Nazi’s were predators and the Jewish people were their prey. Speigelman’s intention is to reveal the sinister character of the Nazi’s, by showing the unfair advantage that a cat has over mice. He establishes authority in telling this Holocaust story because the audience is made aware that this is a retelling of his own father’s personal experiences during that horrible time in history. Speigelman’s stance in this graphic novel is that of a biographer; he is making his father’s story public and in doing so shedding light on what really happened to Jewish people throughout the Holocaust. As far as audience analysis, Speigelman may recognize that the audience of graphic novels often expect a fantastical element to them, or for the subject matter to be action or comedy based; perhaps he chose to use animal forms for his characters because the subject matter is very serious and depressing. Since the concept of the ‘cat and mouse’ is prevalent to society, it’s a symbolic way of introducing the power dynamic between Germans and Jews.