mgandara – Historical Thinking

How to Write Effectively

November 29, 2016mgandara

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Reading George Orwell’s article about the English language opened my eyes at how I should strive to be a better writer. Orwell critiqued 5 sentences and stated that they all share two things in common: “Staleness of imagery…lack of precision”. I have found after looking over other papers I have written for this class and others that I have fallen victim to being too abstract or struggling to express a meaning. I will blame myself for this, but I also feel that some of the blame lies with high school English teachers whom from my personal experience valued style over substance, and it is hard to shake off a writing style one has done for many years when suddenly you realize that it’s actually substance over style. Orwell lists six rules to follow that can be summarized as “if it can be simple and succinct, then go with that”. I agree with @jessica42’s comment that trying to write with big words to sound interesting and feel smarter is not the way to go in writing, but I would not go as far as to say that the writing I have done up until now has been “very terrible” like Jessica described about her own writing. While Orwell makes good points, it’s easy to forget that culture and society can change and in modern times it has changed rapidly, so while we can try to follow Orwell’s advice and rules, actually implementing them is a challenge but it is a challenge worth facing.

Changes and Challenges Little Tokyo Faces

November 14, 2016November 14, 2016mgandara

For my Intro to Asian American Studies class, me and five other classmates chose to study the impact the arts (visual/performing) have had on Little Tokyo, which is in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. Little Tokyo is a community that has experienced much over its history, including dealing with the effects of gentrification as more and more Japanese-owned, small businesses continue to close and lose against brand names like Starbucks and Subway. As part of our assignment, we needed to interview someone who knew a lot about Little Tokyo’s arts scene and we spoke with Alison De La Cruz, who works at the Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo. Alison told us a lot we didn’t know about Little Tokyo, such as the conflicts between the Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) and the cultural arts scene in Little Tokyo, how both the performing and visual arts’ futures are in question due to the city of Los Angeles’ use of eminent domain and how Little Tokyo continues to shrink as more and more high rise condos and high-class outlets like pet groomers continue to pop up and how the Board of Directors is caught between preserving the historical significance of Little Tokyo or allowing more commerical development in exchange for more money to flow into Little Tokyo.

People who go to places like Little Tokyo, for the most part do so not to learn about the history and culture of enclaves like Little Tokyo, but to “consume the culture and reshape it into something that they envision it should be” says De La Cruz and I would have to agree. When I visited Little Tokyo seven years ago on a field trip, it was mostly just window shopping and ending the day by eating at a ramen shop. Now that I visited Little Tokyo again, not as a tourist but someone with an interest in Japanese-American culture and using the skills I have learned from my courses as a community college student, I can see things differently now that the old me would have not picked up on and it has changed my ways of learning about different cultures. Talking with Alison and learning about the many changes Little Tokyo has faced and continues to face makes me more motivated and inspired to do my part in helping a community that needs a champion to fight for them.

Me and my group at Little Tokyo on November 10th.

The San Francisco “disaster”: a fire? an earthquake? Or both?

October 23, 2016October 23, 2016mgandara

Starting with the abstract at the beginning of Ted Steinberg’s “Smoke and Mirrors: The San Francisco Earthquake and Seismic Denial” in American Disasters, I was immediately taken back by how at the time local and state officials, along with powerful business interests had tried to downplay the damage that was caused by the earthquake itself, shifting the damage done by claiming it was the fire that did the most damage. No one can dispute how San Francisco was damaged quite heavily, but the attempt to downplay the earthquake itself to me is baffling. It would be easy to downplay the earthquake itself had it impacted a remote, sparsely populated area but the earthquake was as Steinberg described, “felt as far south as Los Angeles, as far north as southern Oregon and as far east as central Nevada”, it was large enough at a M 7.7 that trying to claim that the destruction was merely caused by a fire could not work. The reasons that these officials and businessmen tried to pass it off as a fire was mainly for financial reasons. San Francisco had been growing to be a major financial center in the western United States and it was this that lured capitalists to invest in San Francisco and being made aware of the city as a seismic hotspot would make these capitalists stop investing in the city’s financial health. To willfully be ignorant of the potential dangers of living in an earthquake-prone area is one thing, but for these businessmen they knew the risks and yet they continued to lure investors to their city in spite of the potential dangers. It’s one thing to argue that these businessmen were only trying to bring these investment opportunities to elevate the city to newer heights but I believe their intentions were not at all noble.

I challenge ngojoseph’s question of “Are we all earthquake deniers?”, while it can be said that virtually anyone who lives in an earthquake area would know about the potential dangers, as the constant reminders to participate in the “Great Shakeout Drill” each year show, it isn’t easy to simply just pick up your things and move to somewhere that isn’t an earthquake hotspot. Recent earthquakes in remote areas like Nebraska and Oklahoma show that these earthquakes could happen in places you’d least expect it to. How would we move a state that ngojoseph even admits to having “a massive population”? Does the state and/or federal government help with relocation? What about those who are on Section 8 housing, do they lose Section 8 status by relocating? How do other states cope with large percentages of Californians moving into their state, all at once? I agree with slee72897’s comment: “I think we are justified in choosing to live here because there have been many regulations and precautions taken to prevent damage”, we have drills, building code standards are better than the virtually non-existent ones in 1906 and with the rise of social media, people now know just how devastating earthquakes can be and are thus more motivated in preventative measures. I will close by saying that yes people understand the risks but people today are more aware than ever before in the destruction earthquakes can cause and we are more prepared to deal with them.

The Dragon Rises: Chinese-American life after the Great San Francisco Earthquake

October 14, 2016mgandara

On April 18, 1906 a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Northern California, destroying a large part of San Francisco. The earthquake had also spawned large fires that ravaged the city and took four days for firefighters to extinguish the fire. However, the fire had an unintentional benefit to a certain population living in San Francisco: The Chinese. The fire had destroyed City Hall and with it important documents about the Chinese living there. The Chinese used this to claim residency and citizenship, creating a backdoor to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and bringing a thriving Chinese-American community that still exists strongly in San Francisco today. I will be writing about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and how the resulting fire had impacted the lives of the Chinese-American community living in San Francisco at the time. I would title this paper proposal “The Dragon Rises: Chinese-American life after the Great San Francisco Earthquake”. My questions that I hope to answer in my final paper include: How did the fire impact the lives of the Chinese-American community and how did the destruction allow the Chinese-American community to rebuild. I would like to use firsthand accounts from those who were affected by the earthquake and fire. These sources would help me greatly understand how the Chinese-American community was impacted by the earthquake and fire and how they emerged from the destruction a much greater force and presence in San Francisco.

Reaction to Issac’s Storm

October 2, 2016mgandara

Craig Offman’s criticisms of Eric Larson’s Issac’s Storm, while no doubt grounded in logic and sound reasoning, ring hollow for Larson’s intended readers. Issac’s Storm, while based upon a true event takes some creative liberties that Offman takes note of such as whether the hurricane was a category 4 or 5, with Larson directly responding that while it was “officially a 4”, Larson’s research made him believe that it was actually a 5 (Offman). I wholeheartedly agree with raldritch25’s post “Drawing an Audience” which he also notes how Offman’s criticisms seem in the grand scheme of things to not really matter at all. I agree with raldtrich that there are better things to critique, but in Offman’s defense I believe he is trying to analyze Issac’s Storm from a more logical, realistic perspective but I would argue that Larson’s book is not meant to be completely accurate and free of factual errors, but rather an engaging read, filled with twists and turns that most nonfiction writers strive to make in their works. If one would look at Issac’s Storm from a perspective of someone who has no formal background in meteorology, then it would reason that in their eyes they would have greatly enjoyed reading Larson’s work. It’s all about perspectives when trying to analyze or review a book that is based off of real events or a true story, and while I don’t believe that Craig Offman is wrong per se, his perspective is one that is different than the intended readers of Issac’s Storm.

A Narrative About the Chicago Fire

September 18, 2016September 18, 2016mgandara

“The Great Conflagration” by Bessie Bradwell Helmer gives us a narrative that is easy to follow and while it does make for a enjoyable read, this narrative offers up ideas on what had transpired when the fire began to rapidly spread across Chicago. Helmer begins by informing the reader that fires were a common occurrence and that there were several the week before the great fire. Perhaps Helmer added this brief bit of information to suggest that the great fire so happened to be in the same category as previous fires but had clearly spiraled out of control to the point of severe devastation. I agree with @derekjawhu who stated “the reaction from people that saw the fire in Chicago from a distance would be the same as it would today”, despite technological advances we’ve made, people’s reactions to disasters seemed to be mainly that of concern and less of pure fear or terror as they feel that they can rely on the professionals to carry out the jobs of containing and/or eliminating disasters.

Understanding whether or not this great fire was natural or not is something that Helmer intentionally does not attempt to give a conclusive answer to, stating that “the exact particulars of origin are unknown”. But Helmer does plant the seed of curiosity in readers minds’ as to figure out the true identity of the great fire. Helmer adds in a wry sense of humor in proposing that “a kick from a cow would have been sufficient” in starting the fire, further showing that this narrative is not geared towards academics. While evidence as to the origins of the fire remain inconclusive, it can be widely agreed that the rapid spread of the fire was a result of the sheer number of wooden buildings in the area that had accelerated the spread of fire. In this respect, one may argue that the great fire was unnatural in the sense that human-made buildings caused the fire to spread which explains “how” it spread, but that does not answer the question of “how” in regards to how did the fire start in the first place?

This question is something that I believe is one that intentionally does not have a clear-cut answer. For historians, its questions like these that drive meaningful research and exploration into studying disasters, be they natural or unnatural.

Linking Experiences of City Life in the Past and Present

September 11, 2016mgandara

What I had found interesting in Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis was how adamant the author was in rejecting urban life in the beginning, commenting that “If asked to choose between city and country, I’d have felt no hesitation about my answer” (pg. 6). He goes on to question his view of how whether or not Chicago in his mind was “unnatural” because of what Cronon considered the ills that Chicago had carried, stating how artificial and crowded the city was and that it was a blight on such a great landscape (pg. 7).

What Elizabeth talked about in her post, A Rural to Urban Change, how “rural and urban areas are two sides of a coin…both are important” makes me think about how we today could experience going from living in a rural area and then moving to an urban city. Would our experience be the same as William Cronon’s? How has time changed our perception of rural and urban life? While reading Cronon’s article, it was these two questions that kept me wondering if our experience would be any different, and if it was different then how much a difference would there be?

Understanding Cronon’s experience in 19th century Chicago versus somebody’s experience in today’s 21st century Chicago can show us what has and hasn’t changed and it is through these experiences that we can understand more about focused topics such as the history of Chicago, the perspective of a rural transplant to a large city like Chicago and adapting to arguably a considerable lifestyle change can tell us exactly what a city like Chicago turned into and how did those changes affect the Windy City.

The fascination with disasters

August 30, 2016mgandara

When reading the article by Jonathan Bergman, he tries to describe how the word disaster has changed over the course of history. What I found interesting was how Bergman talks about modern day definitions of the word “disaster” referring to lives lost and and destroyed buildings as “A common measuring stick…stubbornly persists due to hideous curiosity” (Bergman pg. 3). I find that phrase to be damning as a sort of mini social commentary on how we people come to learn about disasters by utilizing social media and knowing about something like the recent floodings in Louisiana or the earthquake in Italy despite being hundreds or thousands of miles away where they occur. This tendency to be utterly fascinated by these disasters is also highlighted in the prologue of Steven Biel’s American Disasters, where Biel comments on how a program showcasing what happened to the Titanic from the inside had many superlatives that Biel “…quickly lost count of how often [the correspondents] tell us these images are “incredible”, “remarkable”…”extraordinary” (Biel 2) and so on. What I believe the reasoning for why most people’s fascination with disasters borders on macabre is because they were not personally affected by the disasters they learn about. If I asked someone who lost a family member in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake if they would describe that event as “extraordinary”, I would probably be given a look of disgust, at best. How we understand and learn about disasters really depends on whether or not we’ve been personally affected by such a disaster and if we have been impacted, how does that impact shape our understanding towards other natural disasters?

Historical Thinking – Fall 2016

Author: mgandara