Rosa

Rosa is not crazy, I would call it her just being human. I believe that Rosa destroyed her shop because it caused her pain in some sense. It didn’t bring her peace. It brung her a mixture of emotions, to know people didn’t cherish the history of things but just the display it brung . She wanted to make a difference get people to open their hearts but instead she felt like she lived in a world with no own facing the truth. As if everyone is living a lie.
Rosa lived her life as if her past was her on going presence . She need some type of release from the horrible life she once lived but instead she never puts it behind her . It seem like she despise people who choose to act like it never happened . Her niece is someone in particular. But I also believe her hatred towards has more to do with than her just putting everything behind her. I think Rose blames Stella for the death of her child, because of her selfishness. At the same time Stella is all she has and I honestly feel they should be sticking together rather than falling apart. Rosa just need someone to care for . Her daughter was the only comfort she had left and it got taken away from her so she plays the world for it. Rosa imagination is very wide . I was amazed at how she imagined a whole life for her daughter out of no where. But at the same time she could have been imagining the life she wanted for herself as her daughters.

The Shawl

This book started of different to me than most of the books we read. It starts off with the danger and the problem right in the beginning. You don’t get to know each character as a person or see what they about it straight to the disaster. Which can be a good or bad thing depending on the reader. To me it was a good thing because there was no sugar coding, no one was painting a false picture it went straight to it and told it exactly how it was.

 My heart really goes out to Rosa having to try to nurture a baby while going through both physical and mental abuse. Having to protect her baby from the enemies and her own kind all at once because the enemy would have killed her and her own kind wanted to eat her. I can’t imagine the pain she felt when all she wanted to do was run and save her baby but could only sit in watch because it would have been her life. At the same time to me Rosa watching Magda die was the death of herself as well. In a sense it killed her spirit. I believe the only way she kept pushing was to pretend as if her daughter was still living. No one knows how it really feels to have everything taken away from you, and loose hope. Then to have a child which is the only thing you have to love and love you unconditionally and to then have that taken away. That is horrible and I don’t fault Rosa. Rosa she is just like every other mother in the world who wants nothing more than to love her child. It is wrong for people to judge her because of it, give titles and think of her as crazy. She is human and every human has emotion and reacts to any situation they been in.

divine...

The father is the one who lost himself the most. He went from a successfully man being able to provide for his family to someone who could barely take care of himself. It felt like his children lost all respect for him which is really sad because he did nothing more but long to be with them. He didn’t appear the way they remembered or do the stuff they once loved. As for his wife I'm not sure how much she resented him for the changes she had to make in her life to now become the provider of the family.
the confession to me was more of letting the world know that they were ordinary Americans just like them and didn't deserve to be accused of all those things. I am guessing the Japanese believed confessing will sent them free but instead it hurt them .
I was surprised that no one came out and told there full story. I really wanted to know what happen to them in there. I wanted to know why they read there letters and crossed out their words knowing that was there only communication. the stripped them of all privacy which is so cruel. and as for the children and mother it like they treated them like animals. They gave them food only if they finished all their food and to do so they had to eat as animals. They gave them army leftovers to keep warm. In the end it was if they had nothing left ,no sense of self. In fact the only thing that kept them together was their faith and because they were together. As for the father he had it rough he was alone and still kept up the little strength he had just to make it home to his family.

Continued..

There are a lot of different emotions that come out of this book. You'll find a lot of lies, a lot of fantasizing and some truth as well. The questions is why were so many lies told, and so many secrets kept. After all they have been through why didn’t they get it out, was closure ever desired? Maybe they lied to feel better about everything or they could have been too scared to face the truth. Lying could have been their way of gaining strength and being able to bare their hardship. The fantasizing had a roll in that as well. I took it as their sense of hope. They envisioned them being free. They wanted their lives back they wanted their freedom the wanted to be proud of who they were and not be ashamed and hide it. There were times where they dreamed about things being worse than they already were. Which is hard to figure out a meaning to. It could be that the fear they built up inside haunted them and their dreams were the only place they allowed them to come out, because it was hidden in each one of their thoughts.
With the war ending you would think things would get better but in my eyes it kind of got worse. I say this because they had this set way of how it would be if they returned and instead they got the complete opposite. They didn’t receive any comfort no welcome, not anything. In the camp they at least had people on their side they had friends who didn’t turn their backs on them and people who accepted them. Back at their home the only had each other no one helped them get on their feet. They didn’t treat them equal etc. who want to go home to that and even going back to their home which wasn’t home to them at all nothing was the same.

4/14

Looking at the title of this book I wouldn’t have thought the book was about a traumatic situation. I don’t know if the government was merrily right to put people through such harsh conditions. Did this process help them in anyway? Were any of the people put in the camps actually found guilty. I can find a lot of reasons why this process was wrong. To have innocent people loose their homes, and their job. To have a life one day and then have it all taken away the next. To be isolated from society . That was just cruel. People come to America to live their dream life or close to it the become citizens so why do they get treated different . Where is the equally and freedom they are promised . Where was there justice. Did they even receive an apology .Were they ever treated the same again or were they always looked at from now on as enemies. What about the children I can’t imagine what was going through their minds. They got everything taken from them with no explanation of why they were being punished. What about their education that was taken from them.
To me the mother had to taken in a lot. She built up a lot of strength to hold their family together . To have a partner one minute and then be al alone the next . Then on top of that having to pretend to despise where she came from. I believed that the family was very Americanized .They were no different from an American family just their outer appearance. The government shouldn’t have all that power their should be guidelines. All those innocent people shouldn’t have gone through all that , it just isn’t fair.

Push Continued

In the beginning of the book Precious lacked power. She had no control over her situation. My question is how is who has the power determined. What does it me to obtain power? In this book as well as for precious to obtaining power was her gaining self control, it was her taking charge and saying that it is her life and only she controls it from now on .As the book goes on she gains that power which isn’t hard to believe seeing as she figured out how to survive under someone else power over her. But is her gaining her power going to be a forever thing and will she keep going on with only her controlling her life. Or will she search for love because the lack of not having it is un bearing. She is only human and I’m curious of if she stays strong. I’m curious if she becomes like her mother in the sense of wanting someone to love her and fall into the trap of that love being controlling and abusive. I’m not saying she going to turn out wrong, in fact I’m rooting for her to be better than her mother. It is just uncommon for an abuse victim to just go on with their life. Everyone needs closure from any situation. I wonder if another book will be published, and what happens to her mom, what happens with her. With books you really get into and can see everything the person goes through it is hard to walk away saying it was a good book, indeed it was but now I have so many questions un answered so it becomes a good book that left me with an incomplete perspective.

"Push"

I believe that it her decision to change was always there it just took her a while to gain the strength to change. But when she gain it she went full force, she was determined. The alternative school was a big part of her change. Being at school and around her friends is where her thoughts about things and views change. Then the change came with her wanting to be the best mother she can be. Which kind of shocked me. With Precious being so young and not even all together and with the father being the baby’s father to have to live with the hurt and replaying of what happen to her, or maybe seeing him in her son. It is a very hard thing to deal with . I believe the friendships she made and her perspective of her friends changed a lot of her perspectives she got from society. There is a part in the book that brought up being homosexual and how Precious didn’t agree with it due to religion and the world. But when it was looked as what kind of people hurt you verses who didn’t and determining who was wrong in that aspect she didn’t find any wrong in people being homosexual. In fact it was homosexuals that helped her through because her teacher along with one of her friends were. When precious went to her group meeting she also discovered she couldn’t based what happen to her on how she looked. There were a lot of girls in the group and within those girls there were different races, hair colors, eye colors, shapes , and sizes. Precious defining herself and gaining self esteem I believe came with her teacher not wanting to her anything negative and letting them put themselves or each other down. Also with having her son she has to set an example so she is gradually getting to that point.

Push

Reading this book and putting myself in her shoes I know I wouldn’t be able to do it, I probably would want to die. I can’t imagine how she gained the strength to deal with everything. TO not have love but be used by both parents is crazy. This book touched me in a different light because of the career path I chosen which is to be a social worker. It made me wonder if all girls in New York go through things like this. I wanted to know the percentage and why it is an ongoing thing. It made me what to slap her mother for her, I mean I know that isn’t the answer but what kind of sick minded women lets her boyfriend /husband whatever touch her baby and let him have a baby with her baby and the worst part is blame the child. What about the people at the welfare place why wouldn’t they report it why do so many turn their backs and act like nothing is going on. Where are the caring people? Where is her safety? Who’s protecting her? How does a child get forced out of school for being pregnant who mad that rule. I wonder how her mother’s childhood was and what she went through. I wonder what made precious keep fighting even before her baby. To grow up without a family is one thing but to grow up with family and treats you like your nothing to them nothing more than something they own it is very painful. I want her to find someone to care for her it makes me angry to see her taking that abuse. She is scared for life and can never erase those memories away. She is scared for life. She tries and takes a stand because she believes everything will be alright