4A Group #1

Assignment 4A Group #1

1. Write the story title and author name.

The Big Valley By Mark Arax

 2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph; be specific in your summary. Remember that your classmates will rely on you for this information.

In The Big Valley by Mark Arax physically, economically, and emotionally takes the reader on a journey through the cultural transformation of Northwest Fresno from one generation to another. He remembers his roots of where and how he grew up in Northwest Fresno when farmers were called growers. He reminisces about how he watched his grandfather and father transform from one way of life to meet the new demands of another. His grandfather farmed the virgin land, his father also farmed but eventually sold the land to developers, while Mark remained on a bit of the land in a suburban neighborhood. Mark Arax also takes a trip to the 2004 World Ag Expo where the reader learns even how cultural technology has changed the dynamics of the farming land.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph (include entire quote; use quote marks and page number)?

I had many favorite sentences and paragraphs, but if I have to pick only one it would be the paragraph that best describes how Mark Arax, changed, too, by the transformation of time in the growing industry, yet he still believes he is an honest farmer like his dad and grandfather and acknowledges his ancestral roots when he states, “The roots beneath the clay die hard. In early spring, they send up shoots through the crannies of my backyard. Up from the ivy and bamboo come Forkner’s old figs. I attack them with shovel and shear, out of suburban necessity. I imagine, but the milk they bleed, sticky white, causes me to wonder. And yet my deathblow is something of a paradox, for I have turned large sections of flowerbed and lawn into orchard and vegetable garden. Like my grandfather and father, I am a backyard farmer with too little land for my dreams” (Arax, 19).

4. What did the reading make you think of? (be specific eg "There is a bridge in SF that spans 4 miles from SF to Oakland and in the middle of the bridge it crosses an island called Treasure Island. This story makes me think of that specific little island where I can see the entire city and bay area. That city was also in the news recently where .... )

Since I travel this long stretch of highway to and from Los Angeles, and I look out over the large fields and see tractors and trucks moving carefully on the land, I think of how little I understand the American grower, the true farmer whose original roots entitled generations to eat and live off the land. I especially noticed the straight rows of endless almond trees, and I wondered how the farmers got them so straight and even. The patchwork of artistry that sews one ranch to another seems limitless. I truly have never realized the deep-rooted history that is embedded in each parcel of soil and how it has changed over the years.


5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know (again, be specific using concrete examples)?

I did not know that the 2004 World Ag Expo took place in the town of Tulare County, nor did I know that “Traver held the world record for the greatest amount of wheat shipped from a producing point during a single season” (Arax, 22). I was also amazed to learn that Kings..." irrigates more farmland than any river in the world except for the Nile and Indus” was in Fresno.

1. Write the story title and author name.

Transients in Paradise by Aimee Liu

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph; be specific in your summary. Remember that your classmates will rely on you for this information.

Transients in Paradise, by Aimee Liu, describes the stereotypical idea of perfection, wealth, and indulgence one can find in Beverly Hills. Yet, deep underneath the “painted flesh of this town’s trademark” lies the hidden desires and fears that many of the inhabitants of the Beverly Hills mask. She gives a wonderful analogy of how Beverly Hills is like the perfect made up lady, where many of the inhabitants, strive to find the perfect fantasy, body, or way of life to emanate wealth; when in fact, they truly fear reality. Many people have lost their perception of the richness of life; they do not live in a place that has deep rooted generational history. Many of Beverly Hill's visitors think that wealth equates with money; however, Liu stressed wealth means understanding, knowledge, education, and humanness; she showed this through a limited number of residents who had experienced the reality of life. The reader understands that may living or lusting to live in Beverly Hills exemplifies permanence; once someone lives in Beverly Hills they have grabbed onto the American dream; they have made it. When in reality, there is really no sense of realness or permanence attached to tinsel town. There are very few, mainly mangled older dwellers, that refuse to give into the lure of the town. These inhabitants know their true wealth and true fears, and this makes them the wealthiest inhabitants of Beverly Hills. Aimee Liu, in Transients in Paradise, makes the reader see besides the obvious wealthy that the visitor focuses on in Beverly Hills, lives an entire cultural milieu of poor, middle class, and culturally diverse populations.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph (include entire quote; use quote marks and page number)?

I chose this quote, for it exemplifies and uncovers the stereotype that surrounds the idea of perfection and permanence in Beverly Hills. “The wattage of that current is transience. Who is coming? Who is going? Who is staying, and for how long? A town like Beverly Hills puts up an impressive front of permanence, but no matter how massive the house, how opulent the stores, how established the brokers of power and fame, or how deep their pockets, the truth of this place is as variable as the traffic passing down Wilshire Boulevard. I see buses carrying housekeepers from Crenshaw nudge the pickups of gardeners from Inglewood, Range Rovers driven from trophy wives cut off Hondas bearing handicap placards. Precious few of the drivers were born here, and nearly as few will die here, there are no hospitals in Beverly His, and many started from as far away as Guatemala, Vermont, or Taiwan---or equally distant locales that only appear closer on the map” (Liu, 31).

4. What did the reading make you think of? (be specific eg "There is a bridge in SF that spans 4 miles from SF to Oakland and in the middle of the bridge it crosses an island called Treasure Island. This story makes me think of that specific little island where I can see the entire city and bay area. That city was also in the news recently where .... )

When I went to Los Angeles to look at schools, I went to Beverly Hills to look at UCLA. When we were walking, I told my parents that the streets looked like they were paved with gold, and I quickly learned the inhabitants who walk up and down these streets had such a sense of entitlement. When we walked on the streets, the women with their manicured nails, carrying designer handbags and jeweled dog leashes would not move out of our way. Sometimes we all had to step off the sidewalk and let one person pass, for they would not move. They carried on loud conversations on their cell phones, not noticing that you were walking on the sidewalk, too. As we zigzagged in and out of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, I did only notice the glitz and glamour. I did not see any of the homeless, nor did I see any workers on the streets. It was as if all the workers were as neatly tucked away as the equipment used on the manicured lawns, bushes, trees, and overflowing baskets of flowers lining the massive mansions. I did not see one thing out of place.


5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know (again, be specific using concrete examples)?

I did not know that there were no hospitals in Beverly Hills. I was shocked to learn this, for many of the inhabitants seem to be older, and the younger ones driving the Land Rovers and Hummers seem to have children. Are they exempt from scrapes and pains, too?  Is this town so perfect that no one ever gets sick or hurt?

1. Write the story title and author name.

Showing off the Owens by T. Jefferson Parker

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph; be specific in your summary. Remember that your classmates will rely on you for this information.

Showing off the Owens, by T. Jefferson Parker takes the reader and a New York angler and novelist, Brian Wiprud, on a journey to California’s Lower Owens River. Parker drives Wipurd and the reader out of Pasadena on the 395 to the Owens River. Brian is a wonderful angler who had actually taught tour guides hired to help him learn how to fly fish. A man of few words, and a man who seemed at first to be a bit full of himself, finally seemed to acclimate and accept everyone and everything that this small town had to offer him. From the checkout clerk to the tour guide, Tom, the reader and Brian began to understand the mentality and devotion that flowed through this town. Like nature, there was an intricacy yet still a simplicity that all lived and fished by in rural small towns. Without much communication, everyone seemed to have an innate understanding of fly-fishing and its ritualistic power to heal.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph (include entire quote; use quote marks and page number)?

I really liked this quote the very best, for one can never really know a place unless they experience it firsthand and allow their imagination to run wild in the vastness of nature. And, earlier in the story, “Brian who recently returned from a fly-fishing tour of the Amazon River---didn’t seem impressed” (T. Jefferson Parker, 37). Yet, one who actually experienced this place writes, “We finally made Bishop. We were on the frigid water by noon. The sky was gunmetal gray and the parched red flanks of the canyon angled down to the blue jewel of river flowing hard to the south. I looked down into that water and pictured the thousands of trout down there, unwilling to be caught. I thought of something director Robert Altman recently said: ‘I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don’t know what’s on the other end. Your imagination is under there’’” (T. Jefferson Parker, 40).

4. What did the reading make you think of? (be specific eg "There is a bridge in SF that spans 4 miles from SF to Oakland and in the middle of the bridge it crosses an island called Treasure Island. This story makes me think of that specific little island where I can see the entire city and bay area. That city was also in the news recently where .... )

My dad loves to fly fish. He has told me that it is like wadding in heaven. The earth and sky meet in the river that waters a tired man’s thirsty soul. I remember visiting a smaller river when I was a child, and I could see trout swimming along the bottom of the watery passage. I remember hearing sounds that I could not really fully give my attention in the city. I could stop and just hear the birds or the small sound of the wind winding through the leaves of the tall trees, and I could feel and truly enjoy the warm sun on my back. This story made me think of that time…a special time that took away all the outside distractions of a large city and allowed me to see and hear nature.


5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know (again, be specific using concrete examples)?

I did not now that less than twenty minutes from Pasadena, one could catch wild rainbow trout and escape the noise and abundance of people at a place called the Owens River.

1. Write the story title and author name.

The Distant Cataract About Which We Do Not Speak, by Mary Mackey

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph; be specific in your summary. Remember that your classmates will rely on you for this information.

In The Distant Cataract About Which We Do Not Speak, Mary Mackey takes the reader on a journey to the American River located in Sacramento about twenty minutes from her home. She talks of her experiences she and her husband have shared and witnessed on this river. She talks about her own experiences, trying to swim up to a family of Mallard ducks, to watching Hmong families, understanding and watching all the different cultures that flock to the river for rituals and ceremonies. When she is able to reach the Mallard ducks, they finally notice her and flap away. For years, she had tried to disguise herself and try to mingle with different wildlife cultures, but as close as she was able to get, they always seemed to notice her. When a beaver noticed her, he splashed his tail angrily; however, when the Hmong families or a Russian Orthodox priest blessing the water noticed her and her husband, they also carried on without interruption, performing their ceremonies like baptisms and blessings. The Sacramento River is one of her favorite places to escape from the hub of fast paced life of Sacramento and view the many cultures, including the culture of nature that live and visit the Sacramento river.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph (include entire quote; use quote marks and page number)?

I felt this was the most beautiful quote, and it fully explained even how the beaver, a creature that calls the river home, gave a moment to another culture. “But nothing can compare to a night in early August when my husband and I came to the river and found it full of small, floating lanterns. A Japanese priest stood at the boat launch chanting as the lanterns drifted toward him and his congregation. We found out later that this is a traditional ceremony for souls lost at sea, but now it is done to commemorate those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Above the lanterns, a full moon rose into the sky, bright and large as a second sun. The flames swirled in the current, the night primroses blossomed, the beavers were silent, and for a few moments the American was a river of light” (Mackey, 49).

4. What did the reading make you think of? (be specific eg "There is a bridge in SF that spans 4 miles from SF to Oakland and in the middle of the bridge it crosses an island called Treasure Island. This story makes me think of that specific little island where I can see the entire city and bay area. That city was also in the news recently where .... )

The reading made me think of my own baptism and how our culture also celebrates ceremonial rites of passage with water. I also thought of the vastness of the Sacramento River, and I thought that I have never even seen people on it, let alone people of all cultures utilizing its waters for their precious, intricate ceremonial rites of passage and reflection.

5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know (again, be specific using concrete examples)?

I did not know that a culture called the Hmong lived in the United States; I have never heard the word "Hmong" and I did not know that this culture visited the Sacramento River wearing their traditional dress to celebrate and eat together. I also did not know that the Japanese utilized the river to commemorated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I had no idea that the Sacramento River was a ceremonial site for different cultures.