Villanueva Reading Response

Before you Read

4. Villanueva: 

"Victor Villanueva has won two national awards for Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color, written nearly 40 articles, and delivered over 35 keynote and featured addresses. A Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican high school dropout, Villanueva entered community college after the military and eventually went on to receive his PhD in English from the University of Washington. At Washington State University, he has worked as an Equal Opportunity Program Director, Director of Composition, and English Department Chair. He is a former chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communications. Villanueva's research concerns the interconnectedness among rhetoric, ideology, racism, and literacy practices." 

-http://www.du.edu/writing/documents/VillanuevaApril12Lecture1.pdf

He sounds like a well educated, Puerto Rican man that is trying to spread the word of 'rhetoric, ideology, racism, and literacy practices.'

Summary

 His article, "Memoria is a Friend of Ours:  On the Discourse of Color," is about the discourse communities made by different racial/ethnicity groups. He takes parts of his own book and relates them to the topic of color. He explains that people of color are discriminated against in many different ways. This may be a reason they make communities. He uses other author's works to compare. He is writing to people of color, people learning about color, people learning about rhetoric, and people learning about discourse communities. 

Synthesis

 This article relates to Wardle, bell hooks, and Heilker and Yergeau. It relates to Wardle because being discriminated because of your color is not belonging and your color is your identity and Wardle talks about belonging and identity. It relates to bell hooks because it also had to do with race/ethnicity. It lastly relates to Heilker and Yergeau because the both talk about rhetoric in discourse communities that are discriminated.

DN

Question

 AE 3.I think the assimilation myth is that citizens don't think foreigners can be assimilated and be in touch with their ethnicity and culture. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is like knowing your heritage at least a little and it being in your life no matter what. Your pulling yourself up into a better place with your ethnicity still being there. It has to do with assimilation because you can still assimilate, but no matter what you are always going to have your background and use it somewhat in your life. Also some may say assimilating is better for you so it is like pulling yourself up. On Google I got the bootstraps is an American myth and I got stories about it. It relates to Villanueva idea because they are both myths.

Thoughts

 I thought this article was kind of boring. I can not relate much because I am primarily always around my own race, so I am not discriminated because of it. I also do not have anyone in my personal life that is of color. I thought the reading could have had some kind of visual, not just excerpts from himself and other authors. I do think Villanueva had a good point to this article, he could have just explained it better.