RN #10

Reading Notes #10

 The two blog posts I decided to read were Amanda’s and Asad’s. The stories of the interviewee’s were about an Iraqi who now lives in the US and had seen Americans at war in her home country, and an African man whose mother was murdered. Besides the fact that there are two sides to every story, there is also a sense of individual strength in both of the people mentioned in the interviews.

 A theme that was seen in both instances was that of violence. Both stories had violence in them; directed toward an individual or a group. This compares to an article I read a few weeks ago on the New York Times website. The article reported the violence on Afghan refugees occurring in France. A class conversation question I would ask would be: What are some instances of things that the US has done that have made us appear as terrorists to others, but, when in American eyes, has not appeared so?  If I were to expand the reading, I would interview more people that have had the strength to carry on after something life threatening had occurred to them.

I could not find two words I did not know but I did find an unusual idea in Amanda’s blog post; the thought that someone that lives among us that has nothing but absolute hatred for every American around them. Now, there are two sides to a story, and we may be the terrorists in other people’s eyes. Although both of the individuals have had a traumatic experience, both have found their strength in their own unique way.