What caused the 1935 Riots?

During the 1935 the Great Depression and the Jim Crow Laws were accruing. The brutal beating of a 12 year old boy started the 1935 Riots. It was caused by a fight for justice and also by rumors. Lino Rivera the boy that was beaten, had stolen from a store. He was confronted by an officer. The officer mentions he had a pen knife the item he stole.  The officer beats him in the cellar. The police officer let him go. An ambulance was outside the store which made things worse. The people who were watching assumed the boy was killed. Which caused the rumor that the officer killed the young boy. The news ran like wild fire that the officer had killed him. This made people angry, because a young boy did not deserve such actions by an officer who was much bigger, who was armed, and was older. The crowd became violent against this incident and that's what started the Harlem Riots.  

Free Blog: Mocking Jay Riots

This class has taught me a lot of things I didn't know. For instance the word riot and what a riot is  I have never learned it before this class. Or at least don't remember that I have. So this class is many about violence provoked by people for a reason. Usually that reason is long term. And people get tired of long term things that don't change and things that affect or relate to them. So I want to talk about The Hunger Games the recent one that came out. As I saw it, I realized how much of related it to everything I had read and learned in my ENN195 class. The different districts, are all the same, people work hard and barely have food to eat. And the higher class lives all fancy and dresses differently with fur coats and ridiculous clothes that look like Halloween costumes to me. But since the first movie it has always been the same, the fight for freedom starts with Katniss. She's the reason people start to fight back. In the books and the articles we have read in class. None really start with a person acting up against the government.  Usually caused by events that are unfair and are led by people who are tired/hungry or want equality. The recent movie I saw relates to the riot of 1935. When the people go against the government and start acting up and creating riots. Mayor Laguardia makes a speech and calls the people "criminals" and warns them that for their actions there are consequences. And in the movie the President Snow does the same he mentions he wants to scare the people from rebelling so he figures he would use the word "criminals" to describe the actions of rioting against the government. Through out the movie we see more and more people fighting the authority. We see fires burning out. President Snow tries to enforce the authority to beat down people and kill them so that others don't rebel against them. But everyone sees hope in Katniss, so as long as she's alive people won't lose hope but they will rebel against the government and the way the system is.  Theres a new district supported with people who want change and they plan to take the capital down. Sorta like in all the articles we have read and learned about.

Blog #6

For my sixth blog assignment, I have viewed two blog of other students from Violence Art Culture by ANGEL  and Jeelyan 

Angel's post titled "nothing to lose " has some similarity to my #5 blog. I found his theme interesting it has strong points of views and examples. Like this one "they simply want to destroy the thing that is oppressing them, regardless of the fact that this destruction won’t make things better." What Angel is trying to say is that, the people are no longer fighting for justice and equality they are destroy things even though it won't make things any better, just make them worse. I believe to make his argument stronger he needed to put some examples on what the people did. The destruction of what they did. Through-out the book there are other examples of how the people fight against it. The Brotherhood that Max is part of, does that continue on to be part of the justice and equality? 


Jeelyan's theme was about violence. She has great examples. In her words "She finally had control over what was going on his her life and she was going to do something about it." she talks about Estella. And the crime she commits trying to fight for her freedom. She described what she thought the meaning of the knife and the the stabbing very well. She used her own opinion. Which makes her example even more significance. I believe that her theme opened to a lot by just saying it's about violence. I think she should've added to it. For example violence due to justice. 

I believe that both these blogs had great themes and examples. They both in a way relate to each other. The consequences of hopelessness towards violence.    

Blog #5

Connect two different passages from Caesar's Column to one of the themes we discussed in class. Discuss what the passages mean individually, and then how the passages relate to one another. Conclude by stating a claim about the theme overall.

"new-born infant would have of life in the den of a wolf" (pg 24) 
"still others had their liberty sworn away by purchased perjury" (pg 76) 

The theme I chose was injustice. Max explains how the world came to be ruined and talks about the modern civilization to Gabriel who just arrived from Africa. He tells him that the poor people have nothing on the rich people. He get's into a fight with one of Prince Cabano's carriage drivers. Gabriel was helping Max out not get run over by the carriage. In doing things got complicated and Gabriel almost got arrested, but Max saved him. When Max explains to Gabriel that he is no beggar and that what he did could've sent him to many years in prison. Gabriel was confused and he couldn't believe what Max was telling him. That a rich man like Prince Cabano with money can buy off the jury and the courts. That was the " modern civilization". Max compared a "new-born infant" would have no chance in surviving in a den full of wolfs to the chance of an "ordinary citizen" having fair treatment in a court against a millionaire. The millionaire would win no matter what against the ordinary citizen. This is a form of injustice. In the second passage on page 76, Max explains how the world came to be ruined by books and magazines he had in his library. He tells Gabriel about the history of the railroad tracks. Everything fall apart by the cause of corruption and the fact that no one with higher power did anything to make thing better for the poor who were struggling. He mentions the the "Brotherhood of Destruction arose" in which people fought back but also many others " had their liberty sworn away by purchased perjury". And that's how it came down. The working class/ poor people grew tired of the injustice and wanted to do something against it. Creating outbreaks. On page 80, there's a quote " universal justice means equal opportunities for all men" which to me would conclude the theme of these both passages, about equality and justice for everyone. 

Caesar's Column October 15, 2014

Hello my name is Kenia Cuenca. My responds to Caesar's Column is as follows:

"Morality, in man or woman, is a magnificent flower which blossoms only in the rich soil of prosperity; impoverish the land and the bloom withers."  (pg 38)

The whole page on page 38 is related to this; what I think this means is that, morality is based on the well being of a person, if a person is poor their actions would be based on their needs.  The weaken and ruined land will change the way a person views things. The things people depend on are going to affect the actions the people take. Like for instance a women will sell her virginity for money, food, shelter. Maximilian is telling this to Gabriel and he's telling him this because the lady Gabriel fell in love with is associated with Prince Cabano. Prince Cabano is a widower. So he thought that Estella Washington, which is the young lady that Gabriel is in love with; was one of those women that belonged to Prince Cabano. And Gabriel believes that Estella isn't one of Prince Cabano's women. He thinks she pure, noble and good. Unlike what Maximilian described the other women to be.

The Destruction of New York: Barely Alive

By Kenia Cuenca. 
The novel : The Destruction of New York 

"Ugly and offensive beast in the dark places" as the teacher refers to the emotional mood swings of every person implies they are imperfect. In class my partner chose this quote. I didn't get it, when I read this it sounded like they were making up a made believe monster from a scary movie. Since it's coming from the author, one can assume that he has held himself back from become this beast. Reading through it, the beast as he describes it; is a person with money that just wants more money like a hogger a BEAST! Wanting more and more. The author mentions a man this character seems to be important to him. The man is wealthy and has power to do as he please. This man has millions and is afraid that his money will escape from him. The author questions if the man truly is satisfied and happy at all. The author gives death a form of personification this to me stood out the most because it relates with the first quote from class because this invokes emotion towards death can be viewed as not an imperfection but beast. My quote was "Death with his hour glass" Time and death would closely be related to fear of death or of life. I believe that the book brings out this as an issue. Death was repeated again in page 62. "Never more to return to the toil and the trouble, the hard , hard lessons of life". Each of the characters that were mentioned so far have a struggle with life. The are suffering such as not having enough food to eat, the woman in the the first chapter needing more girls to take advantage of, and the "man" having so much money and begin afraid to loose it. The 3 quotes to me all seem related because each person tries their best to overcome their situation most of them aren't really living, and death seems to be a close threat to each one of them. Some in form of hunger others by the threat they face of being wealthy.   

"1877 Riots"

Hello my name is Kenia Cuenca, for the reading of "1877 Riots" my reaction is as follows; the reading part that starts at 369-381 that riot took place in Pittsburgh, "It was evident that a large portion of the citizens were averse to the presence of the troops, thinking that it incensed the strikers, which they believed the men could be controlled by reason and forbearance", before that paragraph I read that the troops and the authority gained up on the rioters. With out warning shooting people down including a 4 year old girl who wasn't part of riot. The author to me wrote that down to contradicted what was told on the news to the other citizens. They told them the opposite, the news said that they only fired at people who were rebelling and using weapons against the authority and they also said that the rioters fired first. Which wasn't true, I think they only did that to scare the people from rebelling again. The quote I chose from the passage, I want to question it. Was that the best and is it the only way to properly stop a riot? As it turned out it doesn't help much instead of enforcing people to surrender, and reason with them seem to be impossible. Most of the time it makes them even more violent. For example they wanted wages to be higher, knowing that they wouldn't get that they made riots. The people want their voices to be heard, going against what is meant to be right to the authority, might not seem to the people that have to live by those rights. There should be another way to get to the problems without people going against the authority nor the authority going against the people. 

The government lacks to listen to what the people want. There should be a compromise between the both of them. Government of the people, by the people, of the people. 

Reaction to the Flour Riot of 1877

Hello, my name is Kenia Cuenca. My reactions to "Flour Riot of 1877" are as follows, I found it surprising that the rioters didn't steal the flour that had been raised up in price. It was too expensive for the people of New York to buy. Only the wealthy could afford it, which made people angry. Since there was enough flour for people to buy at a lower price, the store owners made it seem like there wasn't enough flour, so that they can charge more for the high demands of the very little flour that was left. This of course could not be true because there was a large amount being imported. So basically what the rioters did was go to the stores that had flour and dump the flour on the floor. Which to me didn't seem like a good idea because it was winter and people were hungry. Instead I believe what they should've done was steal it. Although it's hard to steal the flour since a pack weights too much, for a single person to carry it and run at the same time from the police. When talking about it in class as a group, a classmate said that they did that as a form of retribution to show the authority that if they can't have it no one can. The people selling it can't make a profit and the rich wealthy people can't buy it any longer, which means that the poor people made their point across, that raising prices and taking advantage of them well bring them to take drastic measures. As to me I believe what the rioters did could've ended much worse. As the article states "They attempted to relieve themselves by putting its possession out of their power altogether", they didn't want to be controlled. In a way they felt like they were the ones that had control after they dumped the flour. Plus they went against the authority.