Second Project

Poem: WAR

War.

Hero, savior, fighter, protector.

War.

Villain, hurter, destroyer, bombarder.

The same word,

Two different perceptions.

It seems america is always

On the side of the 

Good

The brave

The glorious

But what do others think?

We have been taught

No, fed,

From a young age that 

WE

ARE

THE

GREATEST

NATION

Full of vigor and patriotism

Something that we need 

To carry on,

But do I want to carry on

A tradition of 

Lies and deceit 

Or do I want to 

Make a new tradition 

And practice my newfound

Integrated perspective

That will show me 

Truth and fact

It’s time we come forth 

And accept 

Our mistakes,

And our weakness

Which is that of 

A simple mind.

One that does not see

An aspect but that

Of their own

Blurb:

One of the main habits of minds that connects to this class is integrated perspective. Having an integrated perspective is when an individual recognizes that their own viewpoint is built upon different contexts in their life. That context can include political, historical, personal, cultural, or environmental factors, but it can include many more as well. Since these factors create a personal and individual perspective, it’s important to look past your own and listen to other’s perspectives as well. Maybe ones that have different opinions, backgrounds, or influences. This is the way you can practice getting and obtaining an integrated perspective. In America, we have a tendency to only look at subjects from our point of view; specifically in war. This is proven true if we take the Vietnam War, for example. Americans have no clue why we were there in the first place. It wasn’t even our war to fight. In Nguyen’s article “This Fucked Me Up: Ken Burns’s The Vietnam War” he goes on to say that, as a Vietnamese American, even he had only ever grown up watching the American point of view in Vietnam War movies. Later in his life he realized that maybe there was something he was missing. “Sometimes I ask people what they called the Vietnam War in Vietnam. It’s obvious: the American War” (Nguyen). 

This isn’t just the case for war and movies though. There are lots of singular points of views even in  the texts we’ve read in class. In Equiano’s narrative, for example, his audience likely did not have an integrated perspective, for if they did then he would have almost no reason to write the narrative. In Lau’s article, the woman on the elevator didn’t have an integrated perspective either. If she did, she wouldn’t have stared him down just for being an Asian American coughing in the midst of a pandemic. The point is, there are a lot of people without an integrated perspective in this world and it reflects within our literature. I am glad that I had to take this class, because before I only had to read American or British literature. It has expanded my knowledge, opened my mind, and taught me to learn things from a different side before succumbing to my own, which has been built and bred by the things I talk about in my poem.

The message I am trying to get across in the poem I wrote is that one word, event, or conflict can mean something completely opposite depending on what side you’re on. Especially in this case when I am relating it to Nguyen’s article about the Vietnam War. America has always been thought of as “the strongest power in the world” and for a long time teachers fed that to us in the early years of our life. We believed it without even a second thought. Now, as I get older, I must question my teachings in order to gain complete truth and fact. I have the opportunity to bring myself awareness of this issue now that I am in college and have a little bit more control over my education. When I am a teacher I am going to be sure to have my high school students incorporate an integrated perspective into their schoolwork AND lifestyle so they don’t get the wrong ideas about anything like my generation did. My generation is starting to recognize our country’s problems with having an integrated perspective; not only in war, but in all subjects across the board as well. Once a problem is recognized it is only fair to try and make it better for the next generation, so that is one of the issues I’ll aim to tackle in my college and teaching career.