Campaign Letter

Congressman Jose E. Serrano
788 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, New York 10455


Dear Jose E. Serrano:

Are there sweatshops in the U.S.? According to the Department of Labor,"Over 50% of U.S. garment factories are sweatshops." Many sweatshops are run in this country's apparel centers: California, New York, Dallas, Miami and Atlanta. There are probably sweatshops in every country in the world - "Anywhere where there is a pool of desperate, exploitable workers. "Non-profit groups have documented."The labor violations of retailers like Philips-Van Heusen and the Gap in factories throughout Latin America.
The typical sweatshop worker is a woman (90% of all sweatshop workers are women). She is young and, often, missing the chance for an education because she must work long hours to support a family. In America, she is often a recent or undocumented immigrant. She is almost always non-union and usually unaware that, even if she is in this country illegally, she still has rights as a worker."
Many of the companies directly running sweatshops are small and don't have much name recognition. However, virtually every retailer in the U.S. has ties to sweatshops. The U.S. is the biggest market for the garment industry and almost all the garment sales in this country are controlled by 5 corporations: Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Sears, The May Company (owns and operates Lord & Taylor, Hecht1s, Filene1s and others) and Federated Department Stores (owns and operates Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Burdine's, Stern's and others).
I am writing to you to because it seems that the congress representatives such as yourself are not doing anything to help the situation and because of that people will die because of the horrible working conditions and like the Triangle factory fire in 1911 that same thing is at risk of happening again. Now more people would die because over the past century this country's population has increased by 300 million people. The population has tripled, making the United States the fastest growing developed country in the world, and the third largest overall. Even though I'm a student my parents think that you are doing a good job as a representative and I trust that you can help make this situation better.

Sincerely,
Nelson Class 805

Poem Interpritation

Poem: I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings

The poem represents how people had no freedom and all they had to do to past the time was sing. Singing symbolized cries for freedom and cries to be treated with respect. This picture resembles the poem literally and figuratively, the heart on the bird represents how big hearts break easy. Like in one line he says "But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage."

This poem can be compared to the Triangle Factory because it resembles how the people had no freedom to change the conditions under which they worked. They worked very long hours for little pay and had horrible managers that didn't treat them with respect.

You may find information about working condittions at the Triangle factory at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/

Values

Example:
Tupac Shakur valued life because he was barely alive because of everybody that hated and he valued success because he grew up poor and in a bad neighborhood.

Why are values important?
Values are important because they are what is most important to you in life and what you would do anything for.

Glory Road

1. Can you identify other groups that face discrimination today?

Yes the Mexicans because of the Swine Flu that came from Mexico.

2. Do you think sports contributed to the civil rights movement during the 60's?How?

Not really but they were as affected as everybody else sometimes even worse because of their publicity.


3. What might you think is an appropriate theme for this movie?

I would say the theme is "Talent is in everybody no matter the skin color"

4. Can you identify any other movie or book with a similar theme?

Maniac Maggee I don't know how to spell but it was about a white kid that loved to play baseball and practically every sport he played he's was good at because of his speed. The thing was that he was white and he didn't have any parents and he was running away from his aunt and uncle that always fought and he ends up around a Spanish neighborhood.

My Short Story Theme

The picture represents the presence of my father in my eyes because I haven't seen his face so his face to me looks like a messed up face. So he doesn't exist in my eyes.
The story is about the reflection of my disconcentration from the one question that took me away from the world. "DO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE YOUR FATHER?" I thought and thought the whole day and because I concentrated on that one thing I forgot all about my baby brother (Anthony)
and since I didn't take care of him I didn't look out for him and he busted his eyebrow and got 5 stitches. Know I look out for him and never pay mind to my father and burned his pictures. WHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ode to Wine

In the poem "Ode to Wine" Pablo Neruda talks about how he adores wine as if it were a lady. Then he talks about the moments he spends with the woman he is with. And as they share wine with flowers on the table. He also compares his woman to a wine bottle with grapes on them.
This poem does not relate to my life because I'm to young to drink. Pablo Neruda writes mostly love poems so it isn't unusual to see love poems and his love life. 

Minstrel Man

In the poem "Minstrel Man" he talks about how he appears to feel on his outside appearance but really his soul is dead but he doesn't want to show his emotions but he dances how he says in the poem "You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing, You do not know I die?" It proves that he was the kind of person that doesn't express his feeling out loud but on writing but I can't really prove it because he died in 1967. This poem relates to the real world because most people write poems or songs and some people tell someone they know or a psychiatrist and some people even keep it to themselves and end up suicidal or becoming homicidal because they don't understand.