Thematic Inquiry Proposal

My project this semester centers around the Muslim community in Memphis. For a multitude of reasons, this community and the larger community it is a part of is close to my heart. Islam is as beautiful as it is misunderstood. My inquiry this semester will focus on: what it means to be a part of this community, how this community contributes to a greater Memphis, and some of the obstacles this community faces in achieving the voice they deserve. I also intend to offer solutions to some of these challenges that will be illustrated in the conclusion of the project's presentation. I will conduct ongoing interviews with citizens who contribute proactively to both the city of Memphis and their respective Muslim community, provide factual evidence by trusted scholars and research institutions to disseminate the most common myths surrounding Islam, and use parts of my own spiritual quest to shed light on an overlooked facet - what it means to be a Memphian working toward becoming a Memphis Muslim.

project

While I was in Spanish last semester I participated in a project aimed at making the language gap less difficult for the preschooler in the volunteer based division of the Macon Cove Campus Kids Corner. Even in situation where the child is aware of a fair amount of English, socializing and keeping up with assignments can still be hard. Think about what it's like to learn a new language as an adult. Processing the information fed to us into something we can understand takes a great deal longer than regular interaction. In addition to this, children at this age have developmental issues that interfere with there ability to pick up a language in the same fashion as adults. In many cases children who are in a situation were they must learn a new language go through a period of time where they refuse to speak the second language, and in some cases, will refuse to speak at all. While some might consider this to be a set back, if forced to speak against his or her will, it can be devastating to a child's future ability to communicate with others in both languages.

As my main goal last semester was to comfort the students with a language barrier, I propose that this semester I take a closer look at the affect and progression of language in Latino youth in Memphis. The Latino population in Memphis has risen greatly in the past ten years and they are a prevalent part of the community. As a student interested in Spanish and psychological studies, this is something that has intrigued me from the moment it was presented.

Poverty in Memphis

Well, I am actually still hesitaing choosing a topic for this big project, which should be broad enough to be interesting, but narrow enough to be manageable. I am a no good writer ever. It was so stressed out whenever I was assigned something like this...
However, I think "Poverty in Memphis" is something appealing enough for me to do research about. It has come to my attention that there are so many homeless people around the city. You can surely catch the sight of someone, here and there, standing hopelessly at the corner of streets wearing IM HUNGRY signs, or waiting miserably at McDonald entrance asking for some money...I may go to shelters to talk to people, volunteer at shelters to gain some idea of how their life is...

That is all what i can think of so far. I will be putting some more thoughts in it very soon, and keeping you posted.

Well, it turns out i am not the last one posting..

Hello Mr. Branch and class,

Finally, I am able to launch my very first entry to this blog. It usually takes me much longer time to do something like this than anything else.
As you guys may be able to guess, I am from Viet Nam, which is 27-hour-flight away from US. I will be twenty-two in April. I cannot imagine i am twenty something now! My first semester went pretty well, I hope this second would go smoothly as well. The compelling reason that drives me to take this class is that I want myself to be exposed to its policies of being proactive and creative. It should be so nervous for a kind of person who would rather be "backstage" like me! I am adjusting... And, I hope I will find out more what to love about Memphis after graduating from this class.
Having been living Memphis for 20 months, I don't think I have spent much enough time in Memphis to have a fairly good understanding about it. The City is very much a new “book” for me. I still don't know where Beale street is, or Fedex Forum....I have not ever participated in any downtown activities; more accurate, I have not really been there. It is funny that I keep telling my friends about my living at Elvis Presley's hometown while I have never been to Graceland once. The most tolerable reason for that is: I did not drive until last fall, my first semester. I was, occasionally, taken to some rare places for recreation by my uncles and grandparents during my non-driving life. My uncle used to love the buffet at Casino's very much. I ended up having quite a lot free meals joining him. Another funny thing is I really know quite a bit about Casino's, better than telling something about Brook museum, which is very close to my house! I must confess that I don't know the City very well. So, it is going to be either a huge challenge or big fun for me to conduct the assigned project!!!
On the first day when I was actually here, what I heard on radio, 104.5 the River, was Memphis came in second 2008's ranking of metro area by rate of violent crime. It was not something anybody, as a newcomer, would like to hear about their hometown-to-be. The next year, Memphis topped the ranking. I had never heard something like this about Memphis before when I was in Viet Nam. At first, I was slightly shocked and frightened. Everyday, news on TV is all about deaths, shooting, assaults, domestic violence…I gradually got into the habit of counting how many deaths on news each day! Things go easier when I get used to it. In fact, you would, eventually, become not too terribly worried as you are being in the heart of dangerous zone. That is the thing I don't like most about Memphis.
Excitingly enough, I just recently find out one place that I feel peaceful when going there. That is the Memphis Public Library on Poplar, which i was once recommended by a good friend, wonderful place to read, to study and to meditate.

I think it might be enough for a first entry. Apparently, not anything interesting was mentioned in my entry. At least, I did respond to some questions by Mr. Branch.

Hau Planning Project

In this second blog, I would like to inform to Mr. Branch and my fellow classmates, regarding the planning for the major, class project. On the first class meeting, I have the feeling of fear when the class was informed by Mr. Branch that we have to carry a major project. At that time, all of which I thought was to be a tutor, but I do not know where to start and how I can find information about volunteer tutor. Furthermore, I go everywhere and ask my friends and professors, who I associated from last semester and this semester. They gave me advice that "tried to call the Memphis City School (MCS) to see whether they still needed tutor or not." Therefore, I think that this is a good project to start because it will be an opportunity to improve my knowledge and use the knowledge to help other students.
In addition, the advice of being a mentor also reminded me about news on television that I watched in the past few weeks. Many news reporters discussed the issue that the MCS needed more improvement to help the students to enhance their learning. To be specific, the MCS students encounter a hard time with math and reading subject. In this case, I called the Board of Education to see whether they needed volunteer or not. The counselor of the volunteer tutor program answered yes. So, she arranged with me that the first orientation would be held at Rhode College on January 28, 2010 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. If this workout successfully, I will start to volunteer at any local MCS as a math mentor. Consequently, I consider this will be a good starting point for the project.

Hau Tran Blog 1 (Introduction of Myself)

Hello, classmates. In this first blog, I would like to introduce myself and talk about the relationship that I have toward Memphis. Like many of the classmates have known me from the first class meeting, my name is Hau Tran, and I am twenty-three year old. To characterize myself, I am a friendly person and love to do things that I would think to be challenging, such as taking honor classes in college, like Honor Inquiry. Furthermore, whenever I have free time, I am relief my body and mind from stress and school works by enjoying drinking wine, liquor, or beer. However, I spend most of the time wisely to study and voluntarily help the Vietnamese people by being a volunteer translator to any elder Vietnamese and to other Vietnamese that cannot speak much English. In the past, for example, I have taken many Vietnamese residents, who cannot speak, read, or write English, to government facility, such as hospital, human services, Memphis Shelby County Court, or any site as they needed.
Subsequently, I will inform to the classmates a brief scenario about my origin, how I get to Memphis and what the feelings that I have toward Memphis are. My nationality is Vietnam; my family and I immigrated to U.S.A. in October 14, 1990. When my family and I first land our feet on American soil, Memphis was a place that we lived in 1990 to today date. Hence, I lived in Memphis for most of my life since I was three year old. In young age, I thought that Memphis was a great place because my school teachers and friends were very nice to each other and me. However, when I became older, I have different viewpoint for Memphis. It seems to me that Memphis was a disorderly city. African American and White American and other minority were not quite interacting with each other. In this case, I think Memphis was a dysfunctional place because there is some kind of hidden segregation from the inside of most individuals, which I cannot view or see through. Anyway, Memphis was an interesting place when I was growing up until now, because there are several events and recreational facilities, such as the Beale Street. From Honor Inquiry class, finally, I hope to know more about the city of Memphis and have a different aspect toward it.

who

I was born in Oklahoma and later moved to Mississippi, but the first place I truely called home was Macon, Georgia. From the beginning of trusted memory my best friend, Tracy Yang, to whom I was two years senior, and I climbed trees, drew pictures and read books with one another. As an only child, I considered her my sister, and as a young girl on her way to Memphis, Tennessee I knew I would never have as good a friend to which I still can attest. It did not help that my mother was not there to help me adjust to the move or smooth things over between me and my tyrant of a father, as her mother had fallen down the stairs in her sister's home in El gin, Texas. For three months Stokes (my father) lived in a motel near the Wolfchase mall and I was tossed between that motel and my dying grandmother. There were some advantages to the move from my perspective however. Since my father was getting a better job with more pay, we could afford to live in what seemed to me, a mansion. Better yet, we had a pool.

That's not what I really love about Memphis though. The things that I grew a true affinity to were the parks... four within walking distance of my house, and the woods directly behind me. I love all the space that, of course isn't limited to the Memphis area, but was lacking from my previous residence. For this reason, once I have the opportunity to move, I will. I will search for all the things that I grew to love in Memphis in a place without all the things that I cannot stand. Things both personal to my own experience and those shared by the public... crime, political corruption, awful race relations. I can't say that i see the same things as Cat when I think of interactions in Memphis however. What I see is a person who looks at me with disgust without even knowing my name. What I hear is "no offense" after the realization hits someone that a Caucasian is present. What I feel is an elephant in the room that is inappropriate to address, and is pushing me into a corner. I will happily leave that feeling behind as I have experienced it in no other place. As for the things that are personal, I suppose I will keep them that way.

No one likes to be first.

It's not so much that I'm trying to be brave; more like I am attempting to whittle down my To Do List this week.

I'm Cathlynn, but for the sake of simplicity I have gone by Cat since I was very small. I am an ardent supporter of simplicity in most things.

My relationship with Memphis is and has always been tenuous at best and bitter at worst, though by means of age and experience I am learning to appreciate the few things here that are very dear to me. Interestingly enough, almost none of them are things I would have expected to hold dear when I was younger. I moved to Memphis in 1996. It was summer then, though the oppressive humidity was paltry compared to my birthplace of Houston, Texas. My mother and our side of the family are from here, so she made the decision to relocate my younger sister and me in the wake of some life decisions gone sour. I graduated from White Station in 2003 and though at the time I longed for a more "refined" private school education, in retrospect I could not have been better suited anywhere else. I still believe that school is one of the few grade schools in the city or county where you will not be questioned or berated for using A People's History of the United States as supplemental material for your American History textbook - I never was (Rest in Peace, Howard). I left Memphis when I was 19 and moved to Indianapolis, where I remained until this past July when I was lured home by the shiny carrot of free tuition courtesy of my parents' grave concern with my "5 year plan" celebrating it's 7th birthday.

I'm going to be honest - I've never liked Memphis. That is not to say that I do not appreciate some aspects of this city and its effect on my upbringing, for I most certainly do. However, I simply don't enjoy living here. When pressed for details, the first thing that comes to mind is the unique brand of passive-aggressive racism. I imagine that you are raising your finger in indignant protest. Put your hand down, please. Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? It is neither pretty nor pleasant to talk about, I get that. Few people here will openly admit to being any shade of prejudiced. However, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone within city limits utter the phrase "I'm not racist, but..." I could have rendered unto Indiana University what is Indiana University's, and continued to post up in the 46208. There is something in the drinking water here that not only makes it delicious, but also makes its drinkers particularly adept at the art of blame-shifting. It's 2010 and we still whisper the word "black", lock our car doors when we find ourselves south of Highland, and feel sorry for those "poor, oppressed" women in hijab we see in the mall. But it's "totally not our fault. If people would just stop living up to stereotypes..."

There are things about living here that I enjoy however. I like that it takes 20 minutes to get almost anywhere in the city, as long as you don't plan to take 240 between the hours of 3 and 6pm. I like that in all my travels around this marvelous country, I have yet to find Vietnamese food that even comes close to touching Pho Hoa Binh. I like that even after being away for 4 years, the family who owns that establishment remembered me when I came back. I like that even amongst negative civil relations, political corruption and other disappointing products of humanity, we have a hospital that refuses to turn away any child and his or her family for any reason. I like to think that St. Jude, in addition to performing miracles of health and science, also tips the karmic scales in our favor every now and again. I like that we are blessed with a rich cultural and political history, even if we sometimes forget that history is only useful if we learn from it. I like our unofficial culinary motto of "If you can eat it, we can fry it." Actually, change that to love/hate. And I suppose that along with all of these, I love that even if I haven't always liked Memphis itself, I've liked that it's where home is.

All I hope to get our of this class this semester is an opportunity to see why other people love it here so much, and perhaps also to share what makes it bearable for me as well.

A Test Entry

Hey, class. I'm just making sure this works ok. Hope we have a great blog this semester!