Parrot In the Oven: Mi Vida (Pgs. 49-89)

Summary:
After not returning home for two days, Manny's mom decides to go out to look for his dad. The first place she looks is the pool hall where Manny's dad hung out a lot. There she found him and dragged him out. Later, upon his dads return to the house he began to shout and call out for Manny's mom. Then it got really scary when his dad began to look for his riffle. While he was shouting he woke up Manny's sister, Pedi, who he used to help him look for his bullets. After Pedi gave him the bullets he began to fire at what seemed to be Manny's mom. Then, Manny's mom caught a break when the cops arrived with a report that a man was shooting a his wife. His dad tried to deny it and so did his mom but the officers found the riffle and took his dad to jail. After some time in jail Manny's dad got out and upon his return to the house drove the kids down to grandmas house to clean up her garden. A few months after their cleanup of grandmas garden she died.

Quote:
"Then her face became more alert, and she turned to the officer leading Dad out of the door. 'Take him,' she said, softly at first, then with decided anger. 'Go ahead, take him!'" (Martinez, 67)

I think that this quote is a pretty good example of how hard it is growing up in this environment for a kid like Manny. I cant imagine how hard it must be to see your own drunk father trying to shoot your mother and then to see him get arrested and taken to jail by the police.

Reaction:
After reading this section I find it hard to believe that this family has made it this far because as far as I'm concerned this is not the first time a thing like this happens. what is amazing to me is how Manny has managed to deal with all these situations.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida (Pgs. 1-48)

Summary:
In this first section of the book I learned that the family is of Mexican nationality and was introduced, by the narrator to the family and a basic rundown of how things go on within the family. I learned that Manny's older brother Bernardo, or "Nardo" as they called him, lives kind of a disorganized life. His own mother thought that he sold marijuana, or did some other illegal shamelessness. I also discover that young Manny has a thing for baseball and he has seen this baseball glove that he really likes. Now me personally love baseball and that was a connection that I made immediately to the book. Manny says he dreams of being out there in center field making spectacular catches but I dream about standing out there on second base and making magnificent plays. Manny tells me that he is going to go pick chili peppers in a field to try to make some money to buy his glove. Later on when he is picking the field, a group of vans approach the field and ICE agents rush out onto the fields and take the workers away. After that very disturbing incident, Manny says that his mom wants him to go to another school, one in which he will have a better chance.

Quote:
"My first thought was to run, but when I saw three more vans and a large labor bus pop out of a norrow road in the cornfield bordering ours, I knew the Immigration had come for the people" (Martinez, 15)

When I first read this part I was angry because I know that these hard working people were not doing any thing wrong and that the only reason why they were taking them was because they were undocumented. This quote just shows what was going on around Manny and how it can effect him in the future.

Reactioin:
After reading the first section of the book I have some mixed feelings and all sorts of thoughts running through my head. The one thing that made me angry as I read was the part when the field workers were taken by ICE because they were working hard to pick the chilis that others would refuse to pick, because they were doing the jobs that other people refuse to do. And then they say that, "they are taking all our jobs".

Malcolm X; By any means necessary (Pgs. 122-155)

Summary:
In this section of the book we see a major turning point in  the life of the Muslim leader Malcolm X. His meeting with Fidel Castro drew more unneeded attention from the FBI to Malcolm and they kept a more watchful eye and ear on him. During 1962 and early 1963, the FBI continued to watch Malcolm, his friction with the sons of Elijah Muhammad, and his growing separation from Elijah. Meanwhile the increase in violence in Birmingham, Alabama, enraged Black America and pushed it to its breaking point. In response to this violence the black community decided to march to Washington and protest at the nations capitol. Malcolm was infuriated when he found out that the march was changed and that black leaders accepted whites as leaders of the march. His points of view on how to protest were very different than those of Martin Luther King Jr., who promoted nonviolence. This point of view was tested less than three weeks after the march when a Sunday School was bombed, four black children were killed in the bombing. Malcolm reasoned, "How could you turn the other cheek when your children were being killed?" Now as the separation between Malcolm and Elijah became more inevitable, Malcolm was in search of the true meaning of being Muslim. Then he met Cassius Clay, who would later become Muhammad Ali, a young boxer who he had seen at several Muslim meetings. Now is when the real change begins. Malcolm was saddened by his separation from the Nation of Islam but he knew he needed to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holy city of the Islamic religion. This Hajj would change his life forever. He learned the traditions of his religion and returned a renewed man.

Quote:
"There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. - The Autobiography of Malcolm X"(Myers, 153)

This quote from Malcolm X really demonstrates the change in beliefs that Malcolm had while he was in Mecca and how this Hajj changed his views on what he had been taught in America and the truths of the Islamic Religion. I think that this pilgrimage to Mecca was exactly what Malcolm needed to do to really consider himself a true Muslim.

Reaction:
This section to me was by far the most important in the sense that it contained a lot of very important information and details that changed the course of his life. The events portrayed in this section of the book not only concerned him but also the nation as a whole. In addition, I believe that these events give us a clue as to what will occur later on in the life of this great man, Malcolm X.
    

Malcolm X; By any means necessary (Pgs. 76-121)

Summary:
In this section of the book we learn that Malcolm X was released from jail in 1952. At this time Malcolm was given a job at a furniture store where his brother worked. Now that he was out of jail he was free to practiced his new religion. Living with his brother, Wilfred who is also Muslim, allowed him to experience the life of a Muslim man. He then joined Temple Number One in Detroit. There he met Minister Hassan tho whom he listened to intently. In the temple he noticed that there were too many empty seats and made it his duty to recruit more blacks to the Nation of Islam. In about a year he had increased the number of members of Temple Number One by 300%. Due to his great dedication to the Nation he was named assistant minister. Then he met Elijah Muhammad, who had influenced him a lot when he was in jail. In a matter of years after being released from jail he was one of the most important members of the Nation of Islam. As he grew more and more famous he changed his last name to "X". He did this because he believed that his last name was a name given to his ancestors by their masters. In the mist of his fame he met a young, good looking girl, named Betty X. He later went on to marry her and have four daughters with her. As time went by he became one of the most influential and most outspoken Ministers of the Nation of Islam. His beliefs were influenced by the teachings of Elijah who had taught him to fight back but in 1957, while people in the north talked about the strength of Malcolm X, people in the south spoke about the strength of Martin Luther King Jr., and nonviolence.

Quote:
"The white man wants men to stay immoral, unclean and ignorant. As long as we stay in these conditions we will keep on begging him and he will control us. We never can win freedom and justice and equality until we are doing something for our ourselves! - The Autobiography of Malcolm X"(Myers, 89)

It think that this quote by Malcolm X really expresses what his message is to the people clearly. I agree that if the people do not do anything for themselves they will not get anywhere but the methods that he used to achieve his goals were no the best methods.

Reaction:
After reading this section of the book I wish I would have been able to meet Malcolm X because he is a person that is very determined. Meeting him would have been cool because although this book tells a lot, it would have been cool to here more from him personally.      

Malcolm X; By any means necessary (Pgs. 43-75)

Summary:
In this section of the book we learn that Malcolm has stuck with his friend Shorty. He brought him into the shoe shinning business and was teaching him the swing of things. After this job, Malcolm got a job as a kitchen boy on a train. After some time working as kitchen boy he was given the job of sandwich man. It is safe to say that at this point he was doing well on his own in Massachusetts. During this time he realized that what he wanted the most was to bring value to his life. When he reached Harlem, New York, he realized he was not going to get the respect he wanted from black community. In Harlem he became a hustler, selling marijuana, gambling and running the numbers for big-time mobsters. He got away with this for a while but eventually he ended up in the ancient Charlestown State Prison. While in prison he received letters from a man named Elija Muhammad. The letters he received from Elija were life altering and, in jail, Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam.

Quote:
"You are not the criminal. The criminals are the whites who, through their racism, have forced you into the acts you have committed" (Myers, 68)
This quote shocked me because what Elija Muhammad just said to young Malcolm is very deep. I believe that what he just said is true to some extent because the whites were literally leaving the blacks with no options. This, in turn, does lead to crimes.

Reaction:
I thought that this section, or part, of Malcolm's life was really important because it would be the begging of his long journey in the world of Islam. What he experienced in this time period was what influenced him to speak out against the oppression of the blacks.    

Malcolm X; By any means necessary (Pgs. 1-42)

Summary:
As I read this first part of the book I was immediately hooked by the authors style of writing. In this first part of the book I learned that Malcolm's family comes from a town called Reynolds, Georgia. His father, Earl Little, was a very tall, heavyset, dark man that was skilled with his hands and his mind. His mother, Louise Norton, was an attractive black woman who had come from the British island of Grenada. They met in Montreal, Canada, and in 1919 they married and settled in Philadelphia. The first few years of their marriage were tough because of them being black. This not only affected them but also the majority of the negro population of the United States. When the family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, Earl, brought the ideas of Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey was a well educated man that U.N.I.A. , the Universal Negro Improvement Association. On May 19, 1925, a boy named Malcolm was born. The next few years were tough because Malcolm's father led the Omaha chapter of the U.N.I.A. He received several threats from the Klu Klux Klan, until one of those threats put the life of his family in danger, was when they moved from Omaha to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Several years later Malcolm's father was brutally murdered and this cause a lot of pain and heartache to the family. This traumatic event affected Malcolm's life in such a huge way that it transcended with him for the rest of his life.


Quote:
"By the age of thirteen, Malcolm had seen his house burn down. He had been exposed to the violent death of his father, had known extreme hunger, had seen the slow breakdown of his mother, and had also seen brothers and sisters placed in homes" (Dean Myers, 32).


Reaction: 
This quote just made me feel bad and sorry that this young boy had experienced these horrible things. It made me thankful for what I have and what I have experienced in my life.