[Flor Contreras]

Analytical and humorous Cartoons  are tools I regularly use in my advanced classes to draw reactions from my students. Mr. Thomas Nast is a name I never heard before but I am glad to to know it now. His work seems to be highly critical, open minded, caring details and expert artist. This website besides offering a timeline of his work on China it provides a background explanation of what each cartoon represents and also has excerpts of history that helps clarify the context.

I could definitely use Nast’s cartoons in my class: to entice reactions and discussions of our history and how the Chinese were treated back then, how people like Nast tried to be eye opener about the political implications and how the white folks were unfair towards Chinese immigrants.

 

[Flor Contreras]

I did not find this propaganda poster’s origin but I did some research on similar images style and purpose. Hence this is the story behind it. The girl name is “Chun”=born in the spring, because in the photograph I can see the tree is in full bloom and it looks that people are in good spirits. Location is probably Beijing. Time: 1966 The Cultural Revolution by Mao Tse-tung; pro China communist party. He used Cult of Personality to undermine China’s history and culture. Mao wanted to change what he thought was 4 bad habits amongst the population and so China produced thousands of powerful social and political posters exhorting the Chinese people in an effort to transform the proletarian Chinese society. The color red is overly marked, perhaps to give emphasis to the time.

Chun is having a bright day at the local park. She rode in her bicycle to meet the proletarian group that normally met every afternoon under a couple of cherry trees. Chun brought with her a nicely written black poster with the latest ideals from Mr. Mao Tse-tung. She was so excited explaining to the audience why Mr. Mao is right and how they all should follow his lead and change the old culture, the old habits, old customs and old believes. Chun is telling how she will be joining the Red guards and that they should do the same. The audience is quietly smiling gazing at her in agreement.

 

sources: http://www.history.com/topics/cultural-revolution, https://search.socialhistory.org/Search/Results?lookfor=china+poster&type=AllFields&page=12&filter%5B%5D=format%3A%22Visual+documents%22&filter%5B%5D=publishDate%3A%22%5B1975+TO+1975%5D%22&facetSort=index

 

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[Flor Contreras]

I have to confess that I did not know much of the history of Asian in the United States. I knew about Chinese influx immigration labor to work on the rail tracks in California (High School US history). Though, I had not idea about the State trying to get rid of them after that fact. I would have my high school students to compare and contrast the suffering and endurance both Asians and Latinos had to go through to be acknowledged as arm that supports and labors in the economy of CA.  Also, how the struggle continues in modern times.

[Flor Contreras]

There is a lot of unknown information and secrecy about North Korea. It would be interesting to assign students to research North Korean history and how and why this half country was divided from the whole. I will also find interesting to have students debate theories on NK and their persistence in keeping and developing nuclear weapons.

[Flor Contreras]

My name is FLor Contreras. I teach Spanish to Native and non-native Spanish speakers and the AP Spanish course at Dorsey High School. Also I tutor EL students after school. The school population is getting slowly diverse. I hope to visit China during the summer in the next year or the next one.

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