Important Characters in “Abina and the Important Men” by Jarbel Rodriguez

In Abina and the Important Men, lies a portrayal of daily life and operations of the area of Asante and its relations with British jurisdiction, on the Gold Coast of West Africa in 1876. Specifically, it is a story about a girl from Asante named Asina who is sold into slavery at a very young age and her journey to achieve justice. While Abina’s story was not well documented and well known, it’s brief mention in archived stories arose attention for the powerless and the silenced. Through Abina’s narrative and her fight for justice, and the contextual history of African and British relations, the depiction of “important men” their roles and how they impact her life and people like her are displayed.

Abina and the Important Men: a Graphical History was written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke. The story of Abina Mansah is somewhat an inspiring graphical history based on an 1876 court transcript. Abina, a woman of West Africa, was wrongfully enslaved and as a consequence, she took her former master, Quamina Eddoo, to court. The overall setting took place on the Gold Coast during the 19th century. The main scenes take place in the court room, which is filled with many “important men.” The men included a British judge, two Euro African attorneys, countrymen, and an entire jury of wealthy, high class local town leaders. This book is broken down into several parts; the graphical history, transcript, historical

The story of “Abina and the Important Men” takes place in 1876. The English had control over the Gold coast since 1874. The English did away slavery in Britain, but the colonies had a hard time switching from slavery to freedom. This was one of the many major themes of Abina and the Important Men. By definition a civilizing mission is “a rationale for intervention or colonization, proposing to contribute to the spread of colonization”, according to Google.com. The civilizing mission in this story is to expose the encounters modelled by the English political and legal system integrating the Gold Coast.

The story begins with a recounting of the story of Tatica, Reyita’s grandmother, and her trial of being abducted from her native Africa and brought to Cuba to be sold into slavery. Tatica’s story sets a precedent that is upheld by the next generations of her family of racial discrimination, struggle for survival and equality, and political activism. Reyita explains that her grandmother’s love of Africa instilled in Reyita a

In the story, 90 Miles to Havana by Enrique Flores-Galbis, the main character Julian has one big conflict that is his wish to please his father. Julian’s father, brothers, and Julian go out for a fishing trip in hopes to catch a big fish. Julian’s father specifically states to Julian that he must give the fishing line to him even if there is a slight nibble. They believe that by catching a big fish it will bring good luck for the new year. Julian wants to be the hero and prove to his family that he is capable of catching a big fish. While fishing, Julian finally got a nibble on the line but said nothing to his Dad about it and because it must have been such a large fish, the line snapped. In the book, it stated, “Every time I rewind and then

In the modern world, gender stereotypes affect men and women in different ways. A kind man can be perceived as violent for simply being a man, and in contrast, a woman can be seen as an object to chase or prey upon simply for being a woman. When these roles overlap, the innocent members of both parties feel uncomfortable and ashamed for things out of their control. Judith Ortiz Cofer’s essay entitled The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria is more effective in its explanation of perceived gender roles and stereotypes, compared to the Brent Staples essay Just Walk on By: Black Men in Public Space.

The key to unlocking and understanding Marisol by Jose Rivera is in recognizing and examining the 3 different worlds Marisol works her way through over the course of the play. The main character, Marisol Perez, dies in the very first scene and spends the rest of the play trying to pass onto her impending afterlife. Additionally, Marisol is a play about Puerto Rican culture and religion and how it affects not only the life of an individual, but also the death of our main character.

Abina and the Important Men: a Graphical History was written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke. The story of Abina Mansah is somewhat an inspiring graphical history based on an 1876 court transcript. Abina, a woman of West Africa, was wrongfully enslaved and as a consequence, she took her former master, Quamina Eddoo, to court. The overall setting took place on the Gold Coast during the 19th century. The main scenes take place in the court room, which is filled with many “important men.” The men included a British judge, two Euro African attorneys, countrymen, and an entire jury of wealthy, high class local town leaders. This book is broken down into several parts; the graphical history, transcript, historical

The characters are called the important men because they control the labor power of individual in the workplace. During that time many women and men in Africa were slaves. Many of these individuals “important men” who have control and power towards slaves were born from freeborn women. The enslavement of Abina was a different enslavement because even thought she couldn’t have her own freedom, the work that she was performing was the same work that free women were performing. Abina took the case to court to make to got herself heard and to advocated for the rights of the women’s and men who were unlawfully enslaved by these “important men”. Abina lost the case to Quamina Eddoo because of the lack of witness when the purchase of Abina was being done. Another factor was that in certain way, Abina was being paid for her service because she was shelter, food, and clothing was provided to her by Quamina Eddoo. In the section of “The transcript” Abina told the court all of these equipment and services that were being given to her and that in most cases are not offered by slave’s owners. Abina was never beaten or physical assault by Quamina or his men, this gave another prove that even thought she was in slavery her owner didn’t commit physical abuse toward

The book True Notebooks by Mark Salzman highlights what our youth behind bars are going through while waiting for decisions on their lives to be made. Two interesting characters that stood out the most to me happened to be Mr. Mark Salzman because he embarked on an incredible journey of finding himself while helping others at the same time and Kevin Jackson who grew as a person throughout the book. Mr. Salzman’s character grew a lot from a man who was afraid of entering the steps of juvenile hall into a role model for the incarnated youth. While on the other hand, Kevin Jackson’s character grew from a shyboy to somebody who became very expressive of himself and appreciative of things around him. An article that helped me better understand Mr. Salzman’s charcter and Jackson’s was Synthesized Macsunlties by Victor Rios from our unit two reading due to the fact I was given an insight on Salzman’s and Jackson’s character traits.

In defining one’s identity, many different factors are considered; such as one’s nationality, characteristic, personality, ability, experience, religion, and etc. Especially for those people who live in America, so called country of immigration, has much more complicated identities than those Asian country people where mixed people are rarely noticed. Thinking about the concept of identity, some people easily categorized themselves as simple factors and terms which could describe their surface; white, black, Asian, European, pretty, ugly, nice, mean and so on and so forth. And that is the most point where majority people stopped to list their identities from exploring more in complicated range. However, there are many people who dig more than common people; one great example would be Denise Chavez, who is the author of the novel called Loving Pedro Infante, who kept asking herself about her identity to approach more accurate and clear ideas. In her work, reader could see the confusion of Tere, the main character of the novel, went through her life as Latin-American female in dealing with finding one’s true identity and how she accept her as who she really is. Denise Chavez, who is obviously Latin-American lady, mirror her own life experience through the character she created and introduce to readers about tough life she lived in America as Mejicana. The main character of this novel have a clear understanding and strong idea about herself throughout the novel, even if

Historical Literature has always been a way for people to connect to the past. Students rely on the educational system in order to teach about historical events and present factual data. Ronald Takaki, author of A Different Mirror, triumphs over a history textbook`s narrative by adding the perspectives and personal information from minority groups to further educate his readers. While this text is pretty extensive with detail and memoirs of historical figures, Ireland`s Hunger Museum has reinforced Takaki`s historical details through artwork. As an active member in the community, my experience of the museum has given a personal and deeper connection to the past than the text. As a student of civics, I shared my responses to the artwork using

The book is so iconic due to its unorthodox presentation of history: a comic book. Abina and the Important Men did not become popular because of Abina’s story, but by the way historical information was told. One of the details of the court transcript that resonated with me as an accurate piece of information was the beginning of Abina’s testimony against Quamina Edoo. Abina states, “At the time the defendant said he had given me in marriage to

Mariano Azuela's novel, The Underdogs, is a male-dominated novel. The story of the exploits and wartime adventures of a rebel band during the Mexican Revolution is primarily driven by men; the majority of the characters are men who are separated from their families and lives and who are fighting for a cause in which they strongly believe (at least at the beginning of the novel). Despite the masculine story, however, there are two highly developed and significant female characters in The Underdogs. These women, Camila and War Paint, are a representation of two of the roles women played during the Mexican Revolution. While the portraits Azuela paints of these women and their role in society and revolution are

During the course I realized how large of a role art plays in helping create cultures and developing and preserving the history of civilizations. I find it interesting that when there’s no written history or any historical buildings, cultures will always make their own ancient past grander than what it really is. The Israelites, the Greeks and Romans all tell stories of their history that has no written proof. It seems that we as people want to have a connection to our roots and to understand where we come from. This is why I believe that most people want to believe in a higher power.