Living Downstream Chapter Summaries

A difficult choice such as life and death is not an easy decision to make. In “Woman’s Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, there is an important passage that through its language and structure provides the protagonist with a strong internal conflict. The passage comes with strange words and sentence structures which lead the reader to question why Sandra Cisneros would do that. The short sentences and the strange fitting words provide a reason why Cleofilas is different from the legend of “La Llorona”. “La Llorona” represents the women who committed suicide while suffering as victims of abuse. Through the lens of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, about categorizing women into a general scope based on their common experiences is not correct

Air pollution is generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things and the environment.(www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution/) There are many causes, effects and many reasons like the environment, public health, and any other reasons. Air pollution is harmful for our present and future lives and should be avoided at all costs.

Reading the book, The Other Side of the River, by Alex Kotlowitz, the author writes about the relationship between two towns in Michigan, and the death of a young boy named Eric McGinnis. The two towns, Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, are called the “Twin Cities”, but are ironically not related in any way. St. Joseph is 95 percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and is 92 percent black. Throughout the book Kotlowitz questions the residents from both towns and how they are affected by the environment around them. The author also starts with the climax on the first page of the book – the death of Eric, and uses this as an technique to tell the story of the disagreements between the two towns.

In the short story, “Woman Hollering Creek,” written by Sandra Cisneros was about a woman named Cleofilas who married a man, Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez, who abused her both mentally and physically. In the Mexican culture there always seems to be a difference between men and women. Men are superior to women. Women, just like Cleofilas in this story,believe it is their absolute duty to go through hell in order to attempt to make a marriage work. Also, not only did Cleofilas base her opinions about all the things she must endure in her marriage off of her culture, but of the telenovelas she was a fan of. Both her culture and love for telenovelas made her come up with the conclusion that for love one must be willing to suffer. And so her story began on how she gave up her life, her freedom for a man whom she taught was the love of her life.

In "Woman Hollering Creek", Cleófilas the protagonist is trapped in a constricting, culturally assigned gender role due to her isolation, violent marriage, and poverty. Intertwined in allusions to women of Mexican history and folklore, making it clear that women across the centuries have suffered the same alienation and victimization, Cisneros presents a woman who struggles to prevail over romantic notions of domestic bliss by leaving her husband, thus awakening the power within her. In the story "Woman Hollering Creek", Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleófilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally. Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. The setting in Cleófilas’s new home in Seguin, Texas and her old home in Mexico, both of these settings contribute to the overall significance of the social role of women and the relationship between men and women.

This nonfiction novel takes place in Albany New York in 1969. You'll find as you go deeper and deeper into this book, that you’re going to experience the amazing wonders of what Charlie and Andy hold. First, Andy and Vicky are subjects of a top secret government experiment designed to produce extraordinary psychic powers. They got married and had a girl named Charlie and they soon figured out that she had pyrokinesis powers. At first, Charlie couldn’t control her powers. She hated them, and knew that they were very dangerous. As time goes on, Andy begins to use his psychic powers more and more as the government continues the attempt to kidnap Charlie. Andy and Charlie increasingly find themselves on the run and try to stay one step ahead of

In Los Angeles, at least 20% of fishes died from stormwater runoff. Who’s next? Repeatedly, stormwater runoff has indicated its negative consequences. From the bacteria in feces, to the chemical waste, stormwater has been made a hazard to all life on earth. Platypi, fish, frogs, and other marine life are in an immediate danger by the pollution. The pollution consisted of fecal coliforms and fecal streptococci, which are bacterias in organism waste. In addition, there 's lawn pesticides, and motor oils that are deadly. Water inundates humankind, making this an unavoidable conflict. However, creative solutions of managing the runoff has been proved successful. The solution appears as a green infrastructure, defined as a network system that helps manage water, or in this case, stormwater runoff. On the other hand, there has been recommendations of using public awareness as a solution, but this is only a key factor to a larger concept. In her article, “Water Works” Cynthia Barnett conveys how using these creative solutions such as the green infrastructure, is considerably more beneficial than the traditional ways of reducing water all together. She suggests that living differently with water, compared to reducing water, will benefit the nation greatly in their water dilemma. In addition, she believes that the pollution of stormwater harms Pacific killer whales, coho, and salmon. In agreement, I also believe that the pollution threatens the marine life. Hence, the management of

Imagine growing up in a place where everyone is poor, there is only one road going through the town, one school, and one store. Now imagine having a tragic ancestral history of people who were taken advantage of, massacred, and forced into the slums of society. For the people who live in this place, this means there are little to no resources or opportunities to prosper and make a better life. Also everyone there is being dragged down by a history of abuse and these misfortunes are still affecting them in present day. The book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie follows a young Indian boy through his experiences on an Indian reservation. in the short stories Alexie demonstrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of what goes on native American reservations. There is a deep longing of men to be warriors, because they have a need to get ahead of their tragic history, and survive the harsh societies that try to keep them down, as second class citizens.

Published in 1997, Marie Howe’s anthology of poems, What the Living Do was written as an elegy to her brother, John, who passed away due to AIDS. Howe’s anthology is written without metaphor to document the loss she felt after her brother’s death. Although What the Living Do is written as an anthology, this collection allows for individual poems to stand alone but also to work together to tell an overarching story. Using the poetic devices of alliteration, enjambment, repetition and couplets, Howe furthers her themes of gender and loss throughout her poems in her anthology.

Journey means to travel, to start at one point and move on to another. It was clearly demonstrated in “The Children of Cambodia,” an essay by Roger Rosenblatt. It takes place in 1983 where he interviewed Cambodia children after the reign of Pol Pot. Pol Pot was the leader of Cambodia during the 1970s and he led 1.5 million Cambodians into death of starvation, execution, or being overworked. In another topic of journey, “The Third Bank of the River,” written by J.G. Rosa, is about a father who abandons his family by traveling away on a canoe for years without reason. Finally, “Cathedral” is a story written by Ray Carver in which a judgmental man lets his wife’s blind friend spend the night at their house and things turn out unexpectedly. The main resolution these three pieces of writing have in common is that at least one character undergoes a journey. In deeper detail, journey can be from realizing things about life or oneself, aging from adolescence into adulthood, or moving on. These three stories portray journey in different ways.

Air pollution could be very harmful to us as humans, it could effect us and also it

Medline-plus states that “some air Pollutants are poisonous to us”, I agree with them because us humans are destroying air with fuel, factories, and even cars, we just don’t seem to care much for the earth we live on. Since we are contaminating air with chemicals and diseases and other stuff that can harm the earth the oxygen levels have decreased since the 1990. In the 90’s there was 21% oxygen level it has decreased over the last 20 years to 19%, although that might not look like a big deal but it is because if we keep decreasing the oxygen level we might not even have oxygen by the time the 22 century comes

The air is an important attribute for the existence of the life on our planet. Without air there would be no life possible. Therefore by endangering the air we are putting our own lives in danger as well. So how the air pollution takes the place and how we can solve this environmental threat?

Amongst the necessities for any living creatures’ survival, the ability to breathe is a standout. The air that the body takes in is valuable because it goes into the lungs and it is transported through the body, giving it energy and vitality. Alongside oxygen; nitrogen, water vapor, and carbon dioxide are considered the significant components of the air living things breathe in. However, when the air gets contaminated by hazardous substances it can result in potentially harming the bodies of living things; this is air pollution. The exact composition of air is dependent on the location and the conditions of the weather it is located in. Climate is not uniform across the globe; different places have distinctive atmospheres. The climate influences the air, and sometimes this influence can cause air pollution.

Air pollution levels are often dangerously high for breath. 47% of Americans lives in countries with frequently unhealthy levels because of air pollution (Roppolo 1). Due to the warmer temperature and average levels of pollutants from 2010,2011 and 2012, found ozone levels are higher. It is a risk