William Henry Bonney : The Short Lived Journey Of A Boy Without A Mother

Jumping back into the past, Gregory Orr tells the incident when he and a group of five hundred of men, women, teenagers, and old folks assemble in Jackson, Mississippi. In Jackson for a peaceful demonstration, Gregory Orr and the rest of the group were arrested and taken away “to the county fairgrounds” (128, 1). Where they was beaten by officers of the law, Orr stated, “I emerged into the outdoors and the bright sunlight and saw them-two lines of about fifteen highway patrolmen on either side. I was ordered to walk, not run, between them. Again I was beaten with nightsticks, but this time more thoroughly, as I was the only target” (129, 2). Once freed from his captors, Gregory Orr gets in his car to head back north, but on his way back he was pulled over by flashing lights. Thinking it was the police; Gregory Orr pulled over and was approached by two white men. One of the white men said, “Get out, you son of a bitch, or I’ll blow your head off” (133, 3). The two white men takes Gregory Orr’s wallet and tell him to follow them, Scared for his life, Gregory Orr did exactly what the two men told him to do. After following the two men, Gregory Orr is back in jail in Hayneville. “Already depressed and disoriented by the ten days in jail in Jackson, I was even more frightened in Hayneville,” (136, 1) stated by Gregory Orr.

The short story, “Treasure State” by Tin House, is full of reflection, guilt, and loneliness. Mainly, the story entails the journey of two brothers fleeing their hometown after their incarcerated father, Old Man, is granted mercy due to his terminal cancer to return home. The brothers, John and Daniel, would rather leave town than to live with the Old Man so they set their eyes on the “treasure state,” Montana. The story details their journey to wild destinations and fleeing their past while making it by any means necessary. Along the way, readers are introduced to a few minor female characters: Gwen, the mother of the boys, and “the lady on the bed.” The importance of these minor characters is grossly underappreciated. This is because while the main themes of this story are readily apparent, there are some equally important themes driven by this group of more underrepresented female characters.

      Willa Cather's novel My Ántonia dramatizes the effect the frontier has on both native-born people and immigrants that come to the West in search of new beginnings. The story centers around two families living in a remote area of Nebraska from completely diverse backgrounds. This tale suggests that regardless of where a person comes from, the trials and tribulations of living under such tough conditions will ultimately impact his/her future existence. Cather's characters, no matter the age or heritage, are continuously re-defined, as if reborn, into a new life by surviving the harsh realities of the frontier. Much of the creation of these characters takes place in the very

Where I Was From by Joan Didion is a book written about Didion’s perspective of the history of California. Throughout the novel Didion shares her families past experiences and adventures of moving west. Didion not only shows the readers how California has changed but also how it changed her as a person as well. Particularly in “Part One”, the opening paragraph contains an abridgement history of the eventful westward journey of Didion’s pioneer family unit, focusing particularly on the women in the family and tracing vertebral column six generations the blood of her famous hemicranias. Didion makes a very unpersuasive argument in “Part one” by her ineffective use of organization but effective use of grounds and claims.

Born to poor cultivating folks in 1933, Joycelyn Elders experienced childhood in a rustic, isolated, neediness stricken pocket of Arkansas. She was the eldest of eight youngsters, and she and her kin needed to join work in the cotton fields from age 5 with their ordinant dictation at an isolated school thirteen miles from home. They conventionally missed school amid harvest time, September to December.

The Susan Lee Johnson article on miners in California helped me to understand the how men in the mining towns behaved in the absence of Anglo-women. It was interesting to see some of similarities between men assuming female gender roles in California Gold Mines with that of the men in the early establishment of Jamestown, Virginia. However, the added factors like spare time and the local women in California added an even more distorted spin to the men's behavior.

As I embarked on this assignment I was unsure how to begin and what stories to tell. I did not know if I should commence with how my family came to America, my family tree, or a fascinating story about how my grandparents met. In order to complete this assignment I convened with my grandfather, Earl W. Stafford Sr., who knows a lot about our family history, to learn as much as I could.

Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso 1880-1920 analyzes and discusses the Mexican immigrants to El Paso, Texas. The most western city of the vast state of Texas, a city in the edge of the Chihuahuan desert; a place too far away from many regions of the United States, but as Mario García explains a very important city during the development of the western United States. He begins explaining how El Paso’s proximity to different railroads coming from México and the United States converged there, which allowed El Paso to become an “instant city”, as mining, smelting, and ranching came to region. (García 2)

Louise Pubols, Fathers of the Pueblo: Patriarchy and Power in Mexican California, 1800-1880, article concentrated on the de la Guerra family from Santa Barbara, California. Pubols expresses to her audience that she wants to depict Mexicans from California Mexico in a different style from the usual. Pubols starts off by giving the reader a simple description of the way the California Mexican is usually presented. Typically, Californian Mexicans have little to no agency; they lose all their land and belongings and are lost to history. Pubols uses the de la Guerra family to show that California Mexicans not only had agency but also played a large part in society. Pubols second argument was that patriarchal language was being used to describe the de la Guerra’s family governance within their community.

After being forced to succumb to the destiny of life absent the ranch, John Grady is faced with making a decision that will decide his fate, a decision greatly affected by the Post World War II Texas culture in which he was being raised. John Grady could seize the opportunity that presented itself after the loss of the ranch to start a new life somewhere in Texas. He could try to fight his mother’s decision. However, the stark realization, to John Grady as well as McCarthy’s readers, is that John Grady was “already gone” the minute the ranch was taken away from him (McCarthy 27). The separation of John Grady from his familiar ranch-life was a painful idea, especially during the late 1940’s, when little other but ranching was available to native West Texans. John Grady’s life revolved around the land of “painted ponies” and “wild horses”; a land of “red wind” and “coppering” sun (McCarthy 5). Yet he found himself as a boy in

My husband and I grew up together in Apache Junction, Arizona, a small town built on a legend. It’s believed that the Superstition Mountains hold one of the country’s largest hidden treasure. Jacob Waltz, the legendary Prospector, claims to have found the gold and revealed its location on his death bed however, it has never been found. The legend lives at the heart of this town and in the hearts of the people. Namely, many of the town’s attractions revolve around the legend such as the Mining Camp Restaurant, Goldfield Ghost Town and the Lost Dutchman Days. These mysterious mountains and the dirt we grew up on have become a part of our story.

Times were difficult in Habersham County. The skyrocketing prices of fuel and food were threatening to bankrupt the Johnson family’s small farm, which was no match for the multi-million-dollar mega-farms that had been popping up all over the southeast. Joseph, the family patriarch, was especially troubled by the farm’s

Many African Americans who have migrated to Flagstaff have stories similar to John L. Williams. For instance, Robert Joe was born in Williams, Arizona in 1939. His parents were born in the South and moved to Arizona before his birth. He states that they lived in Williams for about six years before they moved to Flagstaff so that his father could work in the sawmill. Families would also choose to migrate to Flagstaff after one family member arrived and wrote back about his experience. An example would be Jack Peters. His family migrated to Flagstaff in 1951, after his father’s brother, John L. Williams, had migrated seven years previous. Once one family member, typically a male relative, had migrated to Flagstaff and set down roots, additional family members would follow with the promise of better economic opportunities because of the logging industry.

Recalling a story involving her immigrant great-grandparents and grandparents, Marquart states that they “traveled to the Midwest by train to what was the end of the line-Eureka, South Dakota. Eureka-from the Greek word heureka, meaning ‘I have found it’-is reported to have been the word that Archimedes cried when he found a way to test the purity of Hiero’s crown” (64-70). By alluding to Archimedes journey, Marquart indicates the excitement her family feels after the long migration to the Midwest. Articulating that Eureka means, “I have found it”, Marquart then redefines South Dakota as a place with substantial meaning to those who relocated here. She further emphasizes this impact when expressing that “My grandparents wouldn’t have known the etymology of the word, but they would have felt it, the anticipation, as they waited along with the other immigrants from Russia to receive their allotments of land” (70-74). Although her grandparent’s do not understand what Eureka means, South Dakota is seen as a place for starting over and building a better life, a different perception of those who only view the land as bleak and lacking. The Midwest represents opportunity to Marquart’s grandparents, creating a more profound, personal connection to the land. Furthermore, by alluding to Archimedes and providing

The author begins by providing a vivid description of the Shelton Laurel region and its inhabitants prior to the Civil War. The residents of Shelton Laurel fervently valued kinship, personal justice, individualism, and isolationism, and possessed a fierce devotion to their land and heritage. The inhabitants of Shelton Laurel were also deeply suspicious of mountain slaveholders and upper class urban residents, who possessed ties to the disruptive world “outside the mountains and to the slave-dominated southern economy” (59). Consequently, when the secession crisis began, the majority of rural mountaineers threw their unwavering support behind the Union. Paludan deduces that mountain Unionism was the culmination of numerous factors, including “class hostility, rural suspicions of more urban places, and a feeling that the wealthy and influential slave owners were threatening hard-working common people” (61). Thus, loyalties in the community of Shelton Laurel and the surrounding Appalachian area remained bitterly divided by a plethora of issues throughout the Civil