Anthony’s Comments (group member since Sep 30, 2025)

Anthony’s comments from the PJCC Multicultural Voices ELA course group.

In "Feathers from a Thousand Li Away," the narrator describes the old woman as having “wrinkled hands” and a tired appearance, but also shows her kindness through actions like quietly making sure everyone is cared for. At first, the narrator sees her as just an old woman, but grows to admire her selflessness and warmth. These details help the narrator realize that true maternal care is shown through everyday acts of love and sacrifice, not just by appearance or blood relation.

I think the feathers are suppose to represent the traveld distance of things that her mother went through, but ended with good and her mother wanted to pass that down to her with the feathers

Jing-Mei’s relationship with her mother starts off tense and full of misunderstandings. Her mom pushes her to be a prodigy, like with the piano lessons, but Jing-Mei resists, leading to arguments and hurt feelings between them.

The “push and pull” theory of immigration describes how people move from one country to another due to certain factors that push them away from their homeland and others that pull them toward a new place. Push factors are negative conditions such as war, poverty, political persecution, or lack of jobs that make people want to leave their country. Pull factors are positive attractions like better job opportunities, safety, freedom, or family connections that draw people to a new country. For example, during the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, many Irish people were pushed out of Ireland by starvation and economic hardship. At the same time, they were pulled to the United States by the promise of available work and the chance for a better life. This theory helps explain why large groups of people migrate at certain times and how both hardships and hopes shape migration patterns

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree that the media often fails to address the deeper issues behind systemic violence, focusing instead on surface-level narratives. It’s crucial to look beyond stereotypes and really examine the root causes if we want to see meaningful change in our communities.

In the story with Riley and Brother Man, I think the author is really trying to show how everyday conflicts can escalate into tragedy, especially within marginalized communities. The way both characters end up dead after what started as a small confrontation feels shocking but also sadly familiar, given how violence sometimes erupts over things that seem minor at first. I noticed that the author doesn’t just focus on the event itself, but also on how people react to it—like the media coverage and the way others talk about the incident afterward. It made me think about how society often reduces complex individuals to headlines or stereotypes, instead of seeing them as real people with their own stories. Overall, the tragedy in the story seems to be not just about the deaths themselves, but about how easily people get lost in the noise and how quickly lives can be changed forever.