Tried With Fire

This land is your land, this land is my land From the California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me I grew up singing this song by Woody Guthrie. The fact that my dad, a naturalized citizen, could teach this to his students (he was a  music teacher) was a testimony to the great American melting pot. I took it for granted that I was an American by birth and that this was my land. But it wasn't always this way. If you don't dig into history, you can believe the myth that the United States opened her arms wide to receive immigrants from all nations and from all backgrounds. In reality, we have a history marked by xenophobia. When I listened/read about the events that led up to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 , I was shocked. This was my country , but my people were persecuted, driven from their homes, and even killed based on race. I am not placing blame on anyone today. Those responsible are ...

I was going to write a review of  Hidden Figures but it's hard writing a review when you only have an audio version. Even though I listened to it twice, I can't go back to a particular page, but I can share what I remember and the thoughts and questions it has raised. Hidden Figures tells the story of the African American female mathematicians who helped the US win the space race and provided the math know-how for aircraft design during WWII. These women worked as human computers - solving advanced mathematical calculations with only their brains, data tables, and rudimentary calculators before the advent of the modern computers that we know today. One of these women was Dorothy Vaughan . Dorothy was a wife, mother, and public school teacher in Farmville, Virginia. She declined the opportunity to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics to become a teacher, one of the few professions open to black female college graduates. At that time, Virginia was in the bottom 25% for U...