Starting off the essay we can see that Nicholas Casey had a rocky childhood. Ever from the moment he was conceived it had been atypical. Casey had been raised by his mother and whenever his father showed up he said it was as if it was Christmas all over again, but he eventually noticed that what his mother felt was a little different than he had in mind. This can be seen when Nicholas Casey says "Then he was gone again. That longing was back in my mother, and I had started to see it wasn't exactly for him but for the life she'd had." (p.5). This quote made an impact since it is something many women go through. Throughout history it has been expected for women to give up their autonomy just to be mothers, and I think that might just be a silver lining present in the quote. Casey's mother missed her autonomy before motherhood presented itself in her life.
Another quote that struck me was when Casey stated "And even though I have five siblings now, that part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live." (p.29). During the first quote presented beforehand we can catch a taste of Casey's relationship with his mother, but now we see how it turns to face his relationship with his father. Once again autonomy is placed on the table. We see up until now how Nicholas constantly struggled with an identity crisis and finally he is getting some closure as presented in the essay, but that didn't come free of cost. That closure brought upon him doubts about whether he made every decision of his life based on that. In a way we can see Nicholas Casey clasping on to the same sense of autonomy he had seen his mother long for.
Relationships can be complicated. We cannot understand the way two people connect and just know how to deal with each other. It has to be more than a connection; it involves feelings and communication. Not only talking to each other, if not also understanding and discerning. There will be times that we don't want to talk about some things, therefore, there is no way to understand the other person's point of view. That will eventually create a doubt in our mind that this curiosity may go away quickly, as well as we may want to know more and more. That’s what happened to Nicholas Casey, he spent his whole life looking for an answer as to why his father did not return to where he was. The curiosity was so much that it created a void which could only be filled by investigating more about his father and his background. ‘’In the days after I returned home, it began to hit me just how much I had lost with the disappearance of my father.’’ After all these years, he says that he is considering all that he has had to do for his father. I think that what he did, to travel, become a reporter, go to Cuba, etc. rather has to do with the effect that his father created on him, the trauma. In the end, what he decides to do is in his control, are his own decisions that obviously the loss of his father or have influenced. He mentioned what I expressed earlier, and I quote: ‘’part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live.’’
Many people deal with what they say nowadays as '' daddy issues '' and have normalized or modernized it. Clearly that’s why some people don’t even want to talk about it. society stipulates that the disappearance of a father is already common, but they do not speak of the different emotional injuries that these leaves. ‘’I’m not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine. Part of me would really like to confront him about it, to have a big showdown with the old man like the one I tried to have in my dream years ago. ‘’ This is where the frustration comes in, feeling mismatched, forgotten, excluded, all of this exploding at the same time like a silent bomb that little by little is consuming you. There come all the questions again, you realize that something that you thought you had overcome really continues to bother you. It is frustrating and laborious how one must react to a situation like this. I don't think there would be such an easy and safe solution because most likely someone will get hurt and we don't want us to be ourselves again after so many years of healing. Basically I see this more as a problem that will help me to have a better perspective of many things, if I can control how I feel and how I handle certain situations I do not have to let myself fall for another person who does not care.
"But I didn’t care: At that point, I couldn’t imagine much worse than this failed experiment to teach me what it meant to be Black". Wow, just wow. I can't express how much this phrase made me think. As if racism wasn't bad enough, now a black kid can and will be bullied for being "too white". I don't understand how certain things can be tied to skin color, Nicholas was good at soccer but couldn't shoot in basketball and that was the only sport they played at his black school. His father wanted him to learn to be black, but he had already been living a different life. I can't believe even black kids were racist against themselves, if his father would've been around, he might have learned to be like these other kids, which would make him another black kid that ends up hating white people for being racist.
"There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". Sometimes it's not about not wanting to raise a kid, or not having enough money to raise a kid. Sometimes it just doesn't feel right for some fathers. Nichola's father killed someone and he didn't want Nicholas to live with that fact following him all his life. Yes, it's wrong to run away and not raise your child, he should've at least said goodbye or given his reason. But he simply vanished, while I don't intend to defend the people that leave their kids and go, I just want to look at their side and understand why they chose that. If I ever end up a father, I wouldn't want to abandon my child, but I also wouldn't want to burden them just by being their father. But choosing to vanish without a word? That is just wrong.
When reading the text, one of the lines that immediately stuck out to me was the following: “One night after I was back from the research trip, I fell asleep in my college dorm room, which I shared with two other roommates. I almost never saw my father in dreams, but I’d vowed that the next time I did, I would tell him off right there in the dream. And there he was suddenly that night. I don’t remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn’t able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man.” This line to me shows the contempt and even distaste the author felt towards his father in a very meaningful way. Dreams usually work as a conduit for our subconscious, and the people who appear in our dreams in this context often represent the ones we feel the deepest attachment to. Whether it’s positive or negative. I find interesting the fact that the author felt so disconnected yet at the same time so attached to his father that it manifested in this way in his dreams. It was the only place where he could will his father to appear once more in his life. A place he could finally confront him. A place he could finally have closure. The next line that stood out to me was the following: “His voice broke through the line lower and more gravely than I remembered it. At times I had trouble making out what he was saying; there seemed to be so much of it and no pauses between the ideas. I was trying to write them down, record anything I could. I had played this scene over in my mind so many times in my life — as a child, as a teenager, as an adult — and each time the gravity of that imagined moment seemed to grow deeper. Yet now there was a casualness in his words that I instantly remembered: He spoke as if only a few months had passed since I last saw him.” Often in life, I find that we imagine certain circumstances and situations and think of the way we would react and act. A lot of the times we think of it as really dramatic and suspenseful, like in the movies. But the shocking thing is that when it actually happens, it’s really casual and has no built up. It just kind of happens. Because of this, the shock that the author faces is something I can deeply relate to. Not knowing how to react when something that you’ve been expecting your whole life actually happens. I think it shows how weird and interesting life can be. - Adrian Jimenez
Being a parent takes a lot of courage and responsibility, and there’s no book that teaches how to be one. When Nicholas Casey says “there are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son”, sometimes it doesn’t have to be because there’s no love. Circumstances in life happens, and they’re persons that doesn’t feel ready to raise a child or they think they are a bad example to the children; it can be understandable. The thing is that children didn’t ask to came to this world, many times is the parents choice. That’s why I think they’re not excuses to abandon a child. It takes a lot of courage, but if you made the decision of having that child, it’s responsibility of the parent to take care of him, be present in his life and everyday be the best version of himself, so the kid doesn’t suffer because of the parent’s choices. “I had always struggled to tell my own story to others, embarrassed by the poverty or the absent dad or the fact that none of it seemed to have a through line or conclusion”. This is a quote that had me thinking, on how a missing parent figure can cause damage to the growing process of a human being. It causes so many questions, anda sense of culpability. Sometimes it can feel as one part of you is missing, and that part, no matter how hard you try, it’s always going to have a question marks. The dad missing figure can affect how you treat others, how you interact with others and how you involve yourself in relationships. At the end, you’ll try to look for your dad in people, or even in things, trying to stay close to him, even though, he is already missing.
The first quote that made my mind in this essay was, The concert hall in the city of Cienfuegos was packed with Cubans and humid air. I stepped out and greeted everyone. “He is one of us!” yelled someone in Spanish. “Just look at this boy!”. It is amazing to see the sense of inclusion of some countries compared to others. You can see it on both of his schools, the first one in which he felt he did not belong, and the other one which was a black people school in Palo Alto, California. In both of them he felt rejected, and he was even bullied in the second one. Now that he was in Cuba, just to be humble with the people and to be speaking spanish means that can feel welcomed to the culture. It shows the culture of two different countries, and the way that people behave toward different races. This shows as well, the hospitality and the way that people in Cuba are raised compared to Americans that were used to only be with people of their color.
The other quote that made my mind was; “He laughed when I said Ortega. That was mostly a made-up name, he said. In the 1970s he started using it “because it sounded cool.” This was funny because if you think of all the stuff that Nick did just because he taught he had Spanish roots makes it all weird. He literally began to learn Spanish and started to visit place like Cuba just because he taught his dad had latin roots. In the end, the reason ended up being because his dad taught it was a cool last name. Even though it sounds funny, I do not blame him because people treat him like he did not belong anywhere. So, it is understandable why he wanted to find a culture that he can feel identified and not separated from it. Finally, I thought this quote was funny but I do not blame Nick wanting to find more about his father and where he camed from.
The family plays a vital role in our physical and emotional development. Not everyone, for various reasons, can have both parents in their life. This sometimes causes many questions such as: Who am I? Where do I come from? How different could my life be with this person? Those questions and many more are captured in the essay "My father vanished when I was 7. The mystery made me who I am", written by Nicholas Casey. This childhood, which can be assumed to be the author’s, was a complex one. At an early age he had been left without a father, in other words, his father had "disappeared" leaving him with vague memories of him. Consequently, he was raised by his mother. Apart from not having that father figure, he faced multiple problems throughout his life. "I spent much of my life imagining who I was — and then becoming that person — through vague clues about who my father was". As mentioned in the quote above, Casey was a in search of knowing his roots and his father, which has gone on for most of his life in a direct and indirect way. As a result of this search, he finally found his father.
"There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". I found this quote totally shocking, not only for the simple fact that it is impossible for a father to have a reason to abandon his son and much less that he has not been able to maintain a relationship with him, having contact with his other 5 children. But he was also raised without a father. He knows how it feels to not have that father figure, so how did he have the heart to do that to a child as young as 7 years old? A child should not worry if his father is in jail, if he is dead, or if he is with another family. What a child should worry about would be the next game he is going to play with his father.
'' If you send him here, to this la-di-da school, he'll forget who he is and be afraid of his own people.'' Nicholas' father.
and
''While I'd been raised by a white woman and attended a white school, in the eyes of America I would never be white ''-Nicholas
I choose these two quotes because it shows a parallel and a dichotomy. The father seems to be concerned that his son that he doesn't get to see and guide, will be alienated from a part of him that connects him directly to him. A part that is different from his mother's and his immediate surroundings. I wonder if he feels that in a sense, by his son forgetting his black roots, he forgets his father as well.
In the other part, the son sort of responds to his father's hidden fear, stating that no matter how many white people he surrounds himself with and is cared by for, in the eyes of Everyone Else, he will always be affiliated and traced to his overt Blackness. He cannot escape this part of him that he knows is within but feels so far away from in a sense. Alienated by his own: his Black father and his Black schoolmates.
This essay talks about the experience of a man who lived trying to decipher the mystery of his family background. He dwelled in determining his identity as a Black American while also being the son of a White woman and a “Latino” Black man. Early in his essay, he talks about the way he was not perceived by society as a White man, “While I’d been raised by a white woman and attended a white school, in the eyes of America I would never be white.” This quote was interesting to me because it emphasizes the reality of America; your physical appearance is the thing that determines your social experience. Because he was a Black person, his mother and classmates could never fully understand his experience. Society treated him differently, so he had to manage society differently too. The truth is that a person of color, even if they are raised inside of a white society, will be seen as the outsider. Another quote that struck me talks about the mixture of his Black identity, now with a Latino identity. He recalls his mother’s explanation, “In Cuba, she said, you could be both Latino and Black.” When I first read this, I found myself relating to his story. I myself am both Latina and Black. Even more, my family is mixed, just like his. But because of being mixed, I didn’t know how to identify myself while growing up. Was I Latina or was I Black? But I came to the realization that while yes, I was Latina, in the eyes of society I was 'la negrita', and neither of both identities made the other less valid. I finally accepted my blackness and now know that it doesn’t take away my Latina identity, it just adds an additional factor to it.
Such an impressive story of Nicholas Casey, it is admirable how he was able to move forward with his mother, but above all, how in the end he forgave his father. It takes a lot of courage. Several statements in this story struck me. Particularly when Casey says that "I will never forget watching my father patiently sew his foot back together, stitch after stitch, and the words he said after: "A man stitches his own foot."", in the fifth paragraph on page five. Reading that premise, only one word came to my mind: chauvinism. That sexist behavior is the biggest problem facing society right now, especially in Puerto Rico. Little Casey was exposed to that chauvinist behavior every time he saw his father, and that happened and continues to happen with many children. The exposure in their homes and surroundings leads them to learn that behavior and to keep repeating it. Casey bears this out for us when he says: "I will never forget." He will never forget when his father literally stitched his own foot back together, he will never forget that his father did not show any pain or tears, he will never forget that his father told him "A man stitches his own foot", he will never forget that a "real" man is strong and masculine enough to stitch his own foot full of blood with possible infection without asking for help or being vulnerable. Casey, like many boys and young men, will never forget and may adopt that tough masculine behavior. Change begins in household education. That is why this quote impacted me so much, chauvinism cannot be allowed to go unnoticed, it hurts all of us, society as a whole.
As you continue reading Casey's story, you will come across another premise that impressed me the most. This is the sentence that stands out on page 22, which says "There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". Just reading it makes me really upset. It seems unfair to me that in this society it has become normalized for fathers to abandon their children. If they can still be called " fathers". As is the case with Casey's father, but to top it off, he had five more kids. However, the mothers of all those children he fathered had to completely change their way of living so that they could take care of their child all by themselves, as we can read from Casey's mother. She yearned going back to that life she had before starting a job of two, not just hers. In this quote we see again chauvinist behavior, there is no excuse for abandoning a child, so saying that "there are times when there is no explanation for why he abandoned his son" is a lie.
Nicholas Casey’s “My Father Vanished When I Was 7. The Mystery Made Me Who I Am” essay narrates how he struggled with his identity after his father mysteriously vanished. Two quotes from the essay I found interesting were:
“But my mom seemed determined that he would make his mark on my childhood whether he was with us or not.” Casey’s mother had a crucial role in his life. All throughout the essay the reader can identify hints as to his mother’s caring and protective behavior. However, she understood the impact not having a father would have over Casey’s life and identity. This quote struck me because the reader has a taste of another perspective towards the situation and can draw conclusions as to how it’s being managed. The reader is introduced to the perspective of a single white woman raising a fatherless black kid in the United States who agrees and acknowledges how these events resonate in her kid’s life and is prepared to take action for it. She represents a supportive figure who will guide him through his personal discovery and journey to acceptance.
“Now I often wonder whether this long journey that has led me to so many corners of the world wasn’t because I was searching for him, but because I am him — whether the part of my father that compelled him to spend his life at sea is the part of me that led me to an itinerant life as a foreign correspondent.” This quote struck me the most. I believe it is a key point in Casey’s understanding and acceptance of his identity. He changes the term searching for being, as if confronting a part of himself that had been in his genes and had become his fate. Parents have an essential role in the development of their children’s lives and identities, therefore a father who’s barely home and eventually disappeared from this kid’s life will resonate forever. Casey’s coping mechanism was searching, in what he thought was his culture and ancestry, to counteract or, to some extent, replace the missing father figure. As he continued to explore and almost accept these traits, he discovered his passion, which unconsciously were driven by his father’s. Therefore, changing the word searching for being, is a form of acceptance and closure on his journey of identity crisis, specifically who he became.
In this story, we can see that Nicholas Casey had a rough childhood. He got bullied for not being “black enough”. When he was 12 years old and went to school, we can see that there are stereotypes. The kids in his school told him that he was “too white” because of the way he spoke and because he was not good at basketball. Most of the kids at his school probably thought that if you weren’t good at basketball or you didn’t speak in a certain way, you wouldn’t be consider black. “I couldn’t imagine much worse than this failed experiment to teach me what it meant to be Black”, in this quote we can see that he didn’t considered himself black because of the things that I mentioned above.
Another experience that was very though for him, was not being able to see his father. “A large part of me blamed her for my father’s absence”, I chose this other quote because it shows how his father absence affected him during his life. He started to take out his anger on his mom. This is something that probably most fatherless children do because they can’t take out their anger on their father for leaving them without say goodbye or for lying to them. That’s why I think he did that, because his father wasn’t there the majority of his life.
At the start of this reading, we can see that the author’s childhood was slightly grim. His father was absent most of the time and didn’t return. In the reading, the author says the following line: “I hardly knew what a “father” was. Basically, we can see that his paternal figure was absent in his childhood. Even though we think it doesn’t happen in the present, it does happen quite often. Sometimes, kids grow up without a father figure and they have sadness because of that. This can affect negatively the child’s life.
At the final part of this reading, the author states the following: “We spent a lifetime apart, and yet somehow our tastes have converged on pastrami sandwiches and fried shrimp, foods we’ve never eaten together before now.” After all the time his dad wasn’t present, he got in touch with the author, and started to connect and to form this bond that they didn’t have. Sometimes, things can be repaired or can work. Even though his dad was mostly absent during his childhood, he got to form from the start that bond of father and son. When a family member commits an error, we can make things work for a better outcome.
“That part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live” this sentence is one of my favorites and the most that caught my attention from the reading just because the main character, Nick, its finally finding himself as a person and not just torturing and blaming himself for his past or for an absent person in his life experience, that he didn’t have fault for not having. From his unpleasant childhood and all the struggles he had to go throw being a “too white” black person, we can see how finally he’s getting closure or at least realizing that more than half of the decisions he have taken in his lifetime are build around the fact that he doesn’t know who he is, because of the lack of a father figure in his life. We can tell how detach he feels from his father from many quotes and sentences in the reading like “I don’t remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn’t able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man” or “I’m not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine. Part of me would really like to confront him about it, to have a big showdown with the old man like the one I tried to have in my dream years ago”.
For me one of the most shocking and disturbing things besides the absence of a father form, is the racisms he had to go through, and if that wasn’t enough, all alone. Yes, he did have a mom, and a one that was very present; but I’m sure it’s not the same when they are totally different and opposite races. Another moment that caught my attention from the reading is when he’s talking about how he is not “black enough” or “white enough” and how he will never be part, or feel part of those races or places completely. One of them not feeling welcome because of his skin color and for being deferent; and in the other for how he always be related and have a part of the other, or asin this case “white” culture In him. For me this is very sad and I think we can all agree that it feels terrible to not feel part of anything and for him to be rejected those many time cause him and probably was one of the reasons why he was always questioning and trying to find himself. -Alexandra N. Soto
Growing up with the absence of a father is very difficult, because you live without a very important part of you. Even if that absence is intermittent it’s difficult to work with. Nicholas, like many children, grows up waiting for that father who barely ever arrives and they hardly know him. They grow up looking at the door begging for their dad to open it, they celebrate birthdays blowing out the candles and wishing to see him again. It's a shame because that child just wanted his father to be there for him.
"I hardly knew what a "father" was."How sad to read this. Sad, because it seems unfair to me that a child doesn't know the love of a father. Nicholas grew up not having, much less really knowing his father.Every child has the right to be loved and filled with security and protection by his parents. But, certainly not everyone deserves to be a father. Everyone has a different way of interacting and maintaining their relationships, possibly for Nicholas' father it wouldn't be easy either. Certainly this created in Nicholas an emptiness like an unanswered question, an emptiness that has been with him forever.
“A large part of me blamed her for my father’s absence” This phrase presents one of the most real parts of the situation, the search for someone to blame. It is normal to take that frustration out on whoever is closest to you, and in Nicholas' case it was his mother. In spite of that she remained by his side taking care of him and loving him. This whole situation marked him to such a level that he found his mother to blame.
Nicholas Casey wrote a fabulous essay where he talks about his life and his lost father, for whom he spent most of his youth searching. His entire childhood and youth is marked by the memory of his father and the desire to someday see him again. However, I am struck by this sentence in the article, where Casey talks about a dream he had:
"One night after I was back from the research trip, I fell asleep in my college dorm room, which I shared with two other roommates. I almost never saw my father in dreams, but I'd vowed that the next time I did, I would tell him off right there in the dream. And there he was suddenly that night. I don't remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn't able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man."
Even though Casey had exhausted his energy in learning about his father and his family, he has a dream but in it he cannot see his father's face. He doesn't remember his father's face. This struck me because many times we spend our time thinking about so many things that we think are really important, but the reality is that they are not part of our memories. He had so many strong feelings for a person he didn't really know. This made me think about our everyday relationships and the effect they can have on us even if the people are really far away.
Many details of this story struck me, but this sentence from Casey was another one that touched me the most: "And if I am truly honest, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine." I began to wonder why his dad would do that. I can't imagine how many questions Casey had in her mind. It got me thinking about what the real reason was for his dad to never seek him out, just him. However, I think his way of dealing with it was unique. He decided to take advantage of the time he now had with his dad. I also think that event in his life was his motivation to go on great adventures. What would his life have been like without that motivation to find his dad? Now he had found him and they had many stories to tell, and realized that they were very similar.
“I know it wasn’t fair to take out my anger on the woman who raised me and not the man who disappeared”. Growing up the way Nicholas did, it sure must be hard to live that way, and it totally striked me once I heard that last quote. He didn´t know how to throw away all that hatred and he just took it out on his mother because he had no one else to get mad at. With all the rough things he had endured in his life, I´m sure he regrets taking it all on his own mother the most, but I guess you can´t blame him. Evidently, he still wondered on what his father was doing, he is trying to fill that hole with something, and that´s why he is feeling so bad about it.
“We spent a lifetime apart, and yet somehow our tastes have converged on pastrami sandwiches and fried shrimp, foods we’ve never eaten together before now”. The quote itself seems like it has no meaning, but I personally like how after all his life, he gets to share with his father again, eating something that´s new to both. They finally got together and that just shows how he could put all that behind him and just enjoy the moment with his partially absent father. The thing he missed out on in his life the most soon just rekindled itself. He starts liking and noticing things his father does, and it´s just a great feeling that they keep communicating after, for a long time.
This article has many themes but overall the main one is an absent father. We are able to read about it throughout the whole article, though we are presented with it from the beginning when the author explains how he remembers his father through voice calls. The first quote that stuck with me was on the first page, “But I just wanted to see him, wanted him to pick me up with his big, thickset hands that were callused from all the years in the engine room and put me on his shoulders where I could look out over the water with him.”, it shows the reader how the author misses his dad and wants him to come home but most importantly how as a child he cared about the little things. Adults usually believe that its the big gestures that make a difference but, as a young child, the author longed for the moments and for the connection that can only be brought about by sharing a life with someone. He understood it was the little things that matter and he shows us how much he truly cared about his father and missed his presence in his life.
During all those years he thought his father didn’t think of him and that he just disappeared. “There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son.” There are always two sides of the story. He didn’t understand why his father was not there while his father thought he had a valid reason. The author didn’t understand why so many years had gone by and he didn’t receive a phone call. We are given many reasons but after a while we learn that his father didn’t want the fact that he had killed someone to follow his son around. In his mind he was doing what was best for his child. He was making a grand gesture. Many times we view things from our point of view but we have to put ourselves in the others persons shoes and try to understand their point of view. Through understanding is the only way forgiveness can be achieved.
“The truth surprised her at first, but then she realized it shouldn’t have: It fit with what she had come to expect from him.” For me this quote makes you think on what she expected from her father. And I think that is because her father is very unstable, he does not have a place he can call home for example. Reading about his life in this text he was travelling different places all the time moving from land to land or ship to ship travelling all over the world. This was his job and his lifestyle, and it is like the relationships he had. He was not stable with being with only one woman (even though he was married). Even though it sounds harsh that he left his children, it was never on his mind staying for a long time since he is used to go away.
“…that part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live.” Family, friends, and even society has basically pre-determined who we are. For example, the author being a black, writes about how he was mocked in school for being too “white”, also that he likes and plays soccer instead of basketball. We can point out that the majority that plays basketball are African Americans and the majority that plays soccer are Caucasians, but majority does not mean everyone is forced to like it or either play it because of your skin color but that’s how society looks at you. Another example can be how some families force their children to study at this university because everyone in the family did, and/or to study let’s say biology because your father is a doctor. I liked how Nicholas took the decision to live a life based on the things he enjoyed doing regardless of the society.
“I was told I was “too white” When I read this quote of the reading, I was shocked at first and then, not amused at all. It’s a complicated change of feelings but, if you think about, it makes a lot of sense to feel that way. That kind of comment, I imagine, it must be so frustrating to hear when you’re a black kid. Let me correct myself, it must be so frustrating when you’re a person and someone is telling you that you are acting or doing something that, apparently, doesn’t belong to your racial group. That’s the part that shocks me. Now, the part that doesn’t even impress me is that we live in a world where everything belongs to a certain kind of people and if you are not part of that group, you can’t have it, you can’t use it, you can’t do it, you can’t even call it yours. In the reading, Casey said that some kids in his school called him “too white” for liking and wanting to play soccer, that apparently was a white people’s game, instead of playing basketball, a black people’s game. The sad part is that children are taught that too, so they grow up with the same ideal of ownership of things that are from their group and rejection of the things that aren’t.
“… I’m not sure what tom make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine.” I find this part of the reading so sad for two reasons. One, I imagine the heartbreaking moment of him asking himself that question and trying to figure all the possible reasons that he was battling in his mind. I mean, would he be thinking if the problem was him, or if his father simply didn’t want to raise him anymore? And the other reason is because I can relate in some way, not because my father left me or didn’t raise me, but because he didn’t raise two of my half-brothers. One of them is way older than me and my sisters (Jean Carlos) and the other is one year younger than me (Jan Paul). With Jean there’s not really a problem in that area because, even when my dad didn’t raise him, we always talked to him, and we have met a couple times. The problem is Jan Paul, whom I haven’t even met. I don’t even know if my half-brother knows that he has 4 more siblings, or if he knows who his biological father is. His mom never wanted my dad in his life, so it was a complicated situation. I mean, I suppose that he probably knows that his actual dad is not his biological dad, but sometimes I ask myself, in a nostalgic and worried way, if he’s asking himself if his dad abandoned him on purpose, or if he didn’t want him. The thing is that he doesn’t have our last name, so I can’t actually look for him, but I would love to meet my brother someday.
As we can see Nicholas Casey has had a pretty rocky childhood and we can see how he has overcome those challenges in his life. “I was told I was “too white” this quote really struck me because of how racist it is and how he took it. Only because of how he acted and because he was quote-on-quote different. I think that it's wrong that someone says that you are not black or different just because of the actions that you do that are not quote-on-quote cultural. I read that and I imagine how sad and mad he must've been and it is not fair.
“You’re a sissy, boy! You scared?” This quote also struck me because of the way that a father talks to his child. We can see here how he felt "His words cut through me; I forgot the crawdad. There was an anger in his voice that I’d never heard in my mother’s. I started to run away, beating a trail back through the fennel as his voice got louder. He tried to catch me but stumbled. A furious look of pain took control of his face — I was terrified then — and I left him behind, running for my mother." He was scared and terrified by the actions of his father. Like he said "His words cut through me" truly something important to admire.
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ReplyDeleteStarting off the essay we can see that Nicholas Casey had a rocky childhood. Ever from the moment he was conceived it had been atypical. Casey had been raised by his mother and whenever his father showed up he said it was as if it was Christmas all over again, but he eventually noticed that what his mother felt was a little different than he had in mind. This can be seen when Nicholas Casey says "Then he was gone again. That longing was back in my mother, and I had started to see it wasn't exactly for him but for the life she'd had." (p.5). This quote made an impact since it is something many women go through. Throughout history it has been expected for women to give up their autonomy just to be mothers, and I think that might just be a silver lining present in the quote. Casey's mother missed her autonomy before motherhood presented itself in her life.
ReplyDeleteAnother quote that struck me was when Casey stated "And even though I have five siblings now, that part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live." (p.29). During the first quote presented beforehand we can catch a taste of Casey's relationship with his mother, but now we see how it turns to face his relationship with his father. Once again autonomy is placed on the table. We see up until now how Nicholas constantly struggled with an identity crisis and finally he is getting some closure as presented in the essay, but that didn't come free of cost. That closure brought upon him doubts about whether he made every decision of his life based on that. In a way we can see Nicholas Casey clasping on to the same sense of autonomy he had seen his mother long for.
Relationships can be complicated. We cannot understand the way two people connect and just know how to deal with each other. It has to be more than a connection; it involves feelings and communication. Not only talking to each other, if not also understanding and discerning. There will be times that we don't want to talk about some things, therefore, there is no way to understand the other person's point of view. That will eventually create a doubt in our mind that this curiosity may go away quickly, as well as we may want to know more and more. That’s what happened to Nicholas Casey, he spent his whole life looking for an answer as to why his father did not return to where he was. The curiosity was so much that it created a void which could only be filled by investigating more about his father and his background. ‘’In the days after I returned home, it began to hit me just how much I had lost with the disappearance of my father.’’ After all these years, he says that he is considering all that he has had to do for his father. I think that what he did, to travel, become a reporter, go to Cuba, etc. rather has to do with the effect that his father created on him, the trauma. In the end, what he decides to do is in his control, are his own decisions that obviously the loss of his father or have influenced. He mentioned what I expressed earlier, and I quote: ‘’part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live.’’
ReplyDeleteMany people deal with what they say nowadays as '' daddy issues '' and have normalized or modernized it. Clearly that’s why some people don’t even want to talk about it. society stipulates that the disappearance of a father is already common, but they do not speak of the different emotional injuries that these leaves. ‘’I’m not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine. Part of me would really like to confront him about it, to have a big showdown with the old man like the one I tried to have in my dream years ago. ‘’ This is where the frustration comes in, feeling mismatched, forgotten, excluded, all of this exploding at the same time like a silent bomb that little by little is consuming you. There come all the questions again, you realize that something that you thought you had overcome really continues to bother you. It is frustrating and laborious how one must react to a situation like this. I don't think there would be such an easy and safe solution because most likely someone will get hurt and we don't want us to be ourselves again after so many years of healing. Basically I see this more as a problem that will help me to have a better perspective of many things, if I can control how I feel and how I handle certain situations I do not have to let myself fall for another person who does not care.
"But I didn’t care: At that point, I couldn’t imagine much worse than this failed experiment to teach me what it meant to be Black". Wow, just wow. I can't express how much this phrase made me think. As if racism wasn't bad enough, now a black kid can and will be bullied for being "too white". I don't understand how certain things can be tied to skin color, Nicholas was good at soccer but couldn't shoot in basketball and that was the only sport they played at his black school. His father wanted him to learn to be black, but he had already been living a different life. I can't believe even black kids were racist against themselves, if his father would've been around, he might have learned to be like these other kids, which would make him another black kid that ends up hating white people for being racist.
ReplyDelete"There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". Sometimes it's not about not wanting to raise a kid, or not having enough money to raise a kid. Sometimes it just doesn't feel right for some fathers. Nichola's father killed someone and he didn't want Nicholas to live with that fact following him all his life. Yes, it's wrong to run away and not raise your child, he should've at least said goodbye or given his reason. But he simply vanished, while I don't intend to defend the people that leave their kids and go, I just want to look at their side and understand why they chose that. If I ever end up a father, I wouldn't want to abandon my child, but I also wouldn't want to burden them just by being their father. But choosing to vanish without a word? That is just wrong.
When reading the text, one of the lines that immediately stuck out to me was the following:
ReplyDelete“One night after I was back from the research trip, I fell asleep in my college dorm room, which I shared with two other roommates. I almost never saw my father in dreams, but I’d vowed that the next time I did, I would tell him off right there in the dream. And there he was suddenly that night. I don’t remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn’t able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man.”
This line to me shows the contempt and even distaste the author felt towards his father in a very meaningful way. Dreams usually work as a conduit for our subconscious, and the people who appear in our dreams in this context often represent the ones we feel the deepest attachment to. Whether it’s positive or negative.
I find interesting the fact that the author felt so disconnected yet at the same time so attached to his father that it manifested in this way in his dreams. It was the only place where he could will his father to appear once more in his life. A place he could finally confront him. A place he could finally have closure.
The next line that stood out to me was the following:
“His voice broke through the line lower and more gravely than I remembered it. At times I had trouble making out what he was saying; there seemed to be so much of it and no pauses between the ideas. I was trying to write them down, record anything I could. I had played this scene over in my mind so many times in my life — as a child, as a teenager, as an adult — and each time the gravity of that imagined moment seemed to grow deeper. Yet now there was a casualness in his words that I instantly remembered: He spoke as if only a few months had passed since I last saw him.”
Often in life, I find that we imagine certain circumstances and situations and think of the way we would react and act. A lot of the times we think of it as really dramatic and suspenseful, like in the movies. But the shocking thing is that when it actually happens, it’s really casual and has no built up. It just kind of happens.
Because of this, the shock that the author faces is something I can deeply relate to. Not knowing how to react when something that you’ve been expecting your whole life actually happens. I think it shows how weird and interesting life can be. - Adrian Jimenez
Being a parent takes a lot of courage and responsibility, and there’s no book that teaches how to be one. When Nicholas Casey says “there are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son”, sometimes it doesn’t have to be because there’s no love. Circumstances in life happens, and they’re persons that doesn’t feel ready to raise a child or they think they are a bad example to the children; it can be understandable. The thing is that children didn’t ask to came to this world, many times is the parents choice. That’s why I think they’re not excuses to abandon a child. It takes a lot of courage, but if you made the decision of having that child, it’s responsibility of the parent to take care of him, be present in his life and everyday be the best version of himself, so the kid doesn’t suffer because of the parent’s choices.
ReplyDelete“I had always struggled to tell my own story to others, embarrassed by the poverty or the absent dad or the fact that none of it seemed to have a through line or conclusion”. This is a quote that had me thinking, on how a missing parent figure can cause damage to the growing process of a human being. It causes so many questions, anda sense of culpability. Sometimes it can feel as one part of you is missing, and that part, no matter how hard you try, it’s always going to have a question marks. The dad missing figure can affect how you treat others, how you interact with others and how you involve yourself in relationships. At the end, you’ll try to look for your dad in people, or even in things, trying to stay close to him, even though, he is already missing.
The first quote that made my mind in this essay was, The concert hall in the city of Cienfuegos was packed with Cubans and humid air. I stepped out and greeted everyone. “He is one of us!” yelled someone in Spanish. “Just look at this boy!”. It is amazing to see the sense of inclusion of some countries compared to others. You can see it on both of his schools, the first one in which he felt he did not belong, and the other one which was a black people school in Palo Alto, California. In both of them he felt rejected, and he was even bullied in the second one. Now that he was in Cuba, just to be humble with the people and to be speaking spanish means that can feel welcomed to the culture. It shows the culture of two different countries, and the way that people behave toward different races. This shows as well, the hospitality and the way that people in Cuba are raised compared to Americans that were used to only be with people of their color.
ReplyDeleteThe other quote that made my mind was; “He laughed when I said Ortega. That was mostly a made-up name, he said. In the 1970s he started using it “because it sounded cool.” This was funny because if you think of all the stuff that Nick did just because he taught he had Spanish roots makes it all weird. He literally began to learn Spanish and started to visit place like Cuba just because he taught his dad had latin roots. In the end, the reason ended up being because his dad taught it was a cool last name. Even though it sounds funny, I do not blame him because people treat him like he did not belong anywhere. So, it is understandable why he wanted to find a culture that he can feel identified and not separated from it. Finally, I thought this quote was funny but I do not blame Nick wanting to find more about his father and where he camed from.
The family plays a vital role in our physical and emotional development. Not everyone, for various reasons, can have both parents in their life. This sometimes causes many questions such as: Who am I? Where do I come from? How different could my life be with this person? Those questions and many more are captured in the essay "My father vanished when I was 7. The mystery made me who I am", written by Nicholas Casey. This childhood, which can be assumed to be the author’s, was a complex one. At an early age he had been left without a father, in other words, his father had "disappeared" leaving him with vague memories of him. Consequently, he was raised by his mother. Apart from not having that father figure, he faced multiple problems throughout his life. "I spent much of my life imagining who I was — and then becoming that person — through vague clues about who my father was". As mentioned in the quote above, Casey was a in search of knowing his roots and his father, which has gone on for most of his life in a direct and indirect way. As a result of this search, he finally found his father.
ReplyDelete"There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". I found this quote totally shocking, not only for the simple fact that it is impossible for a father to have a reason to abandon his son and much less that he has not been able to maintain a relationship with him, having contact with his other 5 children. But he was also raised without a father. He knows how it feels to not have that father figure, so how did he have the heart to do that to a child as young as 7 years old? A child should not worry if his father is in jail, if he is dead, or if he is with another family. What a child should worry about would be the next game he is going to play with his father.
-Amanda Quiñones
'' If you send him here, to this la-di-da school, he'll forget who he is and be afraid of his own people.'' Nicholas' father.
ReplyDeleteand
''While I'd been raised by a white woman and attended a white school, in the eyes of America I would never be white ''-Nicholas
I choose these two quotes because it shows a parallel and a dichotomy. The father seems to be concerned that his son that he doesn't get to see and guide, will be alienated from a part of him that connects him directly to him. A part that is different from his mother's and his immediate surroundings. I wonder if he feels that in a sense, by his son forgetting his black roots, he forgets his father as well.
In the other part, the son sort of responds to his father's hidden fear, stating that no matter how many white people he surrounds himself with and is cared by for, in the eyes of Everyone Else, he will always be affiliated and traced to his overt Blackness. He cannot escape this part of him that he knows is within but feels so far away from in a sense. Alienated by his own: his Black father and his Black schoolmates.
This essay talks about the experience of a man who lived trying to decipher the mystery of his family background. He dwelled in determining his identity as a Black American while also being the son of a White woman and a “Latino” Black man. Early in his essay, he talks about the way he was not perceived by society as a White man, “While I’d been raised by a white woman and attended a white school, in the eyes of America I would never be white.” This quote was interesting to me because it emphasizes the reality of America; your physical appearance is the thing that determines your social experience. Because he was a Black person, his mother and classmates could never fully understand his experience. Society treated him differently, so he had to manage society differently too. The truth is that a person of color, even if they are raised inside of a white society, will be seen as the outsider.
ReplyDeleteAnother quote that struck me talks about the mixture of his Black identity, now with a Latino identity. He recalls his mother’s explanation, “In Cuba, she said, you could be both Latino and Black.” When I first read this, I found myself relating to his story. I myself am both Latina and Black. Even more, my family is mixed, just like his. But because of being mixed, I didn’t know how to identify myself while growing up. Was I Latina or was I Black? But I came to the realization that while yes, I was Latina, in the eyes of society I was 'la negrita', and neither of both identities made the other less valid. I finally accepted my blackness and now know that it doesn’t take away my Latina identity, it just adds an additional factor to it.
-Alondra Acevedo Ortiz
Such an impressive story of Nicholas Casey, it is admirable how he was able to move forward with his mother, but above all, how in the end he forgave his father. It takes a lot of courage. Several statements in this story struck me. Particularly when Casey says that "I will never forget watching my father patiently sew his foot back together, stitch after stitch, and the words he said after: "A man stitches his own foot."", in the fifth paragraph on page five. Reading that premise, only one word came to my mind: chauvinism. That sexist behavior is the biggest problem facing society right now, especially in Puerto Rico. Little Casey was exposed to that chauvinist behavior every time he saw his father, and that happened and continues to happen with many children. The exposure in their homes and surroundings leads them to learn that behavior and to keep repeating it. Casey bears this out for us when he says: "I will never forget." He will never forget when his father literally stitched his own foot back together, he will never forget that his father did not show any pain or tears, he will never forget that his father told him "A man stitches his own foot", he will never forget that a "real" man is strong and masculine enough to stitch his own foot full of blood with possible infection without asking for help or being vulnerable. Casey, like many boys and young men, will never forget and may adopt that tough masculine behavior. Change begins in household education. That is why this quote impacted me so much, chauvinism cannot be allowed to go unnoticed, it hurts all of us, society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteAs you continue reading Casey's story, you will come across another premise that impressed me the most. This is the sentence that stands out on page 22, which says "There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son". Just reading it makes me really upset. It seems unfair to me that in this society it has become normalized for fathers to abandon their children. If they can still be called " fathers". As is the case with Casey's father, but to top it off, he had five more kids. However, the mothers of all those children he fathered had to completely change their way of living so that they could take care of their child all by themselves, as we can read from Casey's mother. She yearned going back to that life she had before starting a job of two, not just hers. In this quote we see again chauvinist behavior, there is no excuse for abandoning a child, so saying that "there are times when there is no explanation for why he abandoned his son" is a lie.
-Angelys M. Rivera Hernández
04/oct/2021
Nicholas Casey’s “My Father Vanished When I Was 7. The Mystery Made Me Who I Am” essay narrates how he struggled with his identity after his father mysteriously vanished. Two quotes from the essay I found interesting were:
ReplyDelete“But my mom seemed determined that he would make his mark on my childhood whether he was with us or not.”
Casey’s mother had a crucial role in his life. All throughout the essay the reader can identify hints as to his mother’s caring and protective behavior. However, she understood the impact not having a father would have over Casey’s life and identity. This quote struck me because the reader has a taste of another perspective towards the situation and can draw conclusions as to how it’s being managed. The reader is introduced to the perspective of a single white woman raising a fatherless black kid in the United States who agrees and acknowledges how these events resonate in her kid’s life and is prepared to take action for it. She represents a supportive figure who will guide him through his personal discovery and journey to acceptance.
“Now I often wonder whether this long journey that has led me to so many corners of the world wasn’t because I was searching for him, but because I am him — whether the part of my father that compelled him to spend his life at sea is the part of me that led me to an itinerant life as a foreign correspondent.”
This quote struck me the most. I believe it is a key point in Casey’s understanding and acceptance of his identity. He changes the term searching for being, as if confronting a part of himself that had been in his genes and had become his fate. Parents have an essential role in the development of their children’s lives and identities, therefore a father who’s barely home and eventually disappeared from this kid’s life will resonate forever. Casey’s coping mechanism was searching, in what he thought was his culture and ancestry, to counteract or, to some extent, replace the missing father figure. As he continued to explore and almost accept these traits, he discovered his passion, which unconsciously were driven by his father’s. Therefore, changing the word searching for being, is a form of acceptance and closure on his journey of identity crisis, specifically who he became.
- Pennélope Alers
In this story, we can see that Nicholas Casey had a rough childhood. He got bullied for not being “black enough”. When he was 12 years old and went to school, we can see that there are stereotypes. The kids in his school told him that he was “too white” because of the way he spoke and because he was not good at basketball. Most of the kids at his school probably thought that if you weren’t good at basketball or you didn’t speak in a certain way, you wouldn’t be consider black. “I couldn’t imagine much worse than this failed experiment to teach me what it meant to be Black”, in this quote we can see that he didn’t considered himself black because of the things that I mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteAnother experience that was very though for him, was not being able to see his father. “A large part of me blamed her for my father’s absence”, I chose this other quote because it shows how his father absence affected him during his life. He started to take out his anger on his mom. This is something that probably most fatherless children do because they can’t take out their anger on their father for leaving them without say goodbye or for lying to them. That’s why I think he did that, because his father wasn’t there the majority of his life.
-Jekxelmaniel Martínez
ReplyDeleteAt the start of this reading, we can see that the author’s childhood was slightly grim. His father was absent most of the time and didn’t return. In the reading, the author says the following line: “I hardly knew what a “father” was. Basically, we can see that his paternal figure was absent in his childhood. Even though we think it doesn’t happen in the present, it does happen quite often. Sometimes, kids grow up without a father figure and they have sadness because of that. This can affect negatively the child’s life.
At the final part of this reading, the author states the following: “We spent a lifetime apart, and yet somehow our tastes have converged on pastrami sandwiches and fried shrimp, foods we’ve never eaten together before now.” After all the time his dad wasn’t present, he got in touch with the author, and started to connect and to form this bond that they didn’t have. Sometimes, things can be repaired or can work. Even though his dad was mostly absent during his childhood, he got to form from the start that bond of father and son. When a family member commits an error, we can make things work for a better outcome.
-Luis Osorio
“That part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live” this sentence is one of my favorites and the most that caught my attention from the reading just because the main character, Nick, its finally finding himself as a person and not just torturing and blaming himself for his past or for an absent person in his life experience, that he didn’t have fault for not having. From his unpleasant childhood and all the struggles he had to go throw being a “too white” black person, we can see how finally he’s getting closure or at least realizing that more than half of the decisions he have taken in his lifetime are build around the fact that he doesn’t know who he is, because of the lack of a father figure in his life. We can tell how detach he feels from his father from many quotes and sentences in the reading like “I don’t remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn’t able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man” or “I’m not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine. Part of me would really like to confront him about it, to have a big showdown with the old man like the one I tried to have in my dream years ago”.
ReplyDeleteFor me one of the most shocking and disturbing things besides the absence of a father form, is the racisms he had to go through, and if that wasn’t enough, all alone. Yes, he did have a mom, and a one that was very present; but I’m sure it’s not the same when they are totally different and opposite races. Another moment that caught my attention from the reading is when he’s talking about how he is not “black enough” or “white enough” and how he will never be part, or feel part of those races or places completely. One of them not feeling welcome because of his skin color and for being deferent; and in the other for how he always be related and have a part of the other, or asin this case “white” culture In him. For me this is very sad and I think we can all agree that it feels terrible to not feel part of anything and for him to be rejected those many time cause him and probably was one of the reasons why he was always questioning and trying to find himself.
-Alexandra N. Soto
Growing up with the absence of a father is very difficult, because you live without a very important part of you. Even if that absence is intermittent it’s difficult to work with. Nicholas, like many children, grows up waiting for that father who barely ever arrives and they hardly know him. They grow up looking at the door begging for their dad to open it, they celebrate birthdays blowing out the candles and wishing to see him again. It's a shame because that child just wanted his father to be there for him.
ReplyDelete"I hardly knew what a "father" was."How sad to read this. Sad, because it seems unfair to me that a child doesn't know the love of a father. Nicholas grew up not having, much less really knowing his father.Every child has the right to be loved and filled with security and protection by his parents. But, certainly not everyone deserves to be a father. Everyone has a different way of interacting and maintaining their relationships, possibly for Nicholas' father it wouldn't be easy either. Certainly this created in Nicholas an emptiness like an unanswered question, an emptiness that has been with him forever.
“A large part of me blamed her for my father’s absence” This phrase presents one of the most real parts of the situation, the search for someone to blame. It is normal to take that frustration out on whoever is closest to you, and in Nicholas' case it was his mother. In spite of that she remained by his side taking care of him and loving him. This whole situation marked him to such a level that he found his mother to blame.
Nicholas Casey wrote a fabulous essay where he talks about his life and his lost father, for whom he spent most of his youth searching. His entire childhood and youth is marked by the memory of his father and the desire to someday see him again. However, I am struck by this sentence in the article, where Casey talks about a dream he had:
ReplyDelete"One night after I was back from the research trip, I fell asleep in my college dorm room, which I shared with two other roommates. I almost never saw my father in dreams, but I'd vowed that the next time I did, I would tell him off right there in the dream. And there he was suddenly that night. I don't remember what I said to him, but I woke up shaken. I remember he had no face. I wasn't able to recall it after all these years. I was yelling at a faceless man."
Even though Casey had exhausted his energy in learning about his father and his family, he has a dream but in it he cannot see his father's face. He doesn't remember his father's face. This struck me because many times we spend our time thinking about so many things that we think are really important, but the reality is that they are not part of our memories. He had so many strong feelings for a person he didn't really know. This made me think about our everyday relationships and the effect they can have on us even if the people are really far away.
Many details of this story struck me, but this sentence from Casey was another one that touched me the most: "And if I am truly honest, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine." I began to wonder why his dad would do that. I can't imagine how many questions Casey had in her mind. It got me thinking about what the real reason was for his dad to never seek him out, just him. However, I think his way of dealing with it was unique. He decided to take advantage of the time he now had with his dad. I also think that event in his life was his motivation to go on great adventures. What would his life have been like without that motivation to find his dad? Now he had found him and they had many stories to tell, and realized that they were very similar.
“I know it wasn’t fair to take out my anger on the woman who raised me and not the man who disappeared”. Growing up the way Nicholas did, it sure must be hard to live that way, and it totally striked me once I heard that last quote. He didn´t know how to throw away all that hatred and he just took it out on his mother because he had no one else to get mad at. With all the rough things he had endured in his life, I´m sure he regrets taking it all on his own mother the most, but I guess you can´t blame him. Evidently, he still wondered on what his father was doing, he is trying to fill that hole with something, and that´s why he is feeling so bad about it.
ReplyDelete“We spent a lifetime apart, and yet somehow our tastes have converged on pastrami sandwiches and fried shrimp, foods we’ve never eaten together before now”. The quote itself seems like it has no meaning, but I personally like how after all his life, he gets to share with his father again, eating something that´s new to both. They finally got together and that just shows how he could put all that behind him and just enjoy the moment with his partially absent father. The thing he missed out on in his life the most soon just rekindled itself. He starts liking and noticing things his father does, and it´s just a great feeling that they keep communicating after, for a long time.
This article has many themes but overall the main one is an absent father. We are able to read about it throughout the whole article, though we are presented with it from the beginning when the author explains how he remembers his father through voice calls. The first quote that stuck with me was on the first page, “But I just wanted to see him, wanted him to pick me up with his big, thickset hands that were callused from all the years in the engine room and put me on his shoulders where I could look out over the water with him.”, it shows the reader how the author misses his dad and wants him to come home but most importantly how as a child he cared about the little things. Adults usually believe that its the big gestures that make a difference but, as a young child, the author longed for the moments and for the connection that can only be brought about by sharing a life with someone. He understood it was the little things that matter and he shows us how much he truly cared about his father and missed his presence in his life.
ReplyDeleteDuring all those years he thought his father didn’t think of him and that he just disappeared. “There are times when a father cannot explain why he abandoned his son.” There are always two sides of the story. He didn’t understand why his father was not there while his father thought he had a valid reason. The author didn’t understand why so many years had gone by and he didn’t receive a phone call. We are given many reasons but after a while we learn that his father didn’t want the fact that he had killed someone to follow his son around. In his mind he was doing what was best for his child. He was making a grand gesture. Many times we view things from our point of view but we have to put ourselves in the others persons shoes and try to understand their point of view. Through understanding is the only way forgiveness can be achieved.
“The truth surprised her at first, but then she realized it shouldn’t have: It fit with what she had come to expect from him.” For me this quote makes you think on what she expected from her father. And I think that is because her father is very unstable, he does not have a place he can call home for example. Reading about his life in this text he was travelling different places all the time moving from land to land or ship to ship travelling all over the world. This was his job and his lifestyle, and it is like the relationships he had. He was not stable with being with only one woman (even though he was married). Even though it sounds harsh that he left his children, it was never on his mind staying for a long time since he is used to go away.
ReplyDelete“…that part of me still likes to believe we each determine who we are by the decisions we make and the lives we choose to live.” Family, friends, and even society has basically pre-determined who we are. For example, the author being a black, writes about how he was mocked in school for being too “white”, also that he likes and plays soccer instead of basketball. We can point out that the majority that plays basketball are African Americans and the majority that plays soccer are Caucasians, but majority does not mean everyone is forced to like it or either play it because of your skin color but that’s how society looks at you. Another example can be how some families force their children to study at this university because everyone in the family did, and/or to study let’s say biology because your father is a doctor. I liked how Nicholas took the decision to live a life based on the things he enjoyed doing regardless of the society.
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ReplyDelete“I was told I was “too white”
DeleteWhen I read this quote of the reading, I was shocked at first and then, not amused at all. It’s a complicated change of feelings but, if you think about, it makes a lot of sense to feel that way. That kind of comment, I imagine, it must be so frustrating to hear when you’re a black kid. Let me correct myself, it must be so frustrating when you’re a person and someone is telling you that you are acting or doing something that, apparently, doesn’t belong to your racial group. That’s the part that shocks me. Now, the part that doesn’t even impress me is that we live in a world where everything belongs to a certain kind of people and if you are not part of that group, you can’t have it, you can’t use it, you can’t do it, you can’t even call it yours. In the reading, Casey said that some kids in his school called him “too white” for liking and wanting to play soccer, that apparently was a white people’s game, instead of playing basketball, a black people’s game. The sad part is that children are taught that too, so they grow up with the same ideal of ownership of things that are from their group and rejection of the things that aren’t.
“… I’m not sure what tom make of the fact that this man was present in the lives of his five other children but not mine.”
I find this part of the reading so sad for two reasons. One, I imagine the heartbreaking moment of him asking himself that question and trying to figure all the possible reasons that he was battling in his mind. I mean, would he be thinking if the problem was him, or if his father simply didn’t want to raise him anymore? And the other reason is because I can relate in some way, not because my father left me or didn’t raise me, but because he didn’t raise two of my half-brothers. One of them is way older than me and my sisters (Jean Carlos) and the other is one year younger than me (Jan Paul). With Jean there’s not really a problem in that area because, even when my dad didn’t raise him, we always talked to him, and we have met a couple times. The problem is Jan Paul, whom I haven’t even met. I don’t even know if my half-brother knows that he has 4 more siblings, or if he knows who his biological father is. His mom never wanted my dad in his life, so it was a complicated situation. I mean, I suppose that he probably knows that his actual dad is not his biological dad, but sometimes I ask myself, in a nostalgic and worried way, if he’s asking himself if his dad abandoned him on purpose, or if he didn’t want him. The thing is that he doesn’t have our last name, so I can’t actually look for him, but I would love to meet my brother someday.
Diego Diaz
ReplyDeleteAs we can see Nicholas Casey has had a pretty rocky childhood and we can see how he has overcome those challenges in his life. “I was told I was “too white” this quote really struck me because of how racist it is and how he took it. Only because of how he acted and because he was quote-on-quote different. I think that it's wrong that someone says that you are not black or different just because of the actions that you do that are not quote-on-quote cultural. I read that and I imagine how sad and mad he must've been and it is not fair.
“You’re a sissy, boy! You scared?”
This quote also struck me because of the way that a father talks to his child. We can see here how he felt "His words cut through me; I forgot the crawdad. There was an anger in his voice that I’d never heard in my mother’s. I started to run away, beating a trail back through the fennel as his voice got louder. He tried to catch me but stumbled. A furious look of pain took control of his face — I was terrified then — and I left him behind, running for my mother." He was scared and terrified by the actions of his father. Like he said "His words cut through me" truly something important to admire.