Anastasia Spiridonova

Anastasia Spiridonova

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Posts by Anastasia Spiridonova

The system won

0
10 years
by in Neighborhood Visits

I was not excited about going on the two-hour tour around Harlem because by Friday I always too exhausted to do anything productive. However, I tried to be positive about it.
In overall the tour-guide was amazing. She was passionate, interesting and funny. I was very surprised to see white young woman as a guide. I don’t know why but in my head I had a picture of an old guy who was suppose to tell us something. Unfortunately, no matter how good tour-guide was I did not find topic very interesting. Yes, her narrative was very interesting but when she spoke about condominiums or small houses that are built all over the place I was looking at those building and was furious about idiotic use of space. When we walked around I did not see a single space where kids or elderly people can play or walk during their free time or where they can spend hot summer days. I was looking at the neighborhood and saw that it was not build for the people who have free time. It was a neighborhood for adults who work all the time and only go home to sleep. This problem exists not only in the Harlem but also in all New York City. This city is built for people who work all day. There is no place for children or elderly people.
So when I saw those three-four store building I remembered how my teacher in American high school explained it to me in oversimplified manner: to build an elevator in the building is too expansive, and idea to live in separate house is the American dream. So when we walked around the neighborhood I thought that this so called American dream does not allow people to see rational way of living. It forced people to surrender their freethinking for elusive dream that controls them. It reminds me the comparison that Hugo did in “The Man Who Laughs.” He compared people with a donkey and government with a rider. So one-day donkey will get tired from being controlled and it will become a furious lion that will eat its rider. However, then the lion will again become a donkey and a new rider will control it. American people once were a glorious lion but now they turned into a donkey again.
Conclusion that I made from the tour is that the system won and I can’t see a way to change it. The system won.

Kids with cool technologies

0
10 years
by in Immigration Stories

I cannot say that I really liked or disliked our visit of the exhibition “Eyes of Bangladesh.” There were some positive and some negative sides of our visit. First of all I did not like the installation of phone with photos of the photographer and his mother. It required too much explanation and did not have thematic connection with the rest of the exhibition. The second, I did not like the talk that were given to us. The talk and the photos together forced me to feel pity to those people. I agree they deserve it but my pity is useless for them. It will not make any changes for them. It only makes me feel bad. It leads to my next point. If you block your emotions and start to think there is nothing wrong with lives of those people. As my parents always told me, if it is warm then life is much easer. You do not need a lot of clothes or a warm house, and you can grow food. I remember we were given a comparison, “Bangladesh is the size of the New York state and has population of 125 million people.” It is very dense populated region. But lets think. For millenniums population of the Earth was steady. After industrial revolution it went suddenly up. So it can be concluded that the surplus population of the Bangladesh is the result of better technologies. Centuries ago one third of those people would have died.

This is my reaction when I am forced to feel peaty for other people. Yes I agree they deserve it. However, what about millions of other people who are dying somewhere else? If you want to change something do something. I am actually want to be one of those monsters who want to spent millions of dollars to search water on other planets rather than spend those money to transport water to dry places on the Earth.

Moreover, I was amazed by the work those guys did to make the exhibition. I think it is fantastic and that they need to get more respect and recognition than the photographer. They were the one who wanted to make changes.

I liked the exhibition without talk because it allowed me to see a different culture and lives of different people. However, the talk made me consider those people like little kids that were given cool technologies without explanation what are the consequences of using those technologies.

American worldwide image

0
10 years
by in Immigration Stories

We watched the documentary “Golden Venture” last class and we focus on immigration in class. So it is obvious that this review needs to be about immigration. However, I will take slightly different approach. I want to examine why people want to go in USA even illegally, what attracts those people.
First of all the documentary that we saw, showed that life of an illegal immigrant in the United States is not easy. Moreover, as a first generation immigrant I can add that even legal status does not make life easier in the America. I can start with taxes and finish with paid health insurance. So we need to understand that life of an illegal immigrant is difficult because of absence of documents and, therefore, person does not exist in the eyes of the government. However, life of legal immigrant or citizen is not easy too. We face the problem of common belief that life in the United States is good. Actually, the government itself propagandizes such idea around the world. Moreover, Americans are brainwashed with idea that everything is OK, even if it is not.
From this, I argue that problem of illegal immigration is the result of arrogance of the United States. America is the only superpower. It needs to maintain image that everything perfect in the USA. So the opposite side of it is illegal immigration. People all around the world see American propaganda and think that their they will be better in the United States, so they cross the board illegally. If you display yourself as a best place to live, “the land of freedom and opportunity,” you need to face the consequences-immigration.
Moreover, in the documentary we saw the ambiguity of legal status of people from “Golden Venture.” We saw how politicians fervently spoke about illegal immigration. Here I am not speaking about pro or against illegal immigration. I speak about morality. Every American (except native Indians) is a descendant of immigrants. So I do not see how it can be fair that immigrants deny other immigrants the same opportunities. Even if you ancestors immigrated a century ago you still an immigrant.
The problem with illegal immigration is the problem with the way the United States advertises itself. So if USA wants to stop illegal immigration it needs to start with telling the world truth about itself.

“The death of one person is tragedy, the death of millions is statistics” Erich Maria Remarque

1
10 years
by in Census Data

All those charts, graphs and demographics that we saw is a good thing that can help to understand different neighborhoods of the New York City. Presentation looked nice and colorful. However, because of all those numbers I had a nasty feeling that humanity is not important. As Remarque wrote in “The Black Obelisk,” “the death of one person is tragedy, the death of millions is statistics.” That is exactly what those charts with numbers represent. They represent each person just as a number. Than means that each of us just as number and if we will die, will get education or will drop out of a college it will not have any effect on the charts because we can always be replaced by another number.
From one point of view demographics helps to understand the population that lives in different neighborhoods, their needs, their values, helps to shape policy for each place. From another point of view charts with numbers dehumanize people by making them just a number instead of separate human being. Also big companies, politicians use demographics to manipulate people by adjusting their behavior and their goods to different communities.
So we do need to use demography but we cannot forget that those numbers are people not just numbers.

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