The Problem We All Live With

The Problem We All Live With

The painting The Problem We All live with was painted by Norman Rockwell in November 14, 1960. It is shown with a 6-year-old African-American girl on the way to school, surrounded by four bodyguards. This is most likely taking place in the Deep South, as there are various details that represent the racism going on in the scene.

 On the top left side corner, KKK, the initials of a racist group Ku Klux Klan was written in a medium-sized font; and capital letters “nigger” written in a way that calls major attention, in the center of the wall. And a big stain of tomato juice is displayed beside the discriminating words; which explains why the African-American girl needs escorts on the way to school, to prevent racists to cause any harm to her.  

     This gives the viewer the impression of the segregation in the Deep South. It gives the viewer an idea of how prejudicial the society was against African-Americans. When I saw this painting at first, I didn’t notice the little details, and regarded it as a normal painting of Ruby Bridges walking to school with normal pedestrians walking with her. But after looking at it with a magnifying glass, I realized the effort that the artist put in it; the stains and the words on the walls were derogatory remarks that I couldn’t picture really happening. Imagining someone being treated like that since birth is unimaginable.

Norman Rockwell was an artist that paints the events that happen in everyday life in the United States. He painted this, aware of the situation that’s happening. I think that his painting focused on the African-American girl, because he wanted to show that she was the main character in this whole situation, and he by not showing a smile on her face, he wants to express how differently blacks felt during that time. Judging by the fact that Normal Rockwell cropped Ruby Bridges’ bodyguards faces of, I think it is because he wants people to concentrate on her, instead of the bodyguards; they are more like of an unimportant character, but he still draws them, and show the stripe they wear on their arms, so viewers could figure out that the racism was so bad that the federal government had to send bodyguards to protect her safety.

The faint color he used for the words “nigger” and the “KKK” also made me think that he did not draw it in a strong color, because although the Deep South was full of racist people, the world was beginning to change for the African-Americans. The government allowed blacks to do things they weren’t permitted to do before; the government was starting to desegregate the laws.

Travel Journal-The Trip to Colón

Many people may be complaining about how boring their vacations turned out. Some may say that it was interesting, amazing, or even exotic. Mine is extremely, and I mean exceptionally dull; and by that I mean I barely get out of the house, I didn't even go to the beach, or travel anyhow. Nevertheless, I think my parents got tired of seeing me laying around in the house, not doing anything in particular for three weeks, not actually exposing myself in the sunlight(literally) except for swimming in the Common Area.

So naturally, I made a big deal out of the fact that we were going to drive to Colón and take a good look at the Gatún Lake. I took my new camera with me (I got very excited because I got one for christmas, BEST christmas present ever) determined to take a picture of everything I thought worth taking. While we were driving,  it was kind of raining and we had a flat tire(guess what I was thinking). So we were basically stuck in the middle of nowhere, no good weather, and a flat tire. So what we, problem solvers decided to do was to pick up the cellphone and dial the number of the insurance company ( I swear, it took them probably 10 minutes to pick up). They informed us that there was two tire shops within 10 meters from the place we were standing; curious huh?

We went to the tire shop, (of course, we were suspicious) and there were a lot of cars with flat tires. I mean, it's hard to not think otherwise when there's two tire shops in such short distances and both of them were filled with somehow damaged cars, right? But I guess it's hard to picture one of the workers putting nails or sharp things all over the street anyways. Well, out of suspicion I took a long look at the thing that pinched the tire, ('cause the tires were pretty new, they couldnt've become flat on their own) and was dumbfounded when I saw the thing that was inside. It was this big chunk of metal, that seemed like a lost tool inside someone else's car. I still haven't got a clue about how that thing went inside the tire.


Well, after the bad luck, I guess most people would've just convinced themselves that it was much too tiring to be driving for such a long time and then waiting in the tire shop, and that they should just do something else that is much more relaxing and come back another day. But we didn't, being as stubborn as we already are. So we just continued our trip. I took a humongous amount of pictures in the restaurant that we ate brunch, and people were just staring at me when I was so excited taking pictures of my food.

After eating, we went to see the Gatún Lake, which is supposed to be the main point of the journey, but because I didn't think that much, I used almost all of the batteries of my camera taking unnecessary pictures, and drained myself (by looking from the tiny little hole that allows you to take pictures from that camera of mine) so most of the pictures were taken in the restaurant. When my batteries were nearly drained, we were at the gate already, prepared to leave, so I took the last picture(I took a picture of the security guys when we drove by in a flash of a second) and my cousin signaled them to look into the camera, one of them actually did, and the other one was kind of slow, so he looked after I already took the picture, well.



It seems like I have no life, writing so much about a little trip within Panama, not even staying there more than a day, but I actually had fun, and I might sound like a nerd saying this, but I think that this was the main highlight of my vacations(except for getting my camera).