As an illiterate person in America, life is indeed laborious because it is difficult to read signs which describe my environment. Being illiterate is like being shut away into darkness. My story will tell you the struggle that I dealt with as an illiterate person. In America, the world is filled with people who can communicate in advanced languages and they plaster their roads and buildings with words, smudges of letters that have no meaning to me. Since I do not know how to read or write, I often ask other people where places are. My verbal communication is not strong, but I can communicate basic ideas. People in America do not like to answer me. They regard me as someone who is lower than they are, as though I am an animal. I scurry the streets straining to sound out words written along the roadsides. I have currently memorized the name of the building that I visit often. It is called the f-o-o-d pantr—yyy. I don’t know what it means, but I go there often because people give me free soup and are kind to me. Outside of the Food Pantry, people aren’t so kind. I have very little use in America. Nobody wants to hire a street woman who cannot read or write. I do not even know where jobs are because I cannot locate buildings. I cannot count. How am I supposed to know where 125 South NY Street is? I do not know the street names because all names look the same to me. However, I can recognize things such as ↑→↓ because I have learned what they signify. Those arrows are how I trust getting to and from various places. A woman like me has to learn from pictures. The only signs I can read. I know for example, that a big sign with a large vehicle means that I can jump in and get a ride. They call that a bus. I never know where to get off because places have hard names with difficult pronunciation. Life brings me such difficulty when the rest of the world relies on words while I struggle to rely on pictures.
As an illiterate person, I feel inadequate and inferior compared to people who can read. As I observe the world around me, I notice people much different than myself. People who read and write wear freshly pressed clothes and carry suitcases that do not carry their clothes. I look at my knapsack wishing it contained scholarly books and articles. Mine carries tattered clothes with the faint scent of mildew. Literate people walk in proud strides and carry around lots of money with them. They wear top hats and whistle merrily to their jobs. I stop to admire them, but they do not like when I go near them. I do not receive the best treatment from those people because they stereotype me as someone who is stupid and retarded. That is not true. I am a capable person who feels and thinks with the same capacity as the people who can read. Unfortunately, I was raised in complete poverty and was unable to complete my education. I had to take care of my infant sister so my family could work. My mother and father could not read either, so I was left to fend for myself. I feel as though the world has personally shut me out; I watch other people talk using complex words and read aloud, but I can’t. Confusion and distrust envelope me because people cannot trust an illiterate person. They do not trust me as a friend or to hold a job. Illiterate people suffer through so much emotional pain because nobody wants to be seen associating with a less-fortunate person. That’s the way it is in New York today.
An illiterate person faces tremendous hardships in the social and cultural world. People who are less-educated are treated with less respect than those who are higher in the social hierarchy of America. I know that people will not associate with me because I make money in a cloth factory. My low paying wages and my illiteracy makes my chances of fitting in near impossible. I would like to see America as truly being free, but I see it as a prison. The well-off people in America are the prisoners who are shackled to the social hierarchy and ideologies that they are conditioned to follow. People like me are just supposed to be hated because there is no such thing as sympathy in America. Many times people who are well-off become arrogant and disrespect those who are illiterate. People have even called me names. Being illiterate drastically effects the cultural interaction between people. Since I cannot read, I celebrate certain holidays by hanging decorations and dancing. Other people looked at me funny and told me that dancing was not how Christmas was celebrated. Some kind folks lead me to church where people were stuffed in pews jollily singing hymns with merry smiles. The old woman gave me a hymnal and I put it down. A tear trickled down my eye. “I cannot read” I said to her. I cannot celebrate with you. The woman sympathetically took my hymnal and I was off on my own, walking through a tunnel of loneliness. I could not read the Bible and I could not read words or notes of music. I was completely alone.
One day the same woman found me and told me of a place that would teach me how to read and write, and it was of no cost to me. The task of learning to read was difficult, and it caused me much frustration. However, with diligence I studied and practiced my reading and writing. Within six months I could read children’s books, and I could read the signs on the road. After a year and a half I picked up my first hymnal and now attend church with my best of friends. In Grace Slick’s words, “Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable” The joy of reading and music has turned me into a person who has limitless boundaries. After three years, I could read perfectly and I attended school.
Today I have a degree in Ancient Civilizations with a concentration in Ancient Literacy. I study the evolution of literacy from countries such as Egypt and Greece. With my prior experience being illiterate, I can relate to how many ancient people struggled being unable to read or write. Today, just like the Egyptian scribes before me, I am recording my experience as a writer and how it does attribute to higher power and success. After reading through my struggles, I want my readers to take a moment to cherish how fortunate they are to have the skills to read and write. Remember that “No skill is more crucial to a child or to a democratic and prosperous society, than literacy” (Los Angeles Times). Relish the opportunity of opening a book and assimilate the beauty that is offered at your fingertips page after page.
Works Cited
The Literacy Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.
2 comments:
Air is the most important element of human environment. Man can't live a single moments without air. But we don't think that it is we who pollute this most vital element. Clean air is essential for life. Air is polluted in many ways. Smoke pollutes air. Man makes fires to cook his food.To make bricks burns refuse, melts pitch for road construction and burns wood. All these things produce heavy smoke and this smoke pollutes air. Railway engies, power houses, mills and factories use coal and oil. buses, tucks and cars use petrol and diesel oil. Again all these things create smoke and cause air pollution. The most serious air pollution occurs in big industrial areas where there are many mills and factories. serious air pollution also occurs in big cities where there are many buses, trucks and cars plying the street everyday. Sometimes men in big industrial area become so sick by inhaling polluted air that they cannot be cued. So proper measures and steps should be taken to prevent air pollution.
I am so glad Kabunky that you were able to learn to read. That's awesome. I think that a lot of us take for granted being able to read and write. It is truly a wonderful thing to be able to do.
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