History and art are laying in the same bed but just on different sides of it. At times they come together, at times they stand a lone, and for other times, they dance together beautifully.

Mozart and others that have created compositions of music wrote pieces that did not have any words but rather invoked emotion and attention that created dialogue within us.

Art can have the ability to make us think so deeply and critically about things.

I believe in order to be swayed, we must have the desire to be because being moved is such an intrinsic part of us.

Birth, death, procreation, falling in and out of love...all of these things are feelings, emotions, and experiences that make us all indulge in the human experience.

Responsibility....wow. It's true, an artist can have a lot of sway and dictation on things but we don't all have the same effect on every human.

As strange as this may sound, Hitler is certainly someone that I always reference when thinking of art. His actions were unmoral and unjust, however, it was his intentions and rationality behind things that portrayed his artistry. The perfect lines that German soldiers had to walk in, the way that he saw beauty in blond hair and blue eyes, the style of execution that he fancied....all such terrible acts but when it comes to style and aesthetics, Hitler was extremely precise and particular about the details.

I would give anything to observe this shift. As someone who is an avid reader, books have the ability to create art that can take us to a new place mentally. There is so much power in art.

Here I saw dendrites and axons energized and structured, firing signals to us as the viewer.

Art is quite literally mind-blowing.

Because of the exposure to art, we are able to use things like imagery that is painted through words. Here we see the desolation and we are visually explaining why someone could or could not see this as beautiful.

Earlier cultures like the Greeks could seemingly see beyond the surface of things. Language in general has almost been boxed and caged because of the rudimentary way that humans have been using this. Language is simply dying out because of how basic we as humans have evolved when it comes to communication. Art relies heavily on language because art is something that is frequently critiqued and assessed. From those assessments, opinions, and thoughts need to be formed to generate a conveyance of what is meant and what is perceived. The fact that the Greeks could see a word and know that there were many variations of that word shows a higher level of thinking and seeing.

Who is actually qualified to know what art truly is? It goes beyond a degree and it is my belief that it is our own experiences that allow us to formulate our own beliefs, ideas, and intentions surrounding art.

Art is amazing in this way. Without any exposure, we humans can see beauty in things and have perspective shifts. "Art" is something that can almost be deemed as anything.

I love this sentence and it was so stimulating to read because of the perspective. I do love the way that art can interact with different parts of our brain and invoke a response from them.

What comes up here is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's perspective that can be shifted hence why the term "beauty" has so many different definitions and meanings.

I adore the way that this piece started out by acknowledging some of the integrity of art, which includes its beauty.

I've heard this so often throughout my life growing up. The toxic way that the males in my family were raised and having soft hands meant that you didn't have a real job. Simply absurd.

I DON'T BUY IT EITHER

SAME! Some of us could smell the bullshit associated with certain ideologies.

YES! Quite literally. This invokes a feeling of familiarity but a feeling of instability.

Oooo, "transferring the blame". I like where this thought is going however my saying is although it is not our fault, it is our responsibility to find a resolution for peace.

White culture will never be safe because it strips us of everything that we are all and aspire to be. It forces us to conform while stealing our heritage and culture to be white washed and used as their own.

Absolutely not.

That slippery slope is to me considered code-switching and many use this to their advantage OR society decides where one resides.

I'm pretty sure their writing utensil or keyboard had flames coming from it once they finished writing this. "Indoctrinated as straight" is one of the deepest things I've seen and felt in a while and it's also t-shirt worthy.

HELL YES!! We wear these differences with honor and with great bravery because in the opposite direction of conformity is joy.

I felt this line in my uterus. We will continue to be at the bottom of the ladder but more specifically, women of color are probably below the deviants.

RIGHT! Because damned if I do or damned if I don't. From a societal perspective, women don't win.

The relationship between my father and I are a bit strained because of this and my mother's ideology around men and what women "should" wear or do around them. I had both parents growing up but to her things like sitting on my father's lap were a taboo so inappropriate that I got spanked anytime I would do so. I could never kiss my dad on the mouth or anywhere close to it without having to hear a nagging story about how I was wrong. At some point my father and I stopped showing each other affection to keep down any confusion or just to keep my mother quiet. I often think how this is affecting other father, daughter, uncle, niece relationships.

THE OTHER! THIS IS GOLDEN! This is precisely why I like to state that I'm a queer, black, woman. Because in every instance of my world and identity, I am the other.

The female cycle is a powerful thing and is not to be played with. Not only is it something that is magical (in my culture, creole, some practicing voodooers use period blood for their work), our periods are a very sacred time for us to be with ourselves for rest, restoration, and reflection.

"To fuck or not to fuck..that is the question"

My quote above is just as dramatic as this. Either we bear children or we cut ourselves off from the act of sex and surrender ourselves to a God that most people consider to be a "him". This still shows the sexism that exist in our culture, even in forms of religion.

This entire section's argument is fallacious for the women that are queer. We are not serving the opposite sex in any way, shape, or form and these ideas diminish any self-worth and self-value that we as human beings were made to have.

We should be free to have autonomy over our bodies without shame or guilt.

Nasty woman. Another form of slut shaming that has and will go on for the rest of time unless something revolutionary happens.

"commitment to the value system than men"

.....I've gotten chills from reading this. this is such a peculiar notion.

Chisme. But this very chisme is what has formed bonds, and communities, and brought people together. This goes to show that there are views that women should be forever dedicated and in service to their husbands for the rest of their lives while leaving their dreams and aspirations behind.

Obey. We MUST obey as if we are animals given commands. These are generational curses that most go unlearned so that we can stop the cycle.

Oh what a sexist society that we live in but the gag is that how does any human physically come into the world? Through the portal of a woman.

Oof, this made me shudder. These derogatory phrases still slice so deeply.

"Los pobres"...I do think the author was having a full circle moment here but I would love to see an alternate ending here.

This sentence is precisely why I'm going into law..."the sovereignty of my rulership" what a magnetic thing to say.

Here, you can see the unlearning happening. We are often taught to be seen and not heard or to do what we are told without question or reason but these ideologies are taking away our basic rights as human beings.

From a personal perspective, I remember being called lazy as well hence why it's difficult for me as an adult to rest now. A lot of these things are passed down genetically from our ancestors as a survival technique from things such as slavery. I too spent a lot of time reading things like the dictionary and writing pages and pages of my heart on paper.

Here I sense that they're referring to the person that they truly are. They left the inflicted ideas and opinionated created versions of themselves at home to take their authenticity them.

"Under the personality that had been imposed on me" the author is yelling at me this week. I can tell that their family had an expectation of what they "should" be doing or "who they SHOULD". I refer to this as "shouldacouldawouldaland" and this is a space that none of us can exist in. The power of living outside of the norm is forever indescribable.

I felt this so very deeply. I moved away from home at 17 and I never looked back. Seeing as how many of the people in my family have never left the city that they were born in, I've often wondered how I ever had an inkling or desire to know that there was so much more outside of our community.

I chuckled reading this because I feel like quite a few people will read this and think of their own picture that may be similar to this one.

I am not fluent in Spanish by any means, but, I always feel this certain level of comfort when I'm reading selections in this course that are bilingual. It's truly satisfying.

For me, I interpreted this as trusting in the universe to guide you even in the midst of darkness and confusion. Following our hearts and trusting our intuition is all that we can do as human beings.

Here, the level of respect for our ancestors has been defined and we are reminded of them when it is stated that "the dead speak for you"

I felt this to my core.

Same but in the sense of my safety being compromised daily.

She referred to herself as a bitch. It is my belief that society used the term "bitch" when referring to a woman that didn't follow the stereotypical rules of womanhood that society had placed on them. Here it seems as though she was accepting her fate to be a bitch because of her non-conformity.

It's interesting the examples given of a circumstance when a woman would be acting like a bitch. I also noticed that it was only a woman here that was being referred to as a bitch.

The fusing of things required complete alignment or the connection could not be fulfilled.

I love that there was a distinction made between the two of these...a welder and an alchemist. This made me think of the book "The Alchemist" A welder connects things together through machinery but an alchemist connects things together in a way of purification. Welding is a much more material experience.

Our environment can always take us back to certain places and spaces in the blink of an eye.

The terms "abuela, abuelita, and abuelito" bring so much comfort to my soul, even though I am not of Hispanic descent. I think these are such staple people in our lives but to have certain terms of endearment for them brings us back to giving them a certain level of respect and understanding.

"I needed you then...I need you now"....humans crave a desire for a sense of belonging.

I LOVE how the author referred to the art forms as hieroglyphics because both told stories through symbols. What a great way to make a connection to this.

Although she is considered the weeping lady, we all as humans have experienced crying out of sadness and fear and what that most vulnerable experience feels like. Being connected emotionally to something like the tale of La Llorona reminds us all of how human the human experience truly is.

La Llorona was one of the first tales that I learned about while living in San Antonio. It still haunts me but the tale's backstory is extremely intriguing.

I took this in a few different ways.

First, perhaps people lived on the outskirts of where the closest school district may have been so they were forced to get to school on their own. Second, perhaps school buses didn't go into certain neighborhoods because the children were not attending any kind of schooling.

Hispanic culture always makes me feel so alive and the way that the culture is celebrated makes me feel connected to the roots so tenderly.

"Patriarchs" are elder males of the family. It's interesting that the feud and oppression are merely shown through the males of the family.

From this alone, I could feel despair, regret, and the way that he is referred to the mind as a cellblock...whomever he is thinking of is infinitely existing inside of his soul. This description was deeply felt.

Although his father wasn't great, Max is still making progress while he's been there, even making his first communion. Max's dad seems to care about him, however, he didn't know how to go about caring for a child properly.

No matter what the moment was about, I believe that this was a way of bonding for the two of them, especially since the boy called the man "dad" as he hadn't done that before.

Bingo.

The boy is having to analyze every single aspect of his parents words to understand what would get him into trouble or not. He always needed to be many steps ahead of them in order to remain in their good graces. This is an exhausting skill that many children are forced to learn.

This is the illegal profession

Seems like a shady profession, especially because he didn't explicitly state what he was doing.

His father was out in the streets, chasing women in the midst of being thrown into fatherhood overnight.

Deflecting in the same way that the dismissal comes up consistently in families that are POC.

These are similar patterns shown by his mother.

The boy has been hurt before by another adult human that should have been taking care of him. But instead of loving his parents, he's only had the pleasure of studying and researching them because he doesn't want to do anything that will disappoint them or call attention to his imperfections.

Sweet boy. He cannot imagine his mom being that person because, to him, she seems so foreign in that way. He'd only known her in a struggling kind of way.

His mother and father are extremely similar in their parenting in that they leave him with money to fend for himself but leave him alone for long periods of time. They also both ensure that he doesn't open the door for anyone while they are away.

His mother shoved her child into the car of a person that didn't know her son's name.

Catholicism seems to be the traditional choice of practiced religion amongst Mexican-Americans.

First it was the bathroom and now it's also the kitchen. One should keep their room clean but common areas could and should be a communal chore.

Toxic masculinity. The denial of feelings and setting a timeline for his grief to be finished. Humans are not capable of shaking things off the way a bird may do so (in a physical sense)

There was no autonomy given. His mom was struggling so deeply with his addiction that he needed to get rid of him.

Everyone in the family knew what was going on, even him as a child who may not have had all of the contexts.

Dismissal. It's a common thing within the culture of families that are POC. We are told to be seen and not heard and to not ask why because it was talking back. Often times we are sent away when questions don't want to be answered.

What a burden it was for the author to have to parent their parent by doing things like suggesting she needs to go to the doctor and take care of her. What he didn't realize at the time was that his mother was probably struggling with some kind of addiction.

I love that they were made to learn English. I know that some families didn't want their children to learn the language.

We all have a specific language or tone indicator of when our humans (guardians and such) are being serious and when we need to be attentively listening. This seems to be a shared core memory for many.

I wonder what his mother did to make ends meet and if he ever saw his mother maybe leaving to go to work or doing gigs here and there.

It's interesting that this term is part of his core memory, especially since it was said during his childhood.

Remembering the name of a former teacher indicates the impact, whether it was good or bad, that their teacher had on them.

He's extremely empathetic and is experiencing his own grief and the grief of his partner.

Her family is traditional Catholic.

He's extremely empathetic and is experiencing his own grief and the grief of his partner.

He's not only grieving the loss of his daughter, but he's also grieving that his partner isn't outwardly showing her emotions in the same way his heart is.

Grief sometimes has a way of bringing people together or pulling them apart.

Displayed here is resentment towards his partner because she hasn't had to experience the deep waves of grief and consistent loss of loved ones. He's grieving so many people and he's grieving them all at different stages.

To me, this is indicating that he is consumed and filled with agonizing grief that he hasn't dealt with and simply doesn't know how. In the same way that he had to swallow the grief of his former lover.

His mental state is struggling but he is somehow spiritually connected to the land and those that have gone over are presenting themselves to him.

He is having some internal struggles that will eventually spill over into his external life.

Mockingbirds.

Depression.

Our experiences are deeply rooted in us and we carry them with us forever.

Sexuality is fluid.

Perhaps his family couldn't afford to send him back or he was inevitably being punished for what his family had found out.

The deep grief and sadness that he felt while having to suffer in silence must have been tumultuous.

It is clear that Abel's family had caught on to what was happening. Unfortunately, Abel had to suppress a part of himself to actually survive and physically stay alive. It's daunting.

As someone that is queer, I've experienced this kind of worry and homophobia because it is real. having to love in secret and behind closed doors is such a painful thing but in a way extremely fulfilling.

The terror that both of these young men felt for wanting to be true to themselves is earth shattering.

The author knows and understands love without boundaries and labels.

Now his manic and obsessive ways are coming together; he is still grieving his mother. The woman seems to sense his soul and can see in his eyes that he needs the love that she is giving.

This gives a vibe of a deep codependency that he has on his partner.

The whispers are alluding to some mental health issues that he may be struggling with, hence why he goes on the night drives.

Passing these on the road always leaves a pit feeling in my stomach, especially when the family presently there. It reminds me of the gratitude and appreciation for life that I have.

However, he seems to be also grieving in some way.

Resting spot/stop

He is keeping himself busy until his lover returns. He needs her near him at all times.

A beautiful depiction of a valley and how it sits.

This could have a dual meaning in a physical and spiritual sense.

Physically: in the valley, experiencing life in a space with the person he loves.

Spiritually: loving someone means embracing where they're from, the culture, and how that has shaped them into the person you love.

This is a very vivid way of painting the scene. You can feel the love, connection, and adoration that is shown here. I could almost see and taste every single word.

This description captured and connected to my inner child.

The intro is seemingly setting the tone of mystery and romantic mischievous. One would also assume that this was a woman speaking because of the soft and tender tone.