Speech Assignment - Culture Research (Linda Knox)

A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.

There are more than one billion Hindus in the world, but for those who don't practice the faith, very little seems to be understood about it. Followers have not only built and sustained the world's largest democracy but have also sustained one of the greatest philosophical streams in the world for more than three thousand years. So, what makes a Hindu? Why is so little heard from the real practitioners of the everyday faith? Why does information never go beyond cliches? Being Hindu is a practitioner's guide that takes the reader on a journey to very simply understand what the Hindu message.

Surveys common street foods from more than 75 countries and regions across the globe. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide eat street food every day. Once associated with developing countries, street food has spread around the globe.

Mexican American folk and religious healing, often referred to as curanderismo, has been a vital part of life in the Mexico-U.S. border region for centuries. A hybrid tradition made up primarily of indigenous and Iberian Catholic pharmacopeias, rituals, and notions of the self, curanderismo treats the sick person with a variety of healing modalities including herbal remedies, intercessory prayer, body massage, and energy manipulation. Curanderos, "healers," embrace a holistic understanding of the patient, including body, soul, and community.

Intrigued by tales of his parents' long-ago journey to the pre-revolutionary "Pearl of the Antilles,"Byron Motley traveled to Cuba more than a decade ago and instantly fell in love. Year after year he has returned with his camera to explore its vistas, its people, and its spirit. Motley highlights the many ways in which Cubans retain and nourish their zest for life despite the scarcity of every day. Through his vivid photographs, readers discover the real Cuba: its heart-stopping architecture and infectious music, its cars seemingly teleported from the past, its love of baseball so fierce as to be nearly religious, and the joy of community and the unexpected juxtapositions of life in the last bastion of communism in the Western world.

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.

In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging. Finding that she misses her home more than she can stand, Marjane returns to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like-minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university. However, the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.

An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family's journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.

All cultures have tales of the trickster - a crafty creature or being who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. He disrupts the order of things, often humiliating others and sometimes himself. In Native American traditions, the trickster takes many forms, from coyote or rabbit to raccoon or raven. The first graphic anthology of Native American trickster tales,

When Sarah Glidden took a "Birthright Israel" tour, she thought she knew what she was getting herself into. But when she got to Israel, she found that things weren't quite so simple. This book is Sarah's memoir not only of her Israeli government-sponsored trip through Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Masada and other famous locations, but of the emotional journey she never expected to take while she was there. Her experience clashes with her preconceived notions again and again, particularly when she tries to take a non-chaperoned trip into the West Bank. Sarah is forced to question first her political beliefs and then her own sense of identity, until she finds that to understand Israel she first must come to understand herself