Excerpts from Johnny Cash's private Journal

From the Private journal of Johnny Cash

-Sometime in 1954-

Luther, Marshall and I have just finished the Hey Porter track for Sun Records, Sam was very pleased with the work we did, he said it was several steps ahead of our gospel songs. I agree with him to an extent, I fear I am slowly slipping further from my beginning, I hope my Mother is still pleased with how I’ve done. I have this thought of a song, there is a woman in my life I just got to stop spending time with her, I’m sure many others have been in the same spot as I am in. A girl that is always begging me to come back when I’m gone but when I’m there all she does is lie, lie, lie. If I leave I bet she’ll cry, cry, cry. That’s it I’ve got to start writing.

Sam was ecstatic its now the B-side for Hey Porter, It hits home for me and I hope that others might have a similar view of how some women are, especially down here in the south.

Copies are flying off the shelves. Tens of thousand of copies nearly 100,000 sold, they are sellin like biscuits on chilly November day.

-Sometime in late 1960’s-

Folsom prison, we are all feeling trapped by our constraints of life and due to our somewhat lower economical standing then others. As I fell further from home I feel as if I have straid from the path as many of us due, the path we were set by our family and parents we don’t seem to realize the righteousness and carrying of our parents and how they set out to benefit us to the best of their extent. We all feel the pain, the trapped jail nature of life slowly squeezing every ounce of will we have left in our souls. In many respects there might not be a path out that we can reach however we have to try, and dream for the best a pray one day we might end up as some of those rich folks in their fancy cars.

-Sometime in early 1994-

My life has been full of pain, I have pushed those who are closeted to me I have lived a life of pain and regret all the drugs and women ive had has become to much for me. I am worth nothing my legacy is a mountain of dirt for my children, Oh god what have I become. Everyone I no just goes away in the end, I am such a disappointment, Oh if ONLY I COULD START AGAIN.

I hope others can find some relation in my next song, it is about the pain and Hurt I have experience and how it has affect all of those closest to me in my life.

I fear I have little time left, but I welcome death and shall not fear leaving for the final time. The darkness is nothing new to me and that has always been the case.

Speak Good by Julio Hernandez

As immigrants in the USA my family often ran into hard times in regards to being accepted socially however luckily there were many other immigrants from Mexico, typically running small stores for produce or other forms of “comida”. When we first came I was very young only three or four years of age “mis padres y hermanos” were much older than I and remember how It was like to come into this country. They always had comical stories of how “Los Americanos” spoke Spanish, they would be saying things like “Me lamo” or “Tengo an-os” just thinking of it brings tears to my eyes.

To give some more background we moved from Mexico City all the way to Ohio, which is a state next to the great lakes and is quite north in respects to the USA. This mean there was a great climate change for us, on average every winter it got well below 0 degrees. However, It didn’t bother me I was always intrigued by the snow and its wondrous properties it always glistened even when it appeared that there was no “sol”around. My family weren’t very rich so we had to live in “un casa pequena” we were happy to be there and have such a wonderful opportunity, however some were not too keen on us being there.

Due to my family living in Mexico for most of their lives they developed a strong accent and way of speaking that carried through to english or any other language they were trying to learn. “Mis hermanos” had a very hard time in school learning English and often were made fun of with words like “Beaner” or “Alien” I never understood why so much hatred could be focused on others just because of their speech. There was one time when “mi hermano mayor” tried to asked a student what the homework was after he had been absent the day prior. This did not please the other student who unleashed a verbal barrage of how he wouldn't be associated with the likes of some beaner who couldn't “speak good”. This boy was from the inner city as many of the other students were, however he also spoke of his discrimination because of his skin, that I couldn’t comprehend at the time. Why would someone be discriminated by their identity, by who they are as a person, and if was truly discriminated then why was starting the same vicious cycle against my brother.

This wasn’t only one of many occasions where “mi familia” was hated or hurt by others because we couldn’t “speak good”. Luckily I wasn’t old enough for elementary school when we arrived so I attended preschool and kindergarten where we were not separated by our race, language or even appreciations in life. We were all together in such an infant state where we weren’t influenced by others on what we can and can’t do or believe. But, even that enjoyment wouldn’t last in the ladder of kindergarten I started to notice changes in my friends and fellow students, one by one they started to split off into interest groups, and then by race and finally by language. Once again I was lucky because my brain was still not molded into a strict pattern I was capable of socializing with both Spanish and English speaking students. Some were not as lucky typically outcasted in the playground and shunned from any group, these were the non-christians and the non-english speakers. Lost amongst the crowds incapable of socializing.

There was a girl, she was unfortunately cursed to bear the cross of not “speaking good”, I started to notice her around February always in a corner or in the shadows, I never saw her with friends or talking with anyone, she had long hair a brown eyes the size of those huge bouncy balls. I only saw her look up and immediately run away after I attempted to approach her one day, she seemed very she and didn’t seem like she even wasn’t friends. It was almost as if she accepted to pain and knew only that pain of loneliness and discrimination from those who claim to feel the pain and seek out to stop it.

That day I realized no matter who you are and how kind or nice you may be you will be incapable of appreciation unless you “Speak Good”.

Stereotypes and Issues of communications

Stereotypes a subject I truly have a fascinations with, this started when as a very Germanic looking child I was made fun of for being Mexican, which prior to this provocation I was always proud of being Mexican. However, unlike many other people I have met while abroad I did not struggle or suffer from stereotypes that non-mother tongue English speakers did.

In the Essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan she brings up the issue that society has against non-native English speakers, through the trial and tribulations her mother faces on a daily bases.  A few examples from the text was when on page 3, paragraph 2 when Amy talks about how she would have to help her mother with business negotiations at a very young age because her mother could not be “understood”. Another example is on the same page, ad in paragraph 4 when there was a medical issue and the doctors and nurses would not answer her questions because they supposedly could not understand her despite her being clear with an obvious question about a possible tumor. It took Amy being an intermediary or “Translator” to convince the medical professionals to allow for further information to be given.

In the US alone a census taken in 2011 showed that 60 million people speak a different language then English at home weather it was their first language or not there is still a large population that are second langue English speakers. These people typically go about their day very normally and hardly run into any issues when it comes to functioning properly with basic daily tasks. However, on some occasions especially with major events like medical or financial striates, this has occurred a variety of times with my mother in the USA and in the UAE.

In the USA it wasn’t such an issue because most people are used to and hear lots of Hispanic languages and naturally are raised around it so they can understand and comprehend the message the person is attempting to get across. Or you can heir people who specifically speak the two languages they do, my parents did this with their account, hiring a Portuguese speaking accountant. This went very well however, when we moved to the UAE my mother had countless issues with bank tellers understanding her speech, this was mainly due to them constantly refusing to give her information because she was female. Though they stopped doing this after the first year, allowing my mother to ask for information, but this did not stop the underlying issue of my mother’s accent adjusting her speech. This ended up in many heated rants at tellers who were to afraid to ask her to repeat herself or just didn’t want to spend the effort because they might have assumed she was of lower authority then themselves.

Stereotypes and Issues of communications

Stereotypes a subject I truly have a fascinations with, this started when as a very Germanic looking child I was made fun of for being Mexican, which prior to this provocation I was always proud of being Mexican. However, unlike many other people I have met while abroad I did not struggle or suffer from stereotypes that non-mother tongue English speakers did.

In the Essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan she brings up the issue that society has against non-native English speakers, through the trial and tribulations her mother faces on a daily bases.  A few examples from the text was when on page 3, paragraph 2 when Amy talks about how she would have to help her mother with business negotiations at a very young age because her mother could not be “understood”. Another example is on the same page, ad in paragraph 4 when there was a medical issue and the doctors and nurses would not answer her questions because they supposedly could not understand her despite her being clear with an obvious question about a possible tumor. It took Amy being an intermediary or “Translator” to convince the medical professionals to allow for further information to be given.

In the US alone a census taken in 2011 showed that 60 million people speak a different language then English at home weather it was their first language or not there is still a large population that are second langue English speakers. These people typically go about their day very normally and hardly run into any issues when it comes to functioning properly with basic daily tasks. However, on some occasions especially with major events like medical or financial striates, this has occurred a variety of times with my mother in the USA and in the UAE.

In the USA it wasn’t such an issue because most people are used to and hear lots of Hispanic languages and naturally are raised around it so they can understand and comprehend the message the person is attempting to get across. Or you can heir people who specifically speak the two languages they do, my parents did this with their account, hiring a Portuguese speaking accountant. This went very well however, when we moved to the UAE my mother had countless issues with bank tellers understanding her speech, this was mainly due to them constantly refusing to give her information because she was female. Though they stopped doing this after the first year, allowing my mother to ask for information, but this did not stop the underlying issue of my mother’s accent adjusting her speech. This ended up in many heated rants at tellers who were to afraid to ask her to repeat herself or just didn’t want to spend the effort because they might have assumed she was of lower authority then themselves.

Name(s)

My name, your name, and all others are used to identify everything, from a person, object, creature or place. Names Everyone has one typically given to them by the parents or guardians in regards to first names at birth, and possibly by others in the public in regards to nicknames. Each of these names either occurred from events based on actions of the person or individual events themselves, such as Raphael the painter from the renaissance could have his name given to the son of an artist. The specific origin of certain names is disputed widely throughout different communities who claim the origin they know and are more assured of in that community. Basically in Italy a child might be named Raphael after the painter, and a child born into a Roman Catholic family might name their son Raphael after the Archangel.

            My name Rafael, the one name only 1 in 10 people will spell or pronounce the first time they meet me, I’m unfortunately being honest on this matter eating at any fast food restaurant means by the time I receive my meal I will have a new name. Whether my name is Raphael, Rapheal, Reafal I’ve just learned to identify with any name that starts with an R. But when I’m with my family I go by Raf or Rafael after one of my thousands of relatives, I never really met the guy, or am I 100% certain that I was named after him *shrug*. I guess the other alternative is Rafael or Raphael, which is from Judaism or Catholicism. Raphael is an Archangel, the name directly translates into “Healer from God”, No pressure right? So basically I was told that when I was very young so in some ways I guess it made me slightly paranoid and very conscious of my actions around others.

            I felt for the majority of my life was spent trying to help others and overly concerning about others lives and their well being. In the past year and a half I just started to care about myself and others in proper proportions. My whole life was shaped by my name and the meaning behind it and it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized that it did.