John Fantes: Ask The Dust

John Fantes: Ask The Dust In Ask the Dust, Los Angeles has a false stereotype of fame and fortune. Arturo tries to fulfill this desire by quickly spending his sparse income on a lavish lifestyle before being broke again. As the book progresses, each paycheck Arturo receives is a small stepping stone for him to learn from his financial mistakes, preparing him to be financially smart in the Los Angeles workforce. The first paycheck Arturo receives is ten dollars from an insurance policy his mother cashed in. Dearest Mother , Thanks for the ten dollar bill à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it will come in handy for various odds and ends. Ask the Dust, page 21. Arturo quickly spends $9.10 in one night at a burlesque show and on a prostitute, leaving him ninety cents for the bleak future to come. The second paycheck Arturo receives wasnt expected by any means. A letter he wrote to the Editor-In-Chief J.C. Hackmuth, is developed into a short story (The Long Lost Hills ) and printed in the magazine for $175.00. At the rate of inflation that paycheck in todays economy is the proportion of $3,000. Arturo, trying to fulfill his own stereotype of being a successful Los Angelino immigrant, squanders his paycheck on a lavish lifestyle and delusions of grandeur. The third and final paycheck we see is the paycheck for Arturos novel, The Story of Vera Rivken, $500.00 paid to Arturo Bandini. At this point, Arturo has made an abundant amount of financial mistakes. The fame and fortune that Los Angeles promises was finally his and now he was financially responsible enough to not squander it. Arturo spends his money more wisely this time around, a 10 year old used Ford is the extent of his expenditures. When Arturo and Camilla buy a pure white collie, he cringes at the idea of spending twen ty five dollars. In the context of the situation, he isnt cheap but isnt throwing his money away either. The fact that Arturo has been contracted for his book exemplifies that he has succeeded as a writer. His being able to overcome the urge to squander his $500.00 is an example of how he succeeded in overcoming the false hope of Los Angeles. In Ask the Dust there is an exact image all the immigrants have in mind when they speak of Los Angeles, the land of promise, prospect, and new beginnings. Although this dream did come true for Arturo, it did take him a lot of work and hardships in order to get there. Arturo thought it was going to be easier due to the booster propaganda that was advertised. Arturo and Camillas constant work ethic are prime examples of how you can make it in Los Angeles, although the vices of Los Angeles (i.e, marijuana, delusions of grandeur) can pull you back down to the poverty level. Catherine Kordich states in her article Border Dust that these booster posters and propaganda were aimed at a receptive audience , leading Midwesterners to believe that living in Los Angeles is easy. The majority of immigrants that make the journey down to Los Angeles were able to keep a few dollars in their pocket so they could still keep the Los Angeles dream alive. Then you have a struggling writer like Arturo Bandini who finally writes his novel and makes $500.00 for it. The posters used are quite simple now that we can look back on it ( works cited booster photo example ). The poster shows a playful Latina holding up the sun. She has a bright yellow two piece on as she frolics through the tiny missions and downtown Los Angeles coastline. Now, this poster dream is what lures in the immigrants west. Its the bait and switch routine. When Arturo gets to his room in the Alta Loma he has an awe inspired moment. He sees his first palm tree and thinks of Egypt, Palm Sunday, and Cleopatra. This is obviously a representation of his delusions of grandeur. He sees Los Angeles holding the Palm Trees praising him like Jesus or Cleopatra. He then has a harsh realization that the palms are covered in soot from the carbon monoxide from the tunnel and its crusted trunk choked with dust and sand that blew in from the Mojave and Santa Ana deserts. Ask the Dust, page 16. In that moment he realizes this isnt what he saw in the ad, a tiny room , soot covered palm trees, dust rolling in from the desert. As the story progresses, his image of Los Angeles gets more and more corrupted, starting off with the palms trees and progressing to the marijuana club. Arturo gives a good insight into the real Los Angeles Youll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotelsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. But youll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine. Ask the Dust, page 46. Arturo has come to the realization that there is false hope in Los Angeles. He is about to ask his mother for money to go back home before he gets an unexpected check from Hackmuth. There have been several examples of immigrants going back home to their state of origin, the Memphis kid , an ugly young man trying to find love in all of Los Angeles, eventually giving up and moved back to Tennessee. Under the Booster poster illustrations there is a mass of immi grants like Arturo trying to get back home realizing they have made a huge mistake in having hope for Los Angeles. The boosters and propaganda that led Arturo to the beautiful Los Angeles were paid advertisements in order to create a metropolis on the west coast. The answer to a majority of problems is always money. When Arturo makes the decision to come to Los Angeles to concentrate on his writing, the outcome would be fame and fortune. David Fine goes into the background of this ideal Los Angeles in his book, Imagining Los Angeles : A city in fiction. The background to this idea was created by many writers and entrepreneurs dating back to about 1880 when writers were creating a myth to reconstruct history in a more positive light. Giving the missions a noble and positive meaning and reinvigorating the Native American culture. Harrison Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Daily times , made an empire out of land and worked hard to make the Los Angeles Daily Times a reputable newspaper. He got an aqueduct built over 240 miles in order to bring flowing water to Los Angeles. Since he owned a massive amount of land that he paid basically nothing for, he made amazing amounts of profits in just about two years from immigrants buying property . He was a millionaire and built a metropolis to do so. Is it ethical to create a metropolis and give false hope to immigrants? Many would say no. But in Arturo Bandinis case, like many others, he was quite successful in creating a new life for himself in Los Angeles. By the end of Ask the Dust we see Arturo succeed in his dream, he writes a novel , has a beautiful Mexican girlfriend , and even has a pup name Willie. Los Angeles gives false hope to all immigrants. So as quick as Arturo is instilled with hope, it is quickly taken away. For a majority of immigrants, the hope in traveling to Los Angeles is to have a new beginning, fame, fortun , and love . Arturo Bandini is obsessed with the idea of fame and fortune. He has an irrational fear of women, because he has never been with one. When he meets fellow immigrant Camilla Lopez, he has a strong love hate relationship with her. In the beginning of the book, his delusions of grandeur make him feel superior to her in every way. As the book progresses and they actually spend more time together, he realizes Sammy, the bartender with tuberculosis , is Camillas love interest. Although Sammy does not love Camilla, they are all intertwined in seeking out Love as their hopeful Los Angeles dream. Arturo always has his fame and fortune to occupy himself when Camilla is on his mind. Although when he finally publishes his book and succeeds in his dream, all he can think about is Camilla. Since Camilla has had a nervous breakdown and gone missing, Arturo becomes frantic to please her. The story seems to come to the end when Arturo, Camilla, and their pup Willie move into a beach house in Laguna. When Arturo comes back shes gone. He tracks her down to Sammys shack in the desert. He informs Arturo that Camilla and the dog walked over the ridge and into the empty desert. Frantically Arturo gives up hope after searching for her. This entire sad ending relates to the false hope given by the Los Angeles dream. Camilla cannot find happiness with Sammy or Arturo, so she reverts back to her native land from which she came. There is 100 miles of desert so its highly unlikely she survived. She gave up hope for her Los Angeles dream. Arturo, on the other hand, realized what actually matters in his life, his Los Angeles dream was always Camilla Lopez. Los Angeles A False Hope By Matthew Caire Works Cited Page Fante, John. Ask the Dust. Harper Collins Publishers. New York, NY 1939. Fine, David. Imagining Los Angeles : A City in Fiction. University of Nevada Press. Reno, Nevada 2000 Kordich, Catherine J. John Fantes Ask the Dust: A Border Reading. Maskers and Tricksters 20 (1995): 17-26 Kellogg, Carolyn. John Fantes Ask the Dust grows with time. Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Ca 2009 Southern California United Airlines. Illustration . Southern California United Airlines Partnership Working in Health and Social Care | Essay Partnership Working in Health and Social Care | Essay Ololade Abasa Summary of Report This report looks at how partnership working is developed, the benefits and legislation governing partnership relationship in the UK. And how there is now a shift from professional to patient autonomy. Health and social care is a vast service sector undergoing rapid change, with new government initiatives giving it a higher profile than ever. The report is a brief overview and not in depth focussing on the main points and benefits of collaborative working and the sharing of information with some focus on Stafford hospital following the Francis report. A working or collaborative partnership or partnership in general could be defined as â€Å"two or more independent bodies working together or collectively to achieve more efficient outcomes than could be possible by working individually or separately† (Joint improvement team 2009). When two people come together to share risks and profits in a business for the good of others. (The concise English dictionary 1992). The focus today in frontline health and social care is on giving service-users more independence, choice and control. These developments mean there’s greater demand for well-trained multi-agency and multi-skilled collaboration of team’s organizations and people across a range of services giving more opportunities and choice to service users. In this report will focus among other things, looking into working in partnership in the health and social sector in general and some philosophies, concepts, relationships, models and legislation of collaborative and working in partnership. Different working practices exist across the health and social care sector, which will be part of what this report will also look into briefly with what may be perceived to be barriers to developing an effective partnership relationship within the health and social care sector and strategies that can be developed to improve or overcome these barriers. Concepts of Partnership Working For partnership in health and social sector to be successful in delivering services to service users there has to be co-ordination, co-operation and most importantly clear communication between partners for the partnership to survive. This did not seem to be the case (in our case study) at the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust Stafford hospital in 2007 which led to the public enquiry in 2010 by Robert Francis QC. (The Francis Report). Some of the philosophies and concepts of working in partnership that will be discussed are: Power sharing Autonomy Making informed choices Independence Empowerment: Respect. this is giving health care users the choice or opportunity to take care of their health decisions and control their lives if they are capable of doing so (Gibson 1991) patients do have a right to information and choices offered to them.(National Health Care in England (NHS2013)) Health care staff should be encouraged to listen and be involved in decision making that involve their patients’ health care treatment. Patients unable to make informed choices or decisions regarding their health and treatment should be accorded respect and dignity, by health care professionals who take on such decisions with the patients interests at heart. (Mental Capacity 2005) Autonomy allows the decision as to will see or attend to their treatment requirements and processes with little or no interference from health care professionals. Autonomy basically gives most of the power of decision making and choice to the patient. Independence relates to freedom being accorded to service users to feel free in the health and care setting. Service users are allowed privacy and the opportunity to take care of themselves as they desire provided they have the mental capacity and ability to do so. Health care professionals are duty bound to provide up-to-date information to service users regarding patient’s treatment and care and any risks relating to their welfare. (Care Quality Commission). Collaboration is the lynchpin to power sharing this involves organizations collaborating for a common purpose this enables a common understanding of duties to share and achieve set objectives in a partnership (Gallant et al. 2002). Respect focusses on offering service users the choice to decide on aspects of their care or health with minimum intervention (Health and social Act 2008) and fairly without any discrimination (Equality Act 2010). Partnerships have become more necessary today in the health and social care sector, service users issues which atimes could be complex in nature requiring input from a number of professionals and services is more important when designing services than the traditional, centralizing distinctions between community nurses and social workers, or community justice workers and social workers. Different areas and sections of the society have their specific needs and requirements prevalent to the area, for example Enfield may require more specialized care for elderly people than neighbouring or other areas. Also a service user with a health issue may need a particular type of care package that was previously available or provided by the national health service and social services, in the new way of working together the health and social care could come together in partnership to provide a seamless or a one stop shop which meets the needs of service users. Needs over time could change in the s ame area that traditionally provide a specific service, partnerships may be formed to respond to these type of changes and flexibility. (Aldridge, N. 2005) Models of Partnership From time to time it will become necessary to evaluate the partnership relationship, there should always be a care and backup plan should something go wrong. An effective joint contribution can have positive impacts on service users and providers of services. These were some of the factors that were not implemented or ignored among many others at the Stafford hospital. The Green paper, every child matters, was published by the government in 2003, with a view to safeguard and support young people in need of help and at risk. (Children Act 2004). Under section 18 of the children act 2004, the director of children services has the responsibility of ensuring that local authorities meet specific duties (Department of Education 2013). According to health and social care act 2008/12. Local authorities should work together in partnership with education , health and social care organization to support vulnerable service users by making sure health care workers are properly trained and valued, deal with core problems and intervene to protect children before a crisis situation gets out of control. (Susan Balloch, 2001) Figure 1 (Health Social Care Partnership Model) Figure 1 above shows a typical model of a partnership working across the health and social care. The hybrid model among other models applicable that shows different partnership functioning in an organization, is likened to an umbrella for some models with organizations working tactically in combination with other models to achieve the best services. This was not the case at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Stafford hospital) according to the Francis report, where corporate self-interest and cost control were put ahead of patients and their safety, a lack of care, compassion, humanity and clear leadership. With the most basic standards of care not observed. The failure of collaborative working and an effective partnership model working effectively and efficiently across the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust have identified a number of barriers to establishing effective professional partnership. (Babington and Charley, 1990). There could be other barriers, for example health professionals not sharing the same goals, lack of communication, an organization feeling superior to the other for various reasons. (Scott Reeves, 2010) Legislation for Partnerships Legislation is, ‘’Law which has been enacted by parliament† or a governing body, and a Policy the statement of an agreed intent that sets out an organisations’ views with respect to a particular practice. Setting out principles and rules that provide the direction for an organisation to follow. A Practice is the step-by-step method of implementation of the policy and responsibility. The current and relevant legislation for organisation practice, policies and procedure affecting partnership working in health and social care include: Equality Act 2010, Care Standard Act 2000, Disability Discrimination Act 2005. Care Standards Act (2000) (England and Wales) Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), the act ensures that any working environment should be safe and free from hazards for both employers and employees. Human Rights Act (1998), empowers individuals if they feel unfairly treated can resort to court action. Manual Handling Regulations (1992), covers the safe moving and handling of equipment, loads and patients. Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (1995) (RIDDOR) In the scenario case of the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust at the Stafford hospital in 2007, there was enough legislation in place at the time to have prevented the incidents and scandal that took place in at the hospital at the time. But working practices and policies were lacking, relaxed not in place or plainly ineffective or not in force or enforced. (Susan Balloch, 2001) Effects of Negative Working Partnerships Hospital management and staff, nurses etc, mental health and GPs, social services care and service users, and so on, all within the health and social care sector. The differences in working practices across the health and social care sector cannot be more pronounced in the negative impact it can bring more than what has been seen and the numerous scandals and mistakes that happened at the Stafford hospital Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust, where patients were left unattended, patients drinking from flower vases. There was no collaborative working practices in place, where the planning process should involve a number of practices and practitioners working together (cited in the oxford university press 1996 pg. 317). Professionals and organizations should be working together, for example GPs (general practitioners) first point of call for patients health problems, Support workers, bringing some form of independence to vulnerable service users by helping and support of vulnerable service users and recommending available services. A disjointed service sector with different working practices not harmonised can not only be very ineffective, wasteful and more expensive but can also end up to be dangerous to service users, in the absence of any form of follow up and or expertise which may well be available but not accessed or utilised. The Team Ro les that Meredith Belbin identified are widely used in organisations. They are used to identify peoples behavioural strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. This information can be used to: Build productive working relationships Select and develop high-performing teams Raise self-awareness and personal effectiveness Build mutual trust and understanding Aid recruitment processes (Evans, D. Killoran, A. 2000) Case Study When most a times outcomes of partnerships are scrutinized or looked at it often almost involve a tragic case, in this report I have been looking at the tragic case of a patient which I refer to as patient A. which prompted a case review in Greater Manchester. A Multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational partnership with good communication and relationships with organizations and people from different disciplines will enlarge the efficiency and size of the service team to service users which allows for a holistic approach and responsiveness to service delivery, better value for money with reduced duplication of services. Looking again at our case scenario of patient A, (a 64 year old male) who was not mentally and physically able to defend himself, and made few demands on the health and social care services for support and did not have much support considering his condition to exercise control over his own life, the outcome of these failure in partnership was that patient A was not empowered to make choices and neither were the professionals supposed to be on the lookout for vulnerable people empowered with responsibilities or resources to make necessary changes, and neither the health professionals get to understand the issues or get involved fully and should be accountable for lack of action. There was no body or institution tasked to monitor situations adequately leading to no proper assessment of the situation even by psychological professional services, these outcomes can also be attributed lack of proper information gathering and sharing which led to exclusion of necessary and important partici pants, contributors and help to give patient A that was readily available due to lack of a clear leadership, clarity of role and a unified information and management system. For positive outcomes in partnerships and to provide person centred care it is essential that communication between interagencies, individuals, key people, service users family and friends, G.Ps, nurses, opticians, dentists, Physiotherapists, O.Ts, psychologists etc. to be really effective. Any barriers to communication should be minimised to ensure good communications. There should be an opening of a subject to widespread discussion and debate to enable the communication of ideas to all those working together in the partnership, so that they can be used and lead to change. This should be an on-going activity which is used to inform changes to policies and procedures within the workplace and involves the sharing of good practice leading to reduced professional isolation. (Frances Sussex, 2008) Barriers to Effective Partnerships While working in partnership is significantly crucial and important in the health and social care sector, working in collaboration and partnership across various agencies can be a daunting task, as there need to be an understanding of respective duties, roles, and organizational structure of different professionals, agencies and their language, therefore this could frustrating and be a barrier that could lead to poor communication and misunderstanding, coupled with the fact of having to deal with different legislations, funding streams, professional complexes and organizational structures. Where there is a perception of superiority differences in status between individuals or partners in a partnership, this creates a barrier for a proper partnership relationship. There could be ways in which the above stated barriers could be overcome. The sharing of objectives, goals and outcomes. Sharing information and the use of a standard and common terminology. Meetings not being too formal and joint team building activities. Having joint training and face to face working. A full commitment to the partnership relationship with a clear demarcation of roles. (Hudson, B. 2002) If we look at one of the above points for example having joint training and face to face working will create a closer relationship and understanding in partnership relationships by reducing formality, improving understanding among partners, and an opportunity to bring up any problems or issues that may require resolving. Recommmendations Having looked at the issues relating to patient A, published in the Guardian newspaper of Friday 12 March 2010 a Serious Case Review such as that of Adult A gives an invaluable lesson to be learnt in what can be done to prevent such incidents and tragedies. A range of strategies need to be considered to improve outcomes and partnership working. Professionals working in different health and social care services have a shared responsibility to know what their role is individually within any partnership, with measures to be taken jointly or individually to protect vulnerable people from preventable harm. Before dwelling on inter-agency co-operation and participation, it is important to consider the promotion, participation and empowerment of the service user. The effectiveness of interagency collaboration and information sharing can be diminished and less productive if the service user does not feel part of the process and the chances of a successful outcome will be significantly reduced. Hence it will be produce a better outcome to work in partnership with carers, families, advocates and other people who are sometimes called significant others. In order to work well in partnership, there has to be good communication and you will need to have good communication skills. Some suggested strategies for an improved and positive outcome for an effective and productive partnership in the health and social services are to: Analyse the importance of working in partnership with others. Develop procedures for effective working relationships with others. Agree common objectives when working with others within the boundaries of own role and responsibilities. Evaluate procedures for working with others. Deal constructively with any conflict that may arise with others. (Department of Health (DH) 2007) Conclusion In conclusion, having looked at the issues at the Stafford hospital coupled with the issue of patient A in Manchester, the factors that have impacted the hospitals could be looked at as down to lack of the full and proper training coupled with effective implementation of partnership with relevant bodies like the voluntary sector and families. 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