Time transcripts of jesssmalleditedmovie

[00:00:00:00]	[ Interviewer ] Okay. Can you tell us what your story is going to be about?

[00:00:03:08]	My story is going to be about, my experience with one of my favorite books of all time.

[00:00:08:19]	[ Interviewer ] Alright, and whenever you're ready you can share your story. 

[00:00:11:08]	Okay, the book that I'm going to be talking about is, Esther by Sharon E. Mckay

[00:00:17:09]	and I read this in fifth grade.

[00:00:21:01]	So, the first time that I read this I found it on my teachers shelf

[00:00:25:00]	and she kind of left it in a corner, nobody kind of touched it.

[00:00:29:08]	She had all these books on her shelves and we were allowed to take them to read them.

[00:00:34:02]	You know, encouraging us to read when we were younger.

[00:00:36:11]	And I found it, and originally I thought it was so cool cause I looked just like

[00:00:40:01]	the girl on the cover, but she had black hair cause she was Jewish.

[00:00:43:25]	But I swear it was exact resemblance.

[00:00:45:22]	So I mean, fifth grade self I'm like, obviously I'm going to read this book.

[00:00:48:17]	and so I picked it up, and I had no idea that it was going to be my favorite book

[00:00:54:03]	That it was going to change things, but... it's such a great book. 

[00:00:58:15]	It's about, it's a coming of age story. 

[00:01:02:20]	about a young, Jewish, French girl who grows up in essentially the ghetto.

[00:01:06:22]	Cause at that time, I believe in was in the eighteen hundreds, seventeen hundreds.

[00:01:10:23]	And they had Jewish people quartered off into Ghettos in France.

[00:01:15:01]	And so, it's about how, she is forced to marry a rag picker

[00:01:19:14]	But on her way to marry the rag picker the ship wrecks 

[00:01:22:25]	And she gets picked up by a Christian boy and she doesn't have time to explain she's Jewish.

[00:01:28:05]	So she has to pretend she's Christian. 

[00:01:29:28]	And then in order to make money she gets picked up by a courtison

[00:01:34:14]	which is a high class prostitute. In case you didn't know that.

[00:01:38:07]	So she pretends she's Christian and... she's like a courtison in waiting for this older women.

[00:01:44:23]	And finally she runs away and she pretends to be a boy, 

[00:01:48:19]	so that she can be a sailor on a ship.

[00:01:51:04]	And anyways the whole premise of the story is, is that she's in the new world.

[00:01:55:20]	She's in Canada she's at, I think it's James at that point.

[00:02:00:04]	And she's telling, the man there her story 

[00:02:03:18]	because she was found out on the way to America, to Canada... Canada now, and so.

[00:02:10:07]	But for me I loved it because, it showed,

[00:02:13:26]	for me that you can change things in your life how you want them to be. 

[00:02:17:26]	Like she grew up Jewish, and she had to pretend to be Christian,

[00:02:20:29]	and then she had to pretend to be a boy.

[00:02:23:10]	And she got pulled into all these different walks of life

[00:02:26:04]	Just because she had, accidentally come away from home, and I just.

[00:02:30:13]	It's such an adventurous story, like. 

[00:02:32:29]	For me I was eleven years old and reading this book.

[00:02:35:21]	I'm like, oh my gosh I want to be a sailor this is so cool, and.

[00:02:39:18]	So yeah, I fixated on being a sailor for a while after this book.

[00:02:42:28]	But (chuckle) after that, IÕve read it a few times since fifth grade and each time it just gets better

[00:02:49:03]	because, now when I read it I think about, oh, all of the like feminist ideals that I get out of it.

[00:02:54:29]	So I think about... umm... excuse me.

[00:02:59:03]	I think about how, by being a boy she was, you know, she was able to be more free,

[00:03:05:13]	and she was able to be a sailor, and she was able to, umm buy things with her own money

[00:03:11:12]	And she didn't have to have to be a lady in waiting. 

[00:03:13:20]	And she could choose her own religion, nobody really fussed with that. 

[00:03:17:05]	And so I think that's, now that I read it again I think that's more what I pulled from it.

[00:03:22:06]	But as my fifth grade self I just thought it was so cool, so adventurous.

[00:03:25:09]	And this girl she didn't want to marry and she was just so headstrong and so.

[00:03:29:26]	The reason that for me it's still so important, is because it's changed.

[00:03:33:28]	Like every time I read it, it's more important to me and I find something else that I just,

[00:03:37:25]	I find it applies to me at that point in my life. Yeah.

[00:03:42:21]	[ Interviewer ] Sorry. Do you think that, reading this book so young sort of influenced

[00:03:48:28]	who you were in high school and now in college.

[00:03:51:03]	Because, it kind of taught you to forge your own path? 

[00:03:55:04]	I think it might've. Because... she's just so adventurous

[00:04:01:20]	and it's just such a dramatic story, that I was just kind of like, I don't have to be content.

[00:04:09:04]	You know, just sitting around going to school and like sitting around all day.

[00:04:11:23]	It definitely opened my eyes to like more literature along those lines I think.

[00:04:16:16]	Not necessarily coming of age stories like this one is, but...

[00:04:20:24]	More... I would say more feminist geared literature. 

[00:04:26:00]	Fiction but still, guiding you toward that train of thought I think.

[00:04:30:28]	Yeah, so it's more shaped my thoughts than I would say my actions thus far.

[00:04:37:08]	[ Interviewer Yeah. ] Does that make sense?

[00:04:40:01]	[ Interviewer ] Was this book sort of, I mean obviously it wasn't in French,

[00:04:45:20]	 but it dealt with a French character. 

[00:04:48:11]	Yeah. [ Interviewer ] So as a fifth grader, do you feel like looking back on it,

[00:04:52:08]	 it might've started to influence you in your decision to be a French major?

[00:04:56:09]	Or do you think it was...

[00:04:56:26]	I... have been in love with France since I was in the second grade. 

[00:05:01:04]	So it's definitely part of my love story with the French culture. 

[00:05:06:04]	And I loved it too because, in the book they have like small italicized words in French and so. 

[00:05:13:01]	Especially now, like this year I just read it, and I'm like oh, I know what that means

[00:05:16:28]	like this is so cool, like I can read in French now and yeah.

[00:05:20:24]	And when I was younger I just... 

[00:05:23:13]	It definitely aided me, like connecting with that French culture

[00:05:26:28]	And then it was just so cool when like, she came to like, new America, and Canada.

[00:05:31:14]	And like, they were still speaking French but it was in new America

[00:05:35:01]	And like the difficulties she faced cause like, other people are speaking English.

[00:05:39:15]	And so like the language thing to, I don't know. I'm a linguistics major too, so yeah.

[00:05:44:06]	[ Interviewer ] Alright, well, thank you Jess for your narrative

[00:05:46:07]	Yeah, you're welcome.