Diane Wilson essay

Natalie Sangiacomo

“Diane’s Spoken and Written Word”

Diane Wilson, the author or An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift Texas, spoke to the Fairfield community on September 4, 2009 about her fight for environmental justice. After long hours of reading her book, I was intrigued by the opportunity to compare her written and spoken word. Although I admire Diane’s message and passion, her lack of public speaking skills, and a long overdue speech, left me leaving the convocation with information I already learned from her book.

As I was watching Diane speak to the crowd, her story seemed to come alive and the reality was palpable. Even though her speech was a summary of her book, her hand gestures, and stress on important words, made her more personable. Although Diane spoke with a fiery passion, her speech was often confusing and unclear at times. She used abbreviations, that she never explained to her audience, and dreaded on and repeated many of the same topics. People could tell simply by her way of speaking that just had a high school degree.

Throughout Diane’s speech, she encouraged her audience, especially women, to fight for what they’re passionate about. I attended a Jesuit high school and the Jesuit idea of being a person for others has made a huge impact on how I live my life. Throughout my high school experience I have become extremely passionate about supporting and helping the poor. I attended an Immersion trip with classmates to Costa Rica in 2008, in which I completed chores in the community and organized a children’s camp. I simply cared for and showed love to these children as a way of being a person for others. Many people can say they are a person for others, however it’s not until a person acts on the issue they’re passionate about can something be really be done.

After reading the book, I felt a lot of the information she presented was unnecessary. She wrote many chapters about her family, and her life in the past, which I thought were irrelevant. She improperly introduced characters without a clear description or minimum background information. Her book never had a clear flow of a story line, which made it even more difficult to read. She gave no outside opinion of her story, and solely told it from her point of view only.

Through Diane Wilson’s long speech and in depth writing , her struggle and message are now clearer than ever. Although her speech dragged on, and she repeated a majority of the facts that was in her book, it was a different way of learning and seeing things with a different perspective. Though I her story wasn’t entertaining, I thought her message and passion were inspiring.