Well, Writing 140 is over, thus ending the classes of second semester for me.
I'll admit, the class was a real pain at times; I think we all felt the pressure and stress of having essay after essay due. Some of us probably think that it was a complete waste of time, others may just be glad that its over.
As for me, I agree that this class was really intensive. Lots of late nights typing at this computer, researching online and at the library, going to the writing center, it was work. And it was painful, and hard and annoying and there were times when it was 5:30 am and I heard the birds chirping and I just wanted to break down and cry.
But you know what, we finished and we survived. We are no where near done turning out papers. Everyone here is going to have to write more essays for at least the next 4 years guaranteed. It's a fact of life. So I think this was a good breaking in, really getting me used to writing and developing an argument. Even though I didnt necessarily improve grade wise throughout the semester, I feel like I've learned a lot about writing, time management, and diligence. So I guess Iwhat 'm saying is thank you, Saba. Thanks for holding in there because I know you put in a lot of work into this class as well.
But for real, i am SOOO happy that this class is over! now all I have to do is turn in a 30 page paper for my COMM class by Wednesday. And y'all think you have it bad.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Blog 13- Mixed Well
Heres my final essay, incase anyone wants to read it. Its pretty personal and surprisingly came at a time when i really needed to do some self reflection.
Mixed Well: Finding my Ethnic Identity
“What are you?” “What’s your background?” “Are you part Asian?” “Where are you from?” “You’re mixed, aren’t you?” I hardly take offense when people fire these questions at me. I am quite used to it actually; the race question almost always gets mixed into my conversations with new acquaintances. When people ask, it shows that they are interested in learning more about who I am, how I define myself and on what levels we can relate. However, the complications arise when people start asking questions so they can intentionally bump me into a preconceived, stereotypical category. The truth is that the typical aspects of my identity are not easy to stuff into one of these categories when my character consists of several dualities. I am Amanda and Ashley, Korean and White, Protestant and Catholic. I speak English and Spanish, lived in America and Argentina, reside in Pleasanton and Los Angeles. I am a dancer, a leader, a tennis player, a student, a server, a funny, compassionate and motivated person. All these words help define who I am. However, the more I mature and develop my character, the more I realize how conditional these words that describe me are. Once I get married, I can change my last name. I will not always be a student or live in my current house. As I grow older, I will gain and lose friends, maybe pick up another language or two, become too stiff to continue dancing, and might learn to be more tranquil and reserved. And although right now I am fervently passionate in my Christian beliefs, I realize that even that could change. So then the big question comes up: who am I really?
Out of all of the descriptions I have mentioned, the only one that will not physically change is my ethnicity. However, as I reflect on the past eighteen years of my life and the short time that I have spent pioneering this fresh college environment, I recognize the fact that we are constantly discovering, determining and redefining our understanding of our ethnic identity.
Besides the few years I spent living abroad in Buenos Aires, I have been raised in a quaint suburban city called Pleasanton. The population consists of predominantly white middle class yuppies that typically engage in the daily activities of mall runs, grocery shopping, hauling kids from soccer practice to piano lessons, attending weekly town meetings, hosting summer barbeques and of course, attending the annual county fair. This is the typical setting in which I grew up; although I recognized my Asian background since I was a child I considered myself simply American. You may not believe it, but racial diversity does exist in good old Pleasanton (you can even find a few black people if you look hard enough). However, suburban cities like this are covered with a false sense of unity caused by the colorblindness that blankets the neighborhood.
This environment, combined with my almost culture-less nurturing caused me to grow up very Americanized, or more commonly known as “white-washed”. Being second generation, my mother has a minimal Korean vocabulary. As a result, I have no knowledge of the language, have never visited the continent of Asia and am oblivious to many Korean traditions and celebrations. One of the only Korean cultural aspects I grew up with was Korean food, thanks to my grandma. While my mom raised us on the “luxurious” foods of the microwave, my grandmother satisfied our starving taste buds with delicious kimchee, galbi, bulgogi and naengmyeon dishes.
In high school I had a wide variety of friends. But after I made some of my closest friendships with Asian Americans, I began to notice how I acted differently when I was with these friends. Although I was not raised with a strong consciousness for Asian culture, I soon found myself relating to their appearances, mannerisms and dispositions. I felt special and distinct from the city’s monotonous lifestyle and we began considering ourselves the “novelties” of Pleasanton. I exerted strong sentiments of Asian pride by appropriating or taking fragments of the Korean ethnicity and botching them together to help define a newly discovered portion of my identity. And I clearly remember checking Asian American on all of my AP tests and SATs. I might have not felt complete by checking that oversimplified box, but I felt like I identified with that group the most. Was I in for a culture shock.
Once I moved into the International Residential College at USC, I met people from around the world. The more I began to learn about these worldly students from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, my strong identification to the Asian community received a good kick in the face. Who was I kidding? I am not “Asian” compared to these people.
Soon, I became an active member of the InterVarsity Trojan Christian Fellowship, a community that is dominated by “ABC’s”, or American-Born-Chinese. Even though I didn’t share the same backgrounds and experiences with the majority, I was openly welcomed into this group. And as much as I would like to disbelieve it, I have a hunch that my physical looks contributed to my easy acceptance. Even if I do not look fully Asian, my dark straight hair and brown almond eyes have helped to shape my identity. In the book I am currently reading called Check All that Apply, biracial author Sundee Tucker Frazier claims that “our identity is affected by how others reflect ourselves back to us, what they do and don’t remark on, and the content of those remarks” (Frazier 36). What we look like and how others perceive and define us have impacts on how we are treated and how we view ourselves. For the most part, my new friends saw me as Asian, so I embraced that perception and let them submerge me into their world of dim sum, Korean soap operas, J-Pop and Chinese markets.
Although many incidences built up to the milestone in the development of my identity, I believe it was a specific moment during Spring Break that launched my major epiphany. I was sitting in my room with one of my best friends, telling her all about the diverse experiences of my college life and the wonderful friends I had made. After I showed pictures and continued talking about my experiences with different people, she began to say things like “Is he Asian?” “Is she Asian?” and “Let me guess, these people you are talking about are Asian”. My answer every time, to my astonishment, was yes. How did this happen? I had turned away from a homogenous white Pleasanton and surrounded myself with a homogenous racial group of friends. Somehow during the college adjustment I had greatly overcompensated my lack of Asian identity.
However, I was not the only one experiencing this scary Asian uniformity. InterVarsity staff members also noticed this sameness in the fellowship and called for an Asian family meeting. Here we gathered together to eat Asian food, celebrate our culture together, and discuss the unique and key role we had in the InterVarsity community. As an icebreaker, we took turns talking about our ethnic background and how Asian identity has played a role in our lives. As my friends took turns recognizing and publicly announcing major aspects of their identity, I could sense that there were a significant amount of people in the room who had never thought about this before. As the night progressed, I could practically see people removing their colorblinded lenses and realizing how unintentionally exclusive we were as a predominantly Asian fellowship.
When it came my turn, I was ready. I had finally come to the current realization of my ethnic identity. I proudly stood and told the group that I am a Korean-British-Scottish-Irish-Welsh-German-American. Not only am I fully Asian but I am also fully white. It has taken me my entire life to comprehend this, and I am still shaping my identity. As a biracial person I have the advantage of being a strong agent in how I identify myself; I almost always get to choose the category I wish to belong to. Unfortunately, this is also a problem, because in many cases I am forced to choose a category in which I do not feel completely represented.
After this exercise, we began to discuss how our Asian culture might turn others away from feeling completely accepted into our community. I had a lot of thoughts and insight on this issue, being one of the few people with a white background in the room. I was able to share how the members of Intervarsity have helped me to come into contact with my Korean ethnicity and further develop my identity. However, I have felt the exclusiveness in our group and the need to suppress my white background when people start speaking in Mandarin or looking at me with disbelief once they find out that I have never seen the Korean film My Sassy Girl. Imagine then how one hundred percent full bred European Americans feel when they check out our fellowship.
The students began to agree and expand on the issue, until one of my friends brought up a legitimate counterargument: “If other people don’t feel like they belong in this community, then why should we have to change who we are in order to make them feel welcome? Doesn’t that just mean that there is a better community for them?” It is true; we should not have to cover up our identity in order to appease everyone’s comfort. However, that is when I realized that our ethnicity is not the only component of our identity. It may be a permanent element, but there are so many other sides to who we are that our ethnic pride can prevent others from discovering the rest. The truth is, all of us are one hundred percent Homo sapiens and equal in the eyes of God. Ethnicity should be recognized and embraced, but should most definitely not hinder us from sharing God’s love with other people.
During this last semester of my first year at college I have found a sense of wholeness after struggling for eighteen years with my two halves. It has been a long process in learning how to reconcile and integrate my different cultures, heritages, and traditions with the current racial realities of society. However, as I grow older my notion of identity will continue to grow with me. It takes work to maintain a multiethnic identity in our racially polarized world. But according to Sundee Frazier, our goal as multiracial people “is to find the identities that fit and that are true to reality, to know who we are and to accept ourselves as we are so that we can live out our God-given purposes” (50).
Mixed Well: Finding my Ethnic Identity
“What are you?” “What’s your background?” “Are you part Asian?” “Where are you from?” “You’re mixed, aren’t you?” I hardly take offense when people fire these questions at me. I am quite used to it actually; the race question almost always gets mixed into my conversations with new acquaintances. When people ask, it shows that they are interested in learning more about who I am, how I define myself and on what levels we can relate. However, the complications arise when people start asking questions so they can intentionally bump me into a preconceived, stereotypical category. The truth is that the typical aspects of my identity are not easy to stuff into one of these categories when my character consists of several dualities. I am Amanda and Ashley, Korean and White, Protestant and Catholic. I speak English and Spanish, lived in America and Argentina, reside in Pleasanton and Los Angeles. I am a dancer, a leader, a tennis player, a student, a server, a funny, compassionate and motivated person. All these words help define who I am. However, the more I mature and develop my character, the more I realize how conditional these words that describe me are. Once I get married, I can change my last name. I will not always be a student or live in my current house. As I grow older, I will gain and lose friends, maybe pick up another language or two, become too stiff to continue dancing, and might learn to be more tranquil and reserved. And although right now I am fervently passionate in my Christian beliefs, I realize that even that could change. So then the big question comes up: who am I really?
Out of all of the descriptions I have mentioned, the only one that will not physically change is my ethnicity. However, as I reflect on the past eighteen years of my life and the short time that I have spent pioneering this fresh college environment, I recognize the fact that we are constantly discovering, determining and redefining our understanding of our ethnic identity.
Besides the few years I spent living abroad in Buenos Aires, I have been raised in a quaint suburban city called Pleasanton. The population consists of predominantly white middle class yuppies that typically engage in the daily activities of mall runs, grocery shopping, hauling kids from soccer practice to piano lessons, attending weekly town meetings, hosting summer barbeques and of course, attending the annual county fair. This is the typical setting in which I grew up; although I recognized my Asian background since I was a child I considered myself simply American. You may not believe it, but racial diversity does exist in good old Pleasanton (you can even find a few black people if you look hard enough). However, suburban cities like this are covered with a false sense of unity caused by the colorblindness that blankets the neighborhood.
This environment, combined with my almost culture-less nurturing caused me to grow up very Americanized, or more commonly known as “white-washed”. Being second generation, my mother has a minimal Korean vocabulary. As a result, I have no knowledge of the language, have never visited the continent of Asia and am oblivious to many Korean traditions and celebrations. One of the only Korean cultural aspects I grew up with was Korean food, thanks to my grandma. While my mom raised us on the “luxurious” foods of the microwave, my grandmother satisfied our starving taste buds with delicious kimchee, galbi, bulgogi and naengmyeon dishes.
In high school I had a wide variety of friends. But after I made some of my closest friendships with Asian Americans, I began to notice how I acted differently when I was with these friends. Although I was not raised with a strong consciousness for Asian culture, I soon found myself relating to their appearances, mannerisms and dispositions. I felt special and distinct from the city’s monotonous lifestyle and we began considering ourselves the “novelties” of Pleasanton. I exerted strong sentiments of Asian pride by appropriating or taking fragments of the Korean ethnicity and botching them together to help define a newly discovered portion of my identity. And I clearly remember checking Asian American on all of my AP tests and SATs. I might have not felt complete by checking that oversimplified box, but I felt like I identified with that group the most. Was I in for a culture shock.
Once I moved into the International Residential College at USC, I met people from around the world. The more I began to learn about these worldly students from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, my strong identification to the Asian community received a good kick in the face. Who was I kidding? I am not “Asian” compared to these people.
Soon, I became an active member of the InterVarsity Trojan Christian Fellowship, a community that is dominated by “ABC’s”, or American-Born-Chinese. Even though I didn’t share the same backgrounds and experiences with the majority, I was openly welcomed into this group. And as much as I would like to disbelieve it, I have a hunch that my physical looks contributed to my easy acceptance. Even if I do not look fully Asian, my dark straight hair and brown almond eyes have helped to shape my identity. In the book I am currently reading called Check All that Apply, biracial author Sundee Tucker Frazier claims that “our identity is affected by how others reflect ourselves back to us, what they do and don’t remark on, and the content of those remarks” (Frazier 36). What we look like and how others perceive and define us have impacts on how we are treated and how we view ourselves. For the most part, my new friends saw me as Asian, so I embraced that perception and let them submerge me into their world of dim sum, Korean soap operas, J-Pop and Chinese markets.
Although many incidences built up to the milestone in the development of my identity, I believe it was a specific moment during Spring Break that launched my major epiphany. I was sitting in my room with one of my best friends, telling her all about the diverse experiences of my college life and the wonderful friends I had made. After I showed pictures and continued talking about my experiences with different people, she began to say things like “Is he Asian?” “Is she Asian?” and “Let me guess, these people you are talking about are Asian”. My answer every time, to my astonishment, was yes. How did this happen? I had turned away from a homogenous white Pleasanton and surrounded myself with a homogenous racial group of friends. Somehow during the college adjustment I had greatly overcompensated my lack of Asian identity.
However, I was not the only one experiencing this scary Asian uniformity. InterVarsity staff members also noticed this sameness in the fellowship and called for an Asian family meeting. Here we gathered together to eat Asian food, celebrate our culture together, and discuss the unique and key role we had in the InterVarsity community. As an icebreaker, we took turns talking about our ethnic background and how Asian identity has played a role in our lives. As my friends took turns recognizing and publicly announcing major aspects of their identity, I could sense that there were a significant amount of people in the room who had never thought about this before. As the night progressed, I could practically see people removing their colorblinded lenses and realizing how unintentionally exclusive we were as a predominantly Asian fellowship.
When it came my turn, I was ready. I had finally come to the current realization of my ethnic identity. I proudly stood and told the group that I am a Korean-British-Scottish-Irish-Welsh-German-American. Not only am I fully Asian but I am also fully white. It has taken me my entire life to comprehend this, and I am still shaping my identity. As a biracial person I have the advantage of being a strong agent in how I identify myself; I almost always get to choose the category I wish to belong to. Unfortunately, this is also a problem, because in many cases I am forced to choose a category in which I do not feel completely represented.
After this exercise, we began to discuss how our Asian culture might turn others away from feeling completely accepted into our community. I had a lot of thoughts and insight on this issue, being one of the few people with a white background in the room. I was able to share how the members of Intervarsity have helped me to come into contact with my Korean ethnicity and further develop my identity. However, I have felt the exclusiveness in our group and the need to suppress my white background when people start speaking in Mandarin or looking at me with disbelief once they find out that I have never seen the Korean film My Sassy Girl. Imagine then how one hundred percent full bred European Americans feel when they check out our fellowship.
The students began to agree and expand on the issue, until one of my friends brought up a legitimate counterargument: “If other people don’t feel like they belong in this community, then why should we have to change who we are in order to make them feel welcome? Doesn’t that just mean that there is a better community for them?” It is true; we should not have to cover up our identity in order to appease everyone’s comfort. However, that is when I realized that our ethnicity is not the only component of our identity. It may be a permanent element, but there are so many other sides to who we are that our ethnic pride can prevent others from discovering the rest. The truth is, all of us are one hundred percent Homo sapiens and equal in the eyes of God. Ethnicity should be recognized and embraced, but should most definitely not hinder us from sharing God’s love with other people.
During this last semester of my first year at college I have found a sense of wholeness after struggling for eighteen years with my two halves. It has been a long process in learning how to reconcile and integrate my different cultures, heritages, and traditions with the current racial realities of society. However, as I grow older my notion of identity will continue to grow with me. It takes work to maintain a multiethnic identity in our racially polarized world. But according to Sundee Frazier, our goal as multiracial people “is to find the identities that fit and that are true to reality, to know who we are and to accept ourselves as we are so that we can live out our God-given purposes” (50).
Saturday, April 21, 2007
blog 12
Yesterday I watched an Inconvinient Truth and heard a talk all about pollution of our air and oceans. This is a really serious issue that I am strongly passionate about. Although we disregard it, the effects of pollution are strongly visible everywhere.
In the summer of 2001, my family decided we would finally take a vacation to Hawaii. This was a trip I had looked forward to for years; I had heard countless stories of clear waters, exotic luaus, giant waves made for surfing and the abundant marine life. My parents had finally decided that it was time to take a visit to the exotic mainland. When we arrived to the hotel, I was immediately struck by the breathtaking view of the crystal blue ocean. We spent the first few days at the hotel and swam with dolphins on the gorgeous white sandy beach. On the third day of our stay, we decided to do some sightseeing. My dad recalled of a secluded yet beautiful beach he had encountered on his last visit years ago and we eagerly headed for the other side of the island. Instead of a spotless beach, we were shocked and appalled to discover that this small cove had garbage littered everywhere. But after taking a closer look, I realized that this beach was not a dump; all of the trash had washed up from the ocean. I can not begin to imagine what giant heaps of trash drifting hundreds of miles out in the middle of the ocean looks like. However, I have kept this repulsive incident in mind while researching the effects that plastic debris has on altering our oceans. Plastic trash is plaguing the oceans and causing detrimental problems to shores, wildlife, and our economy; action must be quickly taken in order to reduce and prevent this problem from skyrocketing.
In the summer of 2001, my family decided we would finally take a vacation to Hawaii. This was a trip I had looked forward to for years; I had heard countless stories of clear waters, exotic luaus, giant waves made for surfing and the abundant marine life. My parents had finally decided that it was time to take a visit to the exotic mainland. When we arrived to the hotel, I was immediately struck by the breathtaking view of the crystal blue ocean. We spent the first few days at the hotel and swam with dolphins on the gorgeous white sandy beach. On the third day of our stay, we decided to do some sightseeing. My dad recalled of a secluded yet beautiful beach he had encountered on his last visit years ago and we eagerly headed for the other side of the island. Instead of a spotless beach, we were shocked and appalled to discover that this small cove had garbage littered everywhere. But after taking a closer look, I realized that this beach was not a dump; all of the trash had washed up from the ocean. I can not begin to imagine what giant heaps of trash drifting hundreds of miles out in the middle of the ocean looks like. However, I have kept this repulsive incident in mind while researching the effects that plastic debris has on altering our oceans. Plastic trash is plaguing the oceans and causing detrimental problems to shores, wildlife, and our economy; action must be quickly taken in order to reduce and prevent this problem from skyrocketing.
Blog 11- reflecting on future and past
Recently, I've been thinking about my future and what I want to do. Right now I am a Communications major and am thinking about minoring in cultural studies or health communication. I have an ardent passion for travel and service and believe that these fields of study can enable me to eventually make a global difference.
Ever since sophomore year, I have decided to dedicate my future career to improving the lives of others. Throughout high school, I have leveraged my passion and creativity to organize and lead many events, from talent shows to children’s day camps to community service projects. My ideas are limitless when it comes to designing exciting, fun ways to invigorate and inform the student body. For example, as Head Technology Commissioner, I am constantly devising new marketing and communication strategies for the production of the school TV bulletin. Recently, I have directed my service towards Christian clubs and mission trips. One of my favorite moments of service was when I traveled with my church youth group to our neighboring city, San Francisco, to distribute bagged lunches to the homeless. This humbling experience opened my eyes to the poverty in my very own neighborhood, and enlightened me on the need for assistance in my local community as well as internationally.
Through my educational and life experiences, I have realized that biases, division, and war often originate from the failure to recognize cultural differences. Due to the rapid increase in global interconnectivity, it is now more critical than ever to respect the broad range of ethnicity in the world while recognizing our many similarities in order to coexist in a multicultural society. In addition to studying communication, I plan to embrace study abroad programs and further learn about other countries and how they need help. It is essential to know more about the customs of others in order to collaborate and achieve a consensus on encouraging a healthier world.
Ever since sophomore year, I have decided to dedicate my future career to improving the lives of others. Throughout high school, I have leveraged my passion and creativity to organize and lead many events, from talent shows to children’s day camps to community service projects. My ideas are limitless when it comes to designing exciting, fun ways to invigorate and inform the student body. For example, as Head Technology Commissioner, I am constantly devising new marketing and communication strategies for the production of the school TV bulletin. Recently, I have directed my service towards Christian clubs and mission trips. One of my favorite moments of service was when I traveled with my church youth group to our neighboring city, San Francisco, to distribute bagged lunches to the homeless. This humbling experience opened my eyes to the poverty in my very own neighborhood, and enlightened me on the need for assistance in my local community as well as internationally.
Through my educational and life experiences, I have realized that biases, division, and war often originate from the failure to recognize cultural differences. Due to the rapid increase in global interconnectivity, it is now more critical than ever to respect the broad range of ethnicity in the world while recognizing our many similarities in order to coexist in a multicultural society. In addition to studying communication, I plan to embrace study abroad programs and further learn about other countries and how they need help. It is essential to know more about the customs of others in order to collaborate and achieve a consensus on encouraging a healthier world.
Blog 10- In memory of Virginia Tech
We are all mourning for those lives innocently lost to the shooting at Virginia Tech. But what about the gunman? What do we think about him? The natural response is probably one of anger and hatred. But that is not what I found in an exerpt from this one article:
Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.
A small tribute to Seung-Hui Cho, who shot his victims then himself on Monday, has been added to a growing memorial of stones in the centre of the sprawling university in southwest Virginia where knots of weeping students continue to gather.
"I just wanted you to know that I am not mad at you. I don't hate you," read a note among flowers at a stone marker labelled for Cho. "I am so sorry that you could find no help or comfort."
The note, one of three expressing sorrow and sympathy for the gunman, a deeply disturbed English major, was signed: "With all my love, Laura." A purple candle burned and a small American flag stood in the ground nearby.
People are mourning for the murderer, someone who had a lot of sorrow and troubles. It takes a lot of heart to love someone who has done wrong, and I greatly admire these people.
By the way, The Orange County VT Alumni Chapter will be holding a service on Friday at 7:30pm at Mariner's Church Worship Center located in Irvine. Please visit www.ochokies.com for more info.
Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.
A small tribute to Seung-Hui Cho, who shot his victims then himself on Monday, has been added to a growing memorial of stones in the centre of the sprawling university in southwest Virginia where knots of weeping students continue to gather.
"I just wanted you to know that I am not mad at you. I don't hate you," read a note among flowers at a stone marker labelled for Cho. "I am so sorry that you could find no help or comfort."
The note, one of three expressing sorrow and sympathy for the gunman, a deeply disturbed English major, was signed: "With all my love, Laura." A purple candle burned and a small American flag stood in the ground nearby.
People are mourning for the murderer, someone who had a lot of sorrow and troubles. It takes a lot of heart to love someone who has done wrong, and I greatly admire these people.
By the way, The Orange County VT Alumni Chapter will be holding a service on Friday at 7:30pm at Mariner's Church Worship Center located in Irvine. Please visit www.ochokies.com for more info.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Blog 9- Garment Worker Center
So right now I am at the Garment Worker Center doing volunteer work, but I decided to take a quick break and post a blog since I am a little behind in my posts. For the past 4 weeks I have been coming to the Fashion District to volunteer and intern and the Garment Worker Center, a nonprofit organization that helps garment workers organize and learn their rights.
When I come here I usually work from 12:00pm-4:00pm and I enter database information about wage claim cases that they have helped workers to file. It may get tedious, but it can be quite interesting. The reason I started working here in the first place is because my Comm 303 class requires us to volunteer at a non profit and do a case study about the organization.
So in a week I need to write a 20-30 page paper about sweatshops and Garment Worker Center (goody!). But after that, I will be free from essay slavery. I can't wait.
When I come here I usually work from 12:00pm-4:00pm and I enter database information about wage claim cases that they have helped workers to file. It may get tedious, but it can be quite interesting. The reason I started working here in the first place is because my Comm 303 class requires us to volunteer at a non profit and do a case study about the organization.
So in a week I need to write a 20-30 page paper about sweatshops and Garment Worker Center (goody!). But after that, I will be free from essay slavery. I can't wait.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Blog- Do the Right Thing
I recently wrote an essay on Do the Right Thing, a movie that covers lots and lots of racial issues, especially discrimination and prejudice.
Here's a little excerpt:
The late 1980’s was a time of reformation for Americans. After the Civil Rights Movement, African-Americans were quickly swept up into a postmodern world that called for many conflicting attitudes on ethnicity. From globalization and cultural preservation to individuality and community, the citizens of the United States had many new questions to consider. Now that African-Americans have earned their political freedom, should they be treated differently? Should we stop clinging on to what seems safe and familiar and strive for different relationships? Unfortunately, the new Civil Rights Acts were not enough to dissolve the powerful racist social constructs.
In response to the instability and continuous prejudices, blacks emerged with many new statements and opinions about American government and society through music, movies and other forms of media. Spike Lee is a major contributor to this movement through his direction of controversial independent African-American films. One of his most famous films, Do the Right Thing, addresses an endless amount of ethnic, cultural and political issues of the time. Through the use of realism and symbolic elements in Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee exposes the discrimination between whites, blacks and minorities in a multi-ethnic urban city in order to exemplify the deeply embedded racism that continues to exist and destroy American society.
Here's a little excerpt:
The late 1980’s was a time of reformation for Americans. After the Civil Rights Movement, African-Americans were quickly swept up into a postmodern world that called for many conflicting attitudes on ethnicity. From globalization and cultural preservation to individuality and community, the citizens of the United States had many new questions to consider. Now that African-Americans have earned their political freedom, should they be treated differently? Should we stop clinging on to what seems safe and familiar and strive for different relationships? Unfortunately, the new Civil Rights Acts were not enough to dissolve the powerful racist social constructs.
In response to the instability and continuous prejudices, blacks emerged with many new statements and opinions about American government and society through music, movies and other forms of media. Spike Lee is a major contributor to this movement through his direction of controversial independent African-American films. One of his most famous films, Do the Right Thing, addresses an endless amount of ethnic, cultural and political issues of the time. Through the use of realism and symbolic elements in Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee exposes the discrimination between whites, blacks and minorities in a multi-ethnic urban city in order to exemplify the deeply embedded racism that continues to exist and destroy American society.
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