In Pursuit of Happiness Response post 6

I wanted to comment on what Frank wrote in his post regarding Marger talking about inadequate resources being given to the minority groups. I have to disagree with the statement,
"I agree that someone born into a certain economic class has fewer resources with which to better him or herself, but I don’t think that this is limited to race. that the distribution of resources is never limited to race. I feel that a black person in the middle class has just as much a chance to better himself or herself as a white person."

Racism is often subtle and covert. African Americans in the middle class deal with this reality on a day to day basis. There have been many books and many studies on the discrimination that many middle class blacks face. There is prejudice that exist against black renters and homebuyers by white landlords, real estate agents, and homeowners. The hidden nature of this type of racism is very troublesome. This is what keeps middle class blacks from having the same oppourtunities as middle class whites.

I have heard the stories from members of my own family who are considered to be middle class about discrimination in job salary, evaluations, and promotions.

In order to understand why this is not true you have to think about wealth in this country who has control of it and how racism effects the distribution of wealth in relation to minorities in all classes. Wealth whether it is home equity, money in a savings account, pension or investments is used to tap into opportunities build more wealth.

Wealth passes down from generation to generation. Many African Americans inherited less wealth from their parents than today's whites did. There is an older generation of African Americans who accumulated less wealth because discrimination in their day kept most of them poor and denied them opportunities other Americans enjoyed.

The disparity in wealth persists. Without inherited wealth, emergencies have a bigger effect, and people who have no money saved have less opportunities to take advantage of. Because of the wealth deficit, African Americans find themselves more vulnerable to emergencies and less able to capitalize on breaks than whites with the same income. This means that the next generation inherits less thus keeping a gap in wealth between whites and minorities.

These things all contribute into why blacks don't have the same chance to better themselves that many white people have regardless of class. I am pretty sure that the book we read called white priviledge will touch on some of these things.

Salad Bowl concept post 5

I believe that the idea of America being viewed as a melting pot or a salad bowl is not accurate. The idea of the melting pot is that all the different cultures in our country end up being reflected in one culture that is common to all. This is not how it is in the United Sates because the culture that is common to all is the dominant groups culture making the melting pot a flawed concept.

In terms of the salad bowl it seems like this way of thinking gives the impression that groups exist in society in a manner that is seperate while maintaining certain institutions and practices. In my opinion this type of thinking could serve the purpose of dividing different groups instead of bringing them together. With that being said I am not sure what would be the best concept to teach to young people. Maybe a concept of a soup or stew where all the ingredients are mixed together but still keep there structure and taste is a better idea.

Chinese food

So i was at the Chinese resturant today chowin down on the all u can eat buffet, ya know a typical saturday night for me. Me and my buddy we sittin there and i noticed the waiters talkin chinese and looking at us and laughin. They were probably laughing at the fact that we each ate so much food that we couldnt move....we were also loud and obnoxious. It made me kinda uneasy becuase i didnt know what they were saying. i know that in America there is no official language and they have the right to speak whatever language they want. I agree with both of these things but it just frustrates me that i dont know what they were saying and if they were talking about me. I think that this is cuased by me being in the majority as far as language goes and i feel insecure when i dont feel that others are conforming to my language. Its something i need to work on.
The food there was great, but i noticed that they were serving chincken wings. With a laugh i pointed them out to my friend and he sayed that he wouldnt be trying those and laughed. I replied with a "yeah STICK WITH WHAT YA KNOW" and laughed. I then realized that what i said was kinda offensive to them. I mean i sometimes make pasta and im not from italy.....so should i be laughed at. NO. It seems this class is making me see my own faults as well as the faults of society

census problems

The census sent out in 2010 was rather disappointing in its attempt to categorize American population. I happen to agree with Mr. Wade in that case different breakdown the Asian American categories into all of the individual countries of origin possible, then we should do the same for African-Americans, any Latino origin, and even go so far as to list the same thing for Caucasians. Disturbing is the correlation between question 8 and question nine where it appears that the government is not even seeing Hispanic origins as race. Although I think the reverse is more true I am more disturbed by the fact that they are even asking what would your races and not what your ethnic background is. Does does the concept of a constructed set such as race really matter all that much to the government, who should know that race is a socially constructed restrictor. The country you are from has nothing to do with your "race", there are plenty of other ethnic backgrounds mixed in in almost every country in the world.

Geoffrey Simmonds
Post #6

The Pot and The Bowl

I am having a very hard time thinking either one of these theories is entirely right. The melting pot theory would assume that everyone who comes to the country blends and absorbs into the country's core group. This is obviously not what happens. However in the salad bowl theory, not every part of the salad is the same. Nor is every part of the salad necessary. In a salad there is a certain balance is maintained. But a salad is never a salad without lettuce. It could have been more thought and discussion about these theories before we come up with something that is much more accurate description of what happens in America.

Geoffrey Simmonds #5

Jennifer Graham Post #6

I wanted to say more about the Salad bowl theory that we discussed in Thursdays class. I viewed the melting pot theory as a bad one. Melting pot seems to me as blending everything together and losing one's individuality. They don't keep their culture and what is important to them.

I like the Salad bowl theory because each individual group maintains whats important and yet the "bowl" keeps us all as one. We can be free to move freely within it. It just seems to make more sense to me.

Also I still think it makes sense to me to not impose our ideals on to kids. I asked both my girls who are 15 and 10 if either of them had heard of either theory and they said no. I left it at that. I didn't want them hearing anything else about it until they had questions. Honestly they kinda looked at me wierd and asked if I was talking about the fondue place ;)

Census Race Section

I got a census at home and I believe that my parents just counted me as someone who is in my house even though I am not for a majority of the year. I never got to look at the one that was put in everyones mail box that lives on campus. Thus, in class was the first time I actually got to see that race category on it. Apparently race is now your ethnicity. Whatever your heritage is is now your race according to the census we looked at in class. If its alright to breakdown the Asian category into different Asian countries then why isn't the black category broken down into Kenyan-American or Ghanaian-American like the Asian category instead of just black or African American. If your going to breakdown one you might as well breakdown them all including white into Italian-American, Irish-American and many others. The whole title should be changed to as Jeff said ethnic heritage. Also Justins point as to making a box to check that says Bi-racial or multi-racial would be an excellent idea.

The Pursuit Of HappinessBlog #6 Frank Dimaria

I wanted to kind of pose a question to the class and think out loud about something that has been on my mind. We have moved from talking about ethnic hierarchy, to now the idea of immigrations, but every time we talk about a topic Marger always talks about inadequate resources being given to the minority group. I agree that someone born into a certain economic class has fewer resources with which to better him or herself, but I don’t think that this is limited to race. I feel that a black person in the middle class has just as much a chance to better himself or herself as a white person. And the same idea is prevalent in dealing with lower economic conditions. The point is just that; I feel that resources have to deal with an economic class structure. Some people are better off than others, ex. being born into wealth, but I don’t understand the whole concept of distribution of resources especially in a modern sense. I wanted to ask about it in class but I forgot to and I was wondering what the class thought. I understand that there really is an ethnic hierarchy in America but I don’t understand the distribution of resources other than in an economic sense. I believe that everyone has the opportunity to to make their own lives better. Of course this comes from hard work and perseverance.

Just Livin' the Dream Blog #5 Frank Dimaria

I wanted to comment on Meredith’s post about the American dream. I feel like Meredith brings up good points about the American Dream and its significance in American history, but there are two points I wanted to touch on further. The first is the idea of the American Dream in the 1950’s. The American Dream was an ideal based on the suburbia’s. Basically the dream was to get out of the city and to have all the “fine” things life could offer; that is a nice car, perfect house, and a socially adequate family. This idea was predominantly geared toward whites, but not limited to whites. There was nothing saying a black family couldn’t move to a suburb but of course they would be discriminated. The point of the matter is though that I feel the American Dream is not a way of life but rather a progression and transition of place of origin, which exists in a mindset. For example, the idea of the American Dream for first wave immigrants was to move out of conditions they were in and move to America. The idea in the 1950’s was to more out of the cities and to the suburbs. But, this is a good point to move on to my next point. What does the Dream look like today? I believe that the dream is almost dead in certain ways, and if not dead, inapplicable to our lives. We sure have the chance to better ourselves, but we are much more readily given those opportunities, and achieve them many times without the additive of handwork, something the original Dream was based off of.

Salad Bowl Theory

We spent a good chunk of time in class talking about the Salad Bowl Theory. I do personally like it better the the Melting Pot theory. Especially today we stress the importance of being an individual and not conforming to any one group or another. We are told to be ourselves and be proud of that. I do think that it is important to show people that it is important to be an individual but also that you as an individual make up a larger part of the salad. You may be the tomato in the salad and be different from the lettuce but you are bringing something to the table that is different and overall makes you as important to the salad as any other part in it. I do not necessarily think that the pieces of the salad represent race but more of the individual people who make it up not their races. I do agree that it is better then the melting pot saying because that one takes away the individual differences that make each person who they are and says that you are no longer this and you are now only American and nothing else. A lot of immigrants came here to work and go back and even if they decided to stay they were not going to give up who they were or forget their traditions just to become American.

Shaun Wade

Diversity on Immigration

Just by sitting in class on Thursday, you could see how diverse opinions on the subject of Immigration really are. With these diverse opinions, comes the different theories about the United States. Should we be teaching our children the "melting pot", or the "salad bowl". Personally I liked the idea about the bowl of skittles. That is the problem, I think. Everyone in the United States has differing opinions on the subject of Immigration. I actually find it interesting that some are so against it. If they are not Native Americans, or African Americans, then their ancestors most likely were immigrants. Why not give another family a fresh start in this country?

Every time I watch the news it seems like they mention Mexico, and the problem with illegal immigration and tension along the border of Arizona, New Mexico and California. Some family members of mine say that every illegal immigrant should be kicked out of America for good. This is repeated by many across the country. In my Political Economy class last year, I found out that if we did take that course of action, our economy and agricultural production would be nearly decimated. When I informed my family members of this they didn't say anything. I think in time, the discrimination against Mexican immigration will fade away. At one time, the Irish were also discriminated against as well and we have moved past that. Hopefully time will decrease the tension of immigration.

Staci Becker

The American Dream is for Dreamers

I would like to respond to Victoria’s post, entitled “Why America?” On her thought of the American dream dying, I do agree, but was it ever truly there to begin with? If we look through history, the immigrants coming into America in the 1800’s and early 1900’s were subject to poor working conditions, tenements housing in city ghettos, and a huge amount of discrimination holding them down. The 1950’s idea of the suburban house and the white picket fence (which had its downfalls) had one major requirement - you had to be white protestant. The American Dream has always been romanticized, but it has always remained in our imaginations to some degree.

The idea of the American Dream is ever changing but one thing that has remained is it doesn’t come easy for certain people. The American ideal of hard work and individualism has been rooted in us ever since our earliest settlers. Achievement of the American Dream (what ever it means to you, I feel it is different for everyone) can be attained through hard work. Immigrants and people living in poverty definitely do have a harder up-hill climb to get there than someone born into a middle class home, but perhaps the beauty of America is that it still CAN happen for those people, it just takes more (seemingly unfair amount) of hard work and individual initiative. To be clear, I am in so way saying that it would be easy, it is just possible and maybe it is that possibility that draws and keeps immigrants here

Meredith Cotter, Post #6

Civil War Still Going On?

This year is the 150^th year anniversary of the start of the Civil War. There has been re-enactments of succession balls (Charleston, SC) and a series of planned events for the next five years including the upcoming anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy. The reason why this is so controversial is because part of the celebration will include a parade to the state capitol along Davis’ 1861 route. This match will start near the spot where Rosa parks boarded the bus where she famously refused to loose her seat to a white man, it will go up the avenue where Martin Luther King and his followers completed the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March in 1965, it will pas the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (the congregation that King served as a pastor) which was firebombed in 1965 while King’s wife and daughter was inside, and it will come within two blocks of the old greyhound station where Freedom Riders trying to desegregate interstate bus travel were beaten by a white mob in 1961. Just think, among those very streets that mark the brutality was inflicted onto blacks fighting for their civil rights is going to be a proud march of the commemoration of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of America - an institution that supported slavery as a positive good. This historical irony is almost uncanny. It was argued by the NAACP that these reenactments are comparable to “celebrating the Holocaust” while the Sons of Confederate Veterans feels that it is honoring those who fought in the “War for Southern Independence” (A.K.A. the civil war) and that “It’s not about slavery. It is about remembering our history.”

I am most certainly an advocate for remembering our history, but part of southern history IS slavery - therefore is something that must be addressed in these re-enactments as well. It is hard for me to believe that some people can be so blind to the mistakes of history. To truly understand history and work to change it, you have to understand the negatives, or the times where we as a nation fell short. I feel that these re-enactments (if done the rights way) could be turned around as an educational and productive idea. However, if it is only used a tool to promote, celebrate, and spread a false history that did not happen, it can only hurt us.

I got all this information this week’s USA Today. Pick one up if you want to read more about it.

Meredith Cotter, Post #5

Our Country is Run By Rich White Men

When we read the census in class, I was really surprised by it. I was shocked how a document that was sent out by our government to essentially every person in the country, was so politically incorrect. I think this is a reflection of the fact that our government is made up of majority rich, white men, and does not proportionately reflect the diversity in the United States. I think a lot of where the racism in America comes from, is all the way at the top. Aside from the obvious, Obama, the majority of people who make up the government are white males. They all also have a substantial amount of money. If our government was built proportionately to our population, it would be made up of about 50% women, which it clearly isnt, about 15% Latino, which it also isnt, and about 13% African American, which again, it is not. I think this reflects one of the reasons why discrimination and predjudices exist in our country. There is already a certain bias and majority within the government, and when the people who are in charge of a country a significantly of one ethnicity and race, the effects trickle down from all the way at the top to the very bottom.

Brigit May, Post 6

Language discrimination

In class we talked about how in Canada some Canadians did not like people from Quebec who spoke french so I was wondering if there were people in Louisiana who had conflicts with the Cajun people who spoke Cajun French? Though the language appears to be dying out now were there times when people who spoke Cajun French were looked down upon even though they've contributed a lot to the culture of Louisiana?
Jennifer Huot, post 6

The "resentful outsiders"

In Marger's text E. Digby Baltzell was quoted saying that the Anglo-Saxon-Protestan minority was feeling pushed out and were "resentful outsiders". In what way are these people now outsiders? Could it just be that after holding the majority of power, and being the clearly dominant group they are feeling threatened by the increased racial diversity of American culture. Are WASP's being made outsiders, or are they simply not adjusting well to having to share power?

Comments on Fox News about Egypt

I was watching the Colbert report the other day and he showed a clip from fox news about the egyptian revolution. On eof the analyst siad that the US should be concerend about this new freedom becuase the Egyptians may not have the capacity for freedom. He stated that Americans had a biological sense of freedom and liberty tht we are blessed and born with. The egyptians however would not know how to handle it and would easily be corrupted. TO me this sounded exactly like a type of ethnic hierarchy that used to be the norm like during the Venus Hottentot. I was just really surprised that this ignorance is on television

Do you know where you're from?

Reading most of the posts on here, many people are talking about heritage and where you come from. While thinking about this topic I thought of all the people out there that don't know what they are. My older brother is adopted, and we don't know his biological family. He doesn't know what his heritage is, or what countries to say when asked "where are you from?" I feel that we have discussed the biracial topic, but not too much about people who have no idea where they're from. I have never really asked him how he responds when people ask him where he's from because we don't talk about it all that much in my family. For him, it's just easier to identify himself as a white, American male because he doesn't know his personal heritage. When we were talking about the census and the "African American, black, or Negro" section, I felt that this could be for people who aren't sure of their background, and just identify as black. I feel that if they had a section with "white, European American, caucasian" or something written out, that he would have just checked "white" because he wouldn't know any other box to check.

Laura Kalinowski, Post 6

Seeing the U.S. Census in a different light

After today's discussion about the Census, I will never look at it the same again. I filled out the Census last year and never noticed how they still use the term "Negro" in lieu of "Black" or "African American." The way they focus on Hispanic and Latinos in the questions is interesting too. When I think about it now, I just remember identifying myself as "White", and thinking "Yes" or "No" as I read and answered the questions on my Census form. I never stopped to think about the "other" ethnicities or races on there, but taking this class has brought them to my attention.

Josh Steffen

Deja Vu

One of my talking points for this week was realizing present-time immigration in addition to the past. After reading Chapter 5, it dawned on me that I've heard about immigration in the past tense so much (take Ellis Island, for example) in history classes over the years I forgot that immigration is a continuous thing, and is going on all the time. While it was interesting to read about the most recent wave of immigration, I was not very engaged in the rest of the chapter because I thought, "I've seen this before." Did anyone else get this feeling or is it just me?

Josh Steffen

America = Acceptance

I found the discussion interesting today about discussing America as a salad bowl, or a melting pot. Just earlier today in my education class, my teacher said that we should teach our students that America is a salad bowl, because it shows that the people who make up America have different qualities, cultures, origins, etc., where in a melting pot, everything just blends together as one. She emphasized the fact that it is important for kids to understand that because something is different, doesn't mean it's wrong.

In my opinion, there is never going to be a perfect analogy that describes America in the correct way. I believe that regardless of the analogy that teachers use to teach their children about the diversity of America, it should always be followed up with teaching children to accept these differences, and that no one is better than the other. As long as the analogy is taught with the right message, and with the right intentions, then I think that is the most important part. At the end of the day, people will interpret things the way they want to and in all different kinds of ways. Since there is no perfect way of describing the United States, I think the most important thing that all children should be taught when they are learning about the diversity of the United States, is to accept everyone as equals. If they do that, then they will be able to interpret the concept of the salad bowl the way it was intended.

Brigit May, Post 5

"Para español, marque dos." Sara Ceraso, Post 6

Someone brought up today that eventually English will not be the major language in the United States. The largest number of immigrants lately have been coming from Latin American countries, and America has noticed and has been making accommodations. There are many stores where labels of products are in Spanish, and when you make phone calls, the original "Para español, marque dos," has now been replaced with "for English, press one." For a non-Spanish speaking American, this can be really frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I'm not prejudice or against the mixing of cultures. I think the mixing of cultures is what makes America so interesting, but should we be making all of these changes in a country that most people speak English. I mean if I went to live somewhere like Spain, I would expect that I had to learn how to speak Spanish.

Side note-- I thought the discussion of the census today was hilarious. Sometimes the government can be so dumb.

The Children of the Future. Sara Ceraso, Post 5

The whole candy bowl, salad, or melting pot theory, are all good for a certain amount of time. But they still are all categorizing. Someone brought up in class that those theories, although trying to teaching "good classification" teaches classification non the less.

It made me start to think. When kids are little, they don't see black, white, asian, or other differences within race and ethnicity, they see someone who like to play with the same toys that they do, or someone who's mom makes them the same lunch. What would happen if race and ethnic differences were never brought up to children. Would kids grow up even noticing. No obviously people from older generations would influence a child's thoughts in the matter, but what if they didn't. Our texts says that most ethnic groups are socially constructed. So what if society never constructed them.

Obviously this is a really far fetched theory, but I just wonder, could it ever happen?

The bilingual census count Post# 6

After discussing the 2010 census today in class I began to think about the questions 8 and 9. When I filled out the census last year I remember finding it weird that I had to fill in that I was of Spanish origin. I did not understand why my Spanish origin needed to be taken into account but other origins did not. Regardless, I did not look into it and forgot about it until today. When it was brought up in class today I was reminded of how ridiculous it all seems. When I got home today I decided to look up why that question was listed on the census. Just as I thought, I found out that the question is listed on the census to monitor the amount of Hispanic, latino or Spanish orgin citizens as a way to help plan and administer bilingual programs in the United States. While this seems like it could be a good way to help with Spanish speakers in the United States, it also seems extremely unfair to anyone that is not a Spanish speaker. I do not know why the census would not be keeping track of the amount of other languages being spoken as a first language in the United States as well. I understand that Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the United States, but that does not mean it should be the only language taken into account. On another note, I do not see how keeping count of the people with Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin is anyway to get a number of those people who actually speak Spanish. I myself was counted as someone of those origins, yet I do not speak Spanish as a first language, nor does most of my family. It just seems that this question is a very inaccurate way to count the Spanish speakers in the Untied States. If this question is on the census for language purposes, then I think the question should be switched to ask if the persons first language is not english and then fill in their first language. This would be a much better way to accurately count the amount of English as a second language citizens, as well as take other languages outside of Spanish into account.
-Ryan Fleming

Childhood

When we are all kids there was no race barrier, color barrier, and no ethnic barriers. I explained a program in class called "Playing for Peace", and it was developed by a young man who played basketball his entire life. The game have him more than competition, it brought him happiness and he wanted to bring that to other countries, and started in Ireland, where there are literally walls dividing the Catholics and Protestants. He wanted to make a difference and that is exactly what he is doing now by having catholic and protestant children coming to a mutual site to play the game of basketball and allowing them to see for themselves what a person of another religion is like, so they realize there are very little differences. It is in our childhood that our brain doesn't see the difference in these barriers. You see the person as the person they are and that is how it should be. We have now become a society that needs everybody to be in a category and for some reason we need a category to justify in a way who we are. These ideas have become concrete in our heads already but the younger children can change that and maybe adapt the idea of the salad bowl which i think can be of help when talking to young students. Either way you can develop groups and teach it in schools but if the people that surround you growing up have different ideas, will it really make a difference?

Peter Ferguson Post #6

Ashley's Stew Theory

I may be taking our class discussion a bit too far, but I think instead of teaching the salad bowl theory that is not realistic, I like the idea of a stew theory.  With a stew there is a cohesiveness within the taste, which would symbolically be the typical American society, but there are many separate ingredients that make up this flavor.  In the stew you can taste everything, or you can choose to pick out each individual ingredient such as a piece of meat or a chunk of celery.  This shows that though there is an overall flavor of America, there are still individuals that make up this recipe and still hold their own properties and tastes (values and perspectives).  It shows the individualism as how the individuals all together make up America rather than America making up the individual.  I'm not sure if this makes sense to others, but this is just what I immediately thought of when I realized that the salad bowl theory being taught in classrooms now really doesn't give a correct representation of American society.

Why America?

This may be somewhat controversial and seen as "unAmerican," but here goes.

I question why so many people still want to immigrate to America. I realize various types of oppression and economic systems would push people out of their own countries, but what pull factors remain in America? I feel as though the concept of the American Dream is slowly dying (if it's not dead already). Many people can no longer afford to buy their little house with the white picket fence and the car in the driveway. There is little movement within the social hierarchy, even among WASPs (at least from what I've seen).

We can't employ our own people, out health care system is shot, and the treatment of immigrants is pretty crappy. I can understand the political and war refugees wanting a better, safer place to go, but people that want opportunity? I'm not so sure they will find it here anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but as more time passes, I see my rights being slowly chipped away and it really makes me want to consider Canada or the U.K.

Victoria Rader - Post 4

Salad, Candy, or...?

I like the candy bowl idea that was presented in class today (I'm sorry, I don't know who said it). We're all chocolate (American) but our filling (heritage) may differ. I may be caramel and nuts, while someone else is all nuts or raisins, nuts, and crisped rice!

My only issue with focusing on this at all is that it still serves to create divisions within people. Someone may not like nuts (just like the tomato in the salad) and use physical differences as a basis for discrimination or prejudice against a certain race/ethnicity.

In response to the over analyzing of the salad bowl metaphor, I am an English major and one of the things we learn is that there really is no such thing as over analyzing metaphors. If there is any evidence at all that a certain metaphor, word, phrase, passage, etc. can be taken in a different way, you can bet that it will be taken that way. It will also be taken in ways that we can't even think of on an individual level. You have to remember that these are kids being taught the salad bowl concept. I remember being a kid and filling in the blanks of things I didn't understand with other things that made sense to me. Looking back, I know they are completely ridiculous and don't make sense, but it did to my little brain. Sometimes you really do need to spell things out for kids. I also agree that we need to give kids the tools to learn how to think and read critically, however.

Victoria Rader - Post 3

How Important is Our Personal Idenitfication?

Clearly the hot topic of the week is how each of us consider why people identify themselves as anything but American. My personal take on the situation has to do with the need for everyone to be an individual. Regardless what people refer to themselves as, it could still be looked at trying to be apart of a group. While on the other hand, I look at it in more of an individual perspective. I feel that this society has gradually become more about people being different and not like everyone else. So this need to group yourself as not an American like everyone else but from a certain heritage makes you "different".
It is interesting to consider this phenomenon going on in today's world. Why has it gotten to the point that no one wants to come right out and say "hey, I'm American." There could be many different reasons why that is. I saw in some of my classmates post that maybe its because there is a negative outlook on America these days therefore making people not want to admit that is who they are. Regardless of the reason, it makes you wonder..will people ever start referring to themselves as American before what heritage they come from? If so, how or what needs to happen for these changes to come around?

Mary Daloia

Race

I agree with other students post 100%. To go along with how people identify themselves I believe its true that most people when asked "what they are", they state there original heritage. Even though I would guess a large percentage of them have never even been to there original heritage country. I do not know why they do not address themselves as American, but it has become the way people respond, they give out there families heritage and background instead of the life they have lived and where they have lived it. I believe it would so much harder coming from another country or a minority group and trying to become, what most believe is a privilege, an American. But yet we continue to disgard this when were asked, " what we are". So maybe people will respond to this and answer me because I am a bit interested in knowing what others think and why it is that instead of saying I am an American, its I am Irish, Polish, Dutch, etc..


Peter Ferguson Post #5

Jennifer Graham Post #5 Assimilation

Ok I guess i'm one of the few but I still see assimilation as something bad. I mentioned to Jeff in class as still picturing the Star Trek movie and "Prepare to be assimilated" It just gives me a bad picture in my head. Its like being forced to do something you don't want to do. After going over everything in class I can see that's not necessarily the case. It can be done voluntary like when you're moving to a different country and trying to fit and you want to become a part of a new society.

As far as pluralism goes, I still don't get it. I did some more research on the internet today and I see it more as multiculturalism than anything. But I guess that only deals with the cultural pluralism. There is just a lot to absorb with both of these topics.

Ethnicity and Race Regarding Education

While reading my Educational Psychology text, I found that many of the terms and what was being talked about pertained directly to this class.  The chapter that we were working on described the diversity of schools and how it is expected within the upcoming years that U.S. schools will become even more diverse than they are now.  Though the students in these schools come from many different races, one eye boggling fact I never even thought of before is that 91% of teachers are white. Though the students vary in races, they most always see the same type of teacher rather than the students being allowed diversity as well.  The predictions that schools will have more diversity in upcoming years is said to be primarily because of immigration.  They speak of how the immigrant children come into this new school in this new country and are automatically expected to become assimilated fairly quickly. These students are sent to these schools to learn the dominant language of the culture and become mainstream Americans in a small amount of time.  One immigrant student explained her anxiety about feeling like a foreigner because of the way she looked.  Upon watching MTV, this girl decided that she needed to dye her hair and get colored contacts in order to fit in with the "true Americans" in her school.  Lately I have become very aware of the many different types of students I will encounter and I realize that teachers must work with these students to not only incorporate them into American society so they feel like they fit it, but should also work to show them to be proud of who they are no matter where they come from. I find that this is a difficult task, but students shouldn't have to change or feel like they have to get rid of their entire history of being of a different race or ethnicity in order to feel like they fit in.

Samuel Roux Post #5 located in comment under United States Racial Indentification

I couldn't copy+paste what I said in comments to here, so my post is located in the comments section of Ryan Fleming's Post #5

United States Racial Identification Post#5

After talking in class today about assimilating, I started to think about how most Americans identify themselves. Most Americans identify themselves as being a race that is un- american. However, most of those Americans are completely assimilated into the American culture and are generally many generations down the line of their immigrant ancestors. It just seems interesting that almost all Americans focus on identifying with their racial heritage, no matter how long ago their ancestors immigrated to America. You would think that after the hundreds of years the United States has been established as a country, that its citizens would start to identify themselves solely as Americans if they were born in the United States. I myself when being asked "what am I?" would never say American. Though it was interesting to see when I was in Spain everyone refered to me as being American and when I would say that I am from America but I am Spanish they all thought I was crazy. In America if you identify with the race of another country you were not born in, it is the norm, but in most other countries around the world, they identify with the country in which they live and are assimilated to. Why is it that Americans have such trouble identifying themselves as Americans when the rest of the world identifies us that way?
-Ryan Fleming

Neighbors to the North

I saw this video on Yahoo news today about patrolling the northern border of the United States. The video talked a lot about how most of the attention is given to the protection of the Southern border in the U.S. even though the border with Canada is still a major threat. Many people don't think of the Canadian border to be an issue, probably because of the stereotypes we have of Canadians versus the stereotype we have of. Mexicans. In the video, the reporter said that a majority of patrol resources are in the South, and only about 32 miles of the Northern border are adequately patrolled. I think that this may have a lot to do with the stereotypes of the different countries, and people. When you think of Canadians, you don't normally think of them trying to sneak over here across the border. However when you think of Mexican immigrants, many people associate them with being illegal. Why is it that even though the Canadian border is just as much of a threat as the Mexican border, we only really pay attention to the southern part?

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/quot-forgotten-border-quot-now-making-headlines-24195872

Laura Kalinowski Post 5

Only in America..

I think it is interesting that in America we can find evidence of various types of assimilation and pluralism. This makes me think, what does it really mean to be American? Going off of Staci’s post below, Americans can identify themselves as Hispanic, African American, Irish, Italian, and Chinese etc. At what point will we stop naming all of our ethnicities and just simply call ourselves American? I remember in fourth grade we had to make a recipe book as a Christmas gift to our parents, we each brought in one recipe that represents our heritage. One girl, who was a friend of mine, brought in an “American” recipe. Our teacher asked her if she was from Native American descent, the girl replied with a simple “no” and explained that her Mom told her she was American. I remember this incident to this very day because I thought she was so stupid for saying she was “American.” But now I am thinking, what does that really mean, what is an “American”? Maybe this sounds stupid to everyone reading this, but when I think about this story, chapter four, and Staci’s post; I do not really know where America stands on race and ethnic relations. We see incidences of stereotyping, discrimination, cultural assimilation, multiculturalism, biological assimilation, etc. Does anyone have any opinion on what being American means and what life in the United States is about for peoples of different races and ethnicities? Also, is this ambiguity typical of other countries or just ours?

Multiracial America

In class today, it was mentioned that the United States is a multi ethnic society. When discussing biological assimilation, it crossed my mind that in this modern day, some might consider themselves to be multi ethnic. I then recalled an article in the New York Times last Thursday (2/10). The article was entitled, "In a Multiracial Nation, Many Ways to Tally." Being in this class, I was intrigued.

The article described a university student, who is of Peruvian, Chinese, Irish, Shawnee, and Cherokee descent, who was listed as simply being "Hispanic" by the Department of Education, and "Asian" by the National Center for Health Statistics. The student in question labeled herself on her 2010 census form as being white, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American. The article also stated that the number of mixed-race Americans are rising due to increases of immigration and intermarriage. One in seven new marriages is now interracial or inter ethnic, according to the article.

While these marriages are happening more and more often, it is becoming a problem to measure the diversity of race and ethnicity. The article goes on to describe the different issues with measurement and why it is important.

This article really made me think about how difficult it must be to place yourself into an ethnic or racial category, when you are a mix of many different categories. This must confuse many other people, especially because we are asked to categorize ourselves so much. I now understand why there is the option for "other" on so many surveys, something that I had never really thought much of before. It does speak to how difficult it must be to the Federal government in ensuring that all ethnic groups, mixed or otherwise, has the same rights as everyone else.

Here is the article from the New York Times website if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/us/10count.html?scp=5&sq=Multiracial%20Nation&st=cse

Staci Becker, Post 5

An Interesting Realization

After this past week of continuing to talk about defintions that go along with our broad topics of ethnicity and race, I came to realize something that never occured to me before. The term and usage of the word "minority" group had always meant one thing to me, a small number of people. Once I got done reading the assignments, and discussing about it in class, I realized that this was clearly not the case. When referring to a group of people as the minority group has more than one meaning to it. I then thought to myself, why was it that I had only known this term to have one defition? Was it a lack of efforts on my part to looking in to a term that I thought was so basic or was it the lack of efforts from those who taught me? I then begin to think for such an important topic, that effects everyday life maybe this is something that needs to be discussed more in schools.

Mary Daloia