Do you think everyone deserves to have a right to vote? My You and The World project is about Asian American voting rights and my goal about learning more about this topic is finding out the reasons why this is an issue in Philadelphia or in other cities and states in the U.S. I would like to find a way for Asian Americans to also have a voice in their community and politics. I’m interested in this topic because I volunteer at an activist organization call Asian American United (AAU) and I know they have been trying to help people in the asian community to have a voice in their own community and contribute to the society. For example, in chinatown, they would handle out surveys to anyone passing them and the surveys they hand out asking their opinions about what they want the empty parking lot to become in the future. Because they are handing surveys in chinatown, they have Mandarin translated surveys and English surveys. This allows anyone in that community to have a opinion about their community and how it may improve. Many Asians have a hard to vote because of the language difference. Many Asian immigrants knows very little English, whether it’s reading wise or speaking wise.

My connection to this is that for the past couple of years, my mom would like to vote but she knows that she doesn’t know how to read English so she decides not to vote. Many of the voting booth are not translated into other languages for the non-English citizens of the United States. This matters to me because I know people that have a hard time getting a citizenship and being unable to vote and for the people that are citizens in the U.S., they are unable to vote because of language difference. I think it’s important for others to know because everyone should be aware that not everyone is able to vote even if they are a citizen in the U.S. and people that are trying to become a citizen in the U.S. is harder now especially for immigrants that don’t understand any English.

AAU member talks to a citizen about the presidential election form in 2015.

Source:https://caamedia.org/blog/2016/10/27/for-asian-americans-in-battleground-states-voter-registration-is-just-the-beginning/

September 14, 2016: Volunteers are in the ballroom of a chinese restaurant, New Fortune, helping people register voters.

Source:http://reportingtexas.com/language-can-be-a-barrier-for-some-asian-american-voters/

Voting has been an issue for Asian American since 1882. When the first Voting Right Acts law was published, this did not allow specific Asian group to vote. In the year of 1943, Chinese Americans were permitted to vote, then following Asian Indians in 1946. Japanese Americans and other Asian American groups weren’t permitted until 1952. Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, AALDEF been known as an expert on voting issues for Asian Americans. They have even discussed with the Congress about the language barrier for citizens that would like to vote and much more. For the past 30 years, AALDEF would observe the amount of Asian Americans that would vote on Election day, they would also look into different Asian American groups like Cambodian, Japanese, and etc. In 2008 during the Presidential election, the AALDEF surveyed 16,665 Asian Americans in 11 different dialects of Mandarin. They noticed and were told that Asian Americans received a lot of racist comments from the poll workers. Some poll workers asked Asian voters to show their citizenship or identification.

This timeline points out important events from an Asian Americans’ point of view.

Source:https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/report/50-years-voting-rights-act-asian-american-perspective

The Voting Rights Act has two clauses that benefits non-English speakers. In section 203, it states that polls can be translated to different languages if it is necessary. Right now, only 22 cities in the U.S. is able to follow that section and translate it to any Asian language required. In section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, it reads that translaters can be brought into the voting booth. Even though, the Voting Rights Act states that translaters can be brought into the voting booth; this isn’t allowed anywhere. Since 1998, twelve counties have been sued for not following section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. As the population of Asians increase, the amount of voters slowly increases too. In 2006, only 2.2% of the voter were Asians and in 2010, there were only 2.4% of the voters were Asians. Although a 0.2% of Asians does not seem much, but bit by bit the population of Asian voters would grow. In 2010, 49.9% of the voters in Hawaii were Asians while only 9.4% of the voters in California were Asians.

Now let’s take a look at this line graph showing voters of different race from 1988-2012.

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/magazine/27-million-potential-hispanic-votes-but-what-will-they-really-add-up-to.html

From my research, I noticed that voting and getting citizenship has a very close connection to each other. A major issue for Asian Americans to vote is the language difference which causes them not being able to vote. I wondering if there are ways for Asians that are not citizens, but have lived in the U.S. for many years to vote because if they have lived in U.S. for many years they should be treated the same as others since they are apart of this society. My questions will be more focused on individual actions like not allowing translaters into voting booths if the voter does not understand English when the Voting Rights Act allows it. There’s still a lot of information and details I did not learn yet, so in the future I hope to learn how individual people fight for Asian American voting rights and more reasons why Asian Americans are having trouble voting that not everyone knows.

Currently, white women make 78 cents for every dollar that a white man makes.. For example, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women make 65 cents for every dollar that a white man makes. Right below them is African American women who make 64 cents to a white man’s dollar.  Below them is Native American and Alaskan Native women who make 59 cents to a white man’s dollar. Latina or Hispanic women make 54 cents to a white man’s dollar. I was surprised to find out that Asian American women make the most a 90 cents for every dollar that a white man makes.

Now, let’s look at this graph that shows the breakdown of the wage gap by race

The definition of the wage gap is the difference between men and women in median wages. This affects most women in the workforce. According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), if we keep improving how we have been for 50 years white women will be making the same amount of money as white men by 2059. This is only white women, for women of color there is still a ways to go.

Women also get paid less because employers try to compensate for the time that they may go on maternity leave. This is unfair because women should not be penalized for taking care of their children. If a man were to take time off to take care of his children he would not be penalized payment-wise.

This issue is important to me first of all because I am a young adult coming of age in this society. When I am looking for a job I do not want to be steered towards lower paying jobs when I am perfectly capable of being in a higher paying position. I do not want to be paid less than I deserve because of my gender.  I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where they are taught that women should be valued less than men.  I am also passionate about this issue because it has been around for as long as women have been in jobs. It’s unfair that women have to be treated as less than equal just because of the their gender. Why is it that more women graduate from college than men, but women still get paid less. Shouldn’t we be basing salary of experience and qualification, not gender?

To solve this is issue, we have to change people’s minds. We have to remind them that women can be just as qualified and capable as men, and that they deserve to be seen as so. Sadly, this may take awhile to change this. People do not like to be told that what they have been taught is wrong. What’s popular is not always right, what’s right is not always popular. To get behind this issue people have to learn to value everything that women have to offer. I hope to learn more about this issue and what people are doing to change it.

See my annotated bibliography here

Oftentimes, adult female pigs spend the majority of their lives in these two-foot wide pens, without any room to turn around, her sole purpose is to produce and nourish more offspring.

But animal welfare isn’t the most depressing affair in the complicated monster that is industrial farming. Industrial farming is a “system of chemically intensive food production developed in the decades after World War II”. During the Technological Revolution in America, everything was being industrialized from clothes to machines and it seemed to be the most logical explanation to industrialize food production as well. Yet there are a few reprehensible consequences of industrial farming that need to be addressed.

Black-and-white photo of the remains of Iowa land after being used for industrial farming.

Farmland in Brazil that used to be part of the Amazonian Rain Forest.

The aforementioned phosphates are the result of this disturbing amount of algae growth

in Lake Erie which is affecting the water supply of Toledo.

All of this is to say that industrial farming is a practice with innumerable issues and I am excited to use this project as an opportunity to bring awareness and possible solutions to them.

Did you know the average ticket prices in the WNBA in 2011 were $15? This is crazy considering that there are tickets in the NBA sold for thousands of dollars. I’m going to be do my You & The World project on Women in basketball. I’m interested in this topic because I am female who plays basketball. I take this sport seriously so I felt like it would be helpful to know how the WNBA and college women basketball players were treated. I learned that there is a huge difference between a NBA and WNBA player, and it’s not just the difference in the gender. In one article I read called “ Top WNBA Salaries vs. NBA Salaries: Who Gets Paid More? “ I learned that Steph Curry made 11.4 million dollars in 2016. Yet, the highest paid WNBA player, Nneka Ogwumike gets paid 95,000 dollars. Steph curry isn’t even the highest paid NBA player and he gets paid over 75% more than Ogwumike. Ogwumike works just as hard as Curry to get to where she’s at right now. There are many wage gaps like this in the WNBA

This is a picture of Nneka Ogwumike from her twitter's profile picture.

This is the problem. Women aren’t treated as equals to men. When young girls see this, they get discouraged. Sometimes as a result of being discouraged, people give up. You might not think this is a big deal but it can become a major problem.The WNBA is small. It only consists of 144 players at maximum. So if there are a bunch of women the WNBA because of the shortage of pay there will be no WNBA. Without a WNBA why would colleges offer scholarships to their women’s basketball teams? Many people use these scholarships to go to school, so that’s a significant amount of women not attending college. A big cause of under pay in the WNBA is the fact that the WNBA doesn’t get enough publicity. The more people watch the WNBA and buy tickets to their games, the more money they make. The WNBA gets their funds from the NBA.

The WNBA’s structure is completely different from the NBA’s as well. There are 349 women’s basketball college teams. This is great but it’s also one big system filled with heartbreaks. There are only 12 teams in the WNBA conference and only 12 players permitted to a team. In the NBA there are 30 teams. There are at least 14 players per team and 491 players in the league total. No wonder why WNBA players aren’t getting paid what they deserve. The WNBA doesn’t have enough publicity because the league is too small.

These are the name of all twelve teams.

I want to change the salaries, team expansion, and amount of publicity the WNBA has. An idea I had was to write a letter to the WNBA and NBA explaining how unfair this is to all the hardworking females that want to play basketball. If they expand the players in the WNBA maybe more people would watch and buy tickets to games. With more people watching, the publicity would go up, along with the money they indorse. Then female basketball players would get paid the equivalent amount to men in the NBA.We need to act on these problems because our actions can determine the next woman’s future.

This is my annotated bibliography.It has most interesting facts I’ve found about this topic.

This is a sign about things men do to get women's attention when catcalling and how they feel about it.

                      https://www.theodysseyonline.com/catcalling-is-harassment

Growing up is not as easy as it may seem, especially if you are a young woman. We are in a society where men feel the need to make snarky comments about our bodies without thinking twice about it.  As women some of us develop at different ages. Some girls can be 12 with a well developed body that makes them perceive as a woman at least 18 years old. So men believe it is okay to make sexual comments towards them without thinking that they may be under the age of consent. While learning new things I want to have a clear understanding on the view of women being harassed in some way of catcalling. I know that there will be many stories that will be very harmless to the person but also stories that will seem extreme for a guy trying to get a woman's attention especially if you do not know what their intentions of where they are coming from. My goal of this project is to bring awareness to people around our community even the that catcalling is a product of harassment. Many people feel as though it is such a thing that makes people feel uncomfortable and threatened while walking down the street but, it's time we try and do something to stop men from doing outrageous things when it comes to trying and talking to a female.

I am very interested in this topic because catcalling is something you witness everyday. Someone is either staring you down or even making remarks that make you feel unsafe. For example Ashley Ross would take precautions “I’ve even gone to such lengths as wearing a sweater over my workout clothes every single time I step out the door, even midsummer, as my curves in Spandex seem to give men—of any age, race or neighborhood—the welcome invitation to comment on my body.” She would do this because she felt unsafe in her surroundings while she felt confident in her body but other people felt as though it was their opportunity to gawk over her body. I feel as though this is something to make aware to people because this affects the way women view themselves. This topic matters to me because I have experienced instances where I myself have been targeted by men between the ages of 15-25 stare me down or even scream out trying to get my attention. Which makes me feel threatened and even unsafe in my surroundings. I feel as though readers should know about this because it gives them information about what is occurring around the world if this personally hasn’t affected them because everyone may view catcalling different. Doree Lewark is someone who feels as though she is a fan of catcalling saying “When I know I’m looking good, I brazenly walk past a construction site, anticipating that whistle and “Hey, mama!” catcall. Works every time — my ego and I can’t fit through the door!” Now this makes you think about how many women feel this way. Do they really look for the attention or are they genuinely afraid when walking down the street in some spandex after going to the gym?

This is a significant issue in the world because it makes themselves feel as though that this is their fault because of their choice of clothing or even makeup they decide to wear that perceives them to be older than usual and maybe more appealing to older mean. This outrage of catcalling has gone out the roof, “a staggering 98% of women surveyed in 2008”, reported that they had experienced cat-calling and harassment, which is completely insane these number have stayed the same and it is now 2018. When thinking about it these acquisitions men are getting from making comments about any little thing they see on a woman's body are making them feel as though anyone will brush off their comments and go on with their day. In reality this doesn't work that way, there are many risks but the main risk of stranger harassment to mental health is its effect as a chronic stressor a stressor can be any environmental or external event  that causes stress to an individual, which becomes chronic when it is experienced on multiple occasions over time. The effects placed on anyone creates difficulties of actually feeling safe while even working or just walking out of their front door into their cars. It's insane. All of this research will help everyone see that they are not the only ones going through catcalling everyday and how it is not their fault at all but the thirsty men out there that feel as though it is their job to compliment a woman without realizing them feeling unsafe or even threatened.

     These are the statistics of Street Harassment in the United States.

                                                     https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/street-harassment-statistics

All of my research has impacted the way I have started to think about catcalling. What I am truly wondering about is what if the tables were switched and women were making these comments. Would the men feel mentally and physically unsafe or will they just take everything as a complement and boost their confidence about themselves. Also what is going on to stop or bring awareness because when looking at the data there is hardly any current information from 2018 only from the span of 2008 to about 2015. What I hope to learn about while going on is how to make this problem significan at this very moment because of all the data being almost 10 years old when trying to find information about something that is occurring all over the world not just in the United States. I want to make this known again and show that no matter what peoples opinions are that they need to take a stand and make something happen.

                 Catcalling isn’t just in the United States it is happening around the world this image was taken in France.

                   https://collegecandy.com/2017/09/21/france-catcalling-law-legal-details-full-story/

If you want to check out more of my research check out my Annotated Bibliography:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1semQkUFkWIfrTt7-4D7wBLAFR4YS0_vT0ISagUwy2bw/edit?usp=sharing

A Concussion a Day Leads the Player Astray

Have you ever had an issue on your mind that you just wanted to help solve? The NFL has a huge issue with player safety. That might not seem to a major issue to you or me, but it impacts a lot of people inside and outside the game. It affects all the people within the NFL as well as the 22 million people (on average per game) who watch each game. Too many players are getting hurt each year. Even though the league has tried to help with the major injury issue, what they have done only impacts a small fraction of the entire league. Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, has tried his hardest to prevent injuries, and many players agree with that statement. I want to help make the NFL a safer for the players  and more enjoyable for the fans  to watch.

This graph shows how many injuries there were per game in the last 4 years. It is also separated by which day the games were.

Player safety in the NFL is a big deal. Almost 300 players had to leave the game because of a concussion that will impact them for the rest of their lives, and about 6 players had to leave due to an injury every game! Many people who watch the sport rarely know the true details of each injury, and they believe that it might only affect the player for a few weeks or months. Little do they know that some injuries will have lasting effects. There are many players who had to retire from the sport they love because of an injury they did not know was going to happen. People like Bo Jackson, Joe Theismann, and Kevin Everett who never could have imagined what happened to them. These people should the world how nasty the NFL can be and how the rules need to change.

One of the major injuries that is caused by concussions and hard hits to the head is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a disease that grows over time inside your brain that can cause different symptoms over the years. There are 4 different stages and the symptoms get progressively worse. . Another big issue with CTE is that it can only be diagnosed through  an autopsy; which means that scientist and doctors only know if a person has CTE once they are dead. A famous story about an NFL player who had severe CTE is Aaron Hernandez. He was with the Patriots before being found guilty  of murdering a total of three  people. While he was in prison, he commited suicide with a bed sheet, which is when doctors then found out that he had CTE. Doctors believe that is what lead to him being so violent and being suicidal. That is just one major case though. There are many other former NFL players who had CTE and committed suicide.  Dr. Ann McKee did a study that looks at many former NFL players brains. She found out that 110 out of 111 of player’s brains had some stage of CTE. She also found that high schoolers will already have mild cases of CTE at their age.

This is a picture of the brain with CTE and how CTE looks like in its different stages. The brown stain is the tau protein, and over time the tau protein spreads until it is the entire brain. Tau protein can be both good and bad proteins, but in the matter of CTE, it is bad.

Another major issue with player safety is the length of the NFL  Some people think that pre-season should be shortened or just eliminated. Other people think that there is no issue with it or that it should be increased. Many people debate that pre-season should still be 4 weeks, because even though there are injuries in the pre-season, there are also injuries in practice and in the regular season.  Pre-season produces almost the same amount of injuries as practice so if the pre-season is eliminated, that would get rid of at least 25% of injuries.

The reason that player safety in the NFL is an issue is because there are many kids who want to play in the NFL. A lot of teenagers play football in high school and some play college football and others also make it all the way to the NFL. Many people say kids are the future and if kids are playing football and get minor stages of CTE, that could very dangerous to their health, since their brains are still developing. Some people even believe that high school football should be banned due to the danger it poses for their safety. Player safety among the NFL should be important to understand, because people should not want other people to be put into risky situations.

Player safety is a huge issue to me because I am such a huge football fan. Last season, I saw many players out for the season and that upset me. I know that football has a huge risk factor, but there has to be a way to decrease injuries. In my opinion, it just makes the game more enjoyable to watch without players getting season-ending injuries. Football is just so important in my life, and to see preventable  injuries makes me mad. Concussion and ACL tears should be more avoidable all together and that is how I hope the NFL will be one day.

The research that I have done has changed my view. I know a lot more about how the brain is affected because of the concussion. I also learned a lot about CTE and how that connects to NFL athletes. After doing the research, it makes me want to solve the issue of player safety even more. I still have to read more about pre-season and different injuries. I want to learn more about the risk of the NFL and any more surprising brain injuries.

The link to my annotated bibliography is here.

I have known about illegal animal trading for a long time but I never really thought about it. When this project was introduced, where we were told to pick a problem in the world to research and become an expert on; it was hard for me to find what topic I would pick. I finally concluded on doing my project on illegal animal trading. I would not be able to even imagine a world without animals and the fact that many of them are becoming extinct makes me really sad. I thought that I should try to bring awareness to people. When buying products in a foreign country, tourists can sometimes be the contributors to the illegal animal trade as they buy an exotic animal or something made from animal. After doing some research, I found out that animals are smuggled in all different ways and that endangered animals are more popular since they are more rare.

Animal products being illegally sold in in China’s Laomeng Market. Photo credit: Alpha. 7

Animals that are endangered have a higher demand in illegal trading. According to the, Official Web Page of the U S Fish and Wildlife Service, “Illegal wildlife trade is also often unsustainable, harming wild populations of animals and plants and pushing endangered species toward extinction. Endangered animals and plants are often the target of wildlife crime because of their rarity and increased economic value.” The fact that endangered animals are the most wanted in illegal trading, causes endangered animals to be even more vulnerable. This can bring them to the brink of extinction and also makes it harder for conservation organizations to help raise the population numbers of endangered animals as they are either killed or traded off.

The reason why illegal animal trading is such a massive industry is because of the low risk the task pertains. The World Wildlife Fund says, “Corruption, toothless laws, weak judicial systems and light sentences allow criminal networks to keep plundering wildlife with little regard to consequences. These factors make illegal wildlife trade a low risk business with high returns. The poachers—often poor locals—are the usually the only ones caught, leaving the real masterminds and their network safe and operational with the ability to strike again.” The big organizations rarely get caught trading illegally because local people are the ones selling illegal products and who end up getting caught. As reported by The U.S. Department of the Interior, “Poaching wildlife is viable because the monetary gain often exceeds the income that would be available from legitimate sources. Last spring, the Associated Press reported that a poacher can earn $180 for the tusks of a forest elephant and $6,000 for its meat in an area where the average legally earned income is $1 a day.” Traders that work for big corporations usually live in countries with low income, where their income can increase by them trading animals.

When animals are traded they are treated really bad as they are hidden in many different ways. As stated by Smithsonian, “Animals ripped from their habitat suffer, of course. They are smuggled in thermoses and nylon stockings, stuffed into toilet paper tubes, hair curlers and hubcaps.” Traders hide animals in all different ways to be smuggled and transported to be sold. Even when alive, the animals are put in uncomfortable situations so that they are not found.

Yellow-crested cockatoos hidden in plastic water bottles. (Image: Jefta Images / Barcroft Media)

Live turtles being illegally shipped in potato sacks in Vietnam. (© CI/photo by Peter Paul van Dijk)

Illegal animal trafficking is a big problem that contributes to the declining of animal populations and to species to extinction. Big corporations employ people from countries of low income to work for them and sell animals. When animals are transported, they are stuffed into all kinds of places so that they are not heard or seen, which often causes injuries and the death of these animals. Illegal trafficking is one of the main factors driving wild species to risk of extinction. While was looking for pictures to put in my post, I ran across many that showed animals being shoved in all different places, and rhinos with their horns cut off. It was really heartbreaking to see how these animals were being treated. I hope that this will change because even though this problem seems like a circle hard to break, we can help by avoiding buying illegal wildlife animal products.