English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band Public Feed

Create a Post

Podcast

Posted by Ajanae Mills in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

My goals for this podcast was to just explore new ideas and to get a different concept on people’s lives and why they did the things that they did. The actual interview process went well, I got a lot of insight about his life and he opened up to me about things he hadn’t before. I struggled with putting the actual podcast together and I felt like the way I structured it was wrong but I suppose it’s not that bad. Overall I learned that there’s so much to take from each and every experience and that life is what you make it.

Advanced Essay #3 - Christian

Posted by Christian McCormac in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

Christian McCormac

Intro:

I’ve wanted to write an essay like this for a while. I think what I discussed in the essay kind of pushed me to finally get around to it. The whole concept of what identity and wealth has to do with immigrants and how it affects there lives is what is important.  Equity, equality and patriotism have a big part in the essay too.

In the US the gap between rich and poor is growing. As an immigrant coming from a different country to america, you have to realize that other  people have different perspectives of you. "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others" - W.E.B. Dubois Traditions that they leave back in there country, a personality they leave at home, acting more american at work to relate to others and be more successful. “Most people don’t, for two reasons: They have no idea that their identity is affecting how much they earn. Even if they do know, they don’t know what they can do to change their identity.” Traditions that immigrants leave behind in their country, a personality that they leave at home with their families, and a mask they put on at work to relate more to others and act more American to be more successful.

Patriotism and pride have a huge role in traditions that American immigrants participate in. "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," There are two sides of patriotism, the good side, where patriotism is the quality of being patriotic and supporting the country you’re from, and then there's a bad side of patriotism, where everyone is so patriotic that the only country they support is there own. Personally I support every country, I also believe that this world should have more equity. Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. Equality is treating everyone the same. Equality aims to promote fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help. Immigrants that come from different countries also have to adapt to the American lifestyle, the way Americans live, and portray themselves.

As far as traditions, there are many different traditions, and having money, gets you more places in life. In addition to cultural pressures, many immigrants face outright racism, which can hurt their careers. “In fact, race alone cost Asian, black, and Latino immigrants an average of between $2,000 to $2,700 in net worth, compared to that of white immigrants with similar educational backgrounds, periods of residency, and fluency in English.” This quotes ties back into identity and how identity affects how much they earn. That’s why many immigrants wear mask so they can be more successful. It’s always good to ask yourself the central question in what ways does wealth tied together in immigrants is a assimilation?

In conclusion the whole concept of everything this essay's states, humans have to learn how to love and treat everyone as they would want to be treated. Everyone needs to learn self control, self motivation, and how to value what is really important in life.


Advanced Essay #3 : The compromise for Identity

Posted by Taytiana Velazquez-Rivera in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

When assigned this essay, I wanted to take a step back from descriptive scenes. I also began to wonder “Does society destroy your sense of self in compromise of your belonging?” since none of our driving questions exactly touched on this, which is why I named this ” The compromise for Identity”. I hope that my point gets across without being repetitive, and I also hope my comparisons of being a part of a bigger picture tied well into the piece.

              The compromise for Identity

Society makes you choose between a high sense of self and the sense of belonging, for a compromise of both. In this I can see that one will construct their own self for it to be rejected, because their self won’t let them belong, striving to be too different can cause you to be an outcast in a community or in all communities said people/person strive to belong to. Everyone has an identity but society makes you choose what it is tied to. Being your true self limits you from being in communities; Interchangeably, one must have both, belonging and sense of self; however generally gives more than the other in exchange.Trying to be yourself and being vetoed by the community, teaches one that they must compromise compromise the two thing’s tied to identity for the other. This theory is proven that one lies atop the other, when someone asks about identity “I am…” one will either describe their self or ]describe something they are a part of, either “I am puerto rican puerto rican” or “I am an optimistic optimistic person”. In most cases, people will identify as either “I belong” or “myself is”, though you can have both people tend to battle the other. Though they both contribute to your identity, we tend to either choose sense of self or belonging, when it comes down to answering answering the question “Who am i?”. Am I from SLA? Am I a writer in a high school English class? Am I a Woman? Am I brilliant? Am I Puerto-rican? Am I optimistic? The answers to all of these are yes.

Shaping identity is dependent on self perception. The things that you tell yourself about your identity become your self along with the belonging that you can help and the belonging you can’t help for example being born into a community and joining a community(social belonging). These thing’s that you tell yourself become a piece of you along with the pieces you gain from belonging.

  The kind  of belonging you can't help seems to be held to a higher importance than societal belonging( the one you can help) as demonstrated in,  Mark Hugo Lopez’ Hispanic and Latino Identity Is Changing, he stated “Hispanics prefer to identify themselves with terms of nationality rather than pan-ethnic monikers .” This emphasizes the idea that, some people in particular groups of culturally similar ethnicities prefer to tie themselves to a specific culture within this subgroup of people. They tie identities to their nationality due to the different cultures within the group of ‘Hispanic or latino’, the reason this is a basis of offense to these cultures being lumped in one because their identity is belonging to these groups, such as Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican and much more which society wants to lump together - though similar; their identity doesn’t seem to matter without their originating environment. They can't help this sense of belonging because they were born into it, so since it will forever be their identity they prefer identifying with nationalities, with their communities cultured prevented from being blurred with others- who just don’t cooperate in the same manner. If they were to let every piece of their and pan-ethnic names used to assimilate these “related groups” they would have a piece of them that really didn’t belong- causing a wider assumption that all Hispanic and Latino traditions, foods and ways are the same.

   Coexistence  of self and belonging comes with  the compromise of the other. The demand of belonging in society or to somewhere will always outweigh self, since it is ever changing. However when explaining identity, people tend to interchange self and belonging, and by doing this you tend to compromise the other part of yourself to identify with one of the two. If one compromised their self to finish the sentence “I am…” you lose the other parts of yourself building the image with others by belonging. 

 On the other hand one has a high sense of self, you tend to spend time getting to know their self, for if they didn’t they wouldn’t be in touch and knowing of self. You can build and change yourself to the self you want to be. You are in charge of your self-identity. However, when you have a sense of belonging, you identify with somewhere someplace or someway, you believes it lives in you and that’s  what makes you, yourself. This idea was illustrated in Thandie Newton's TED Talk ‘Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself’  when she touches on the interactions of ‘self’ and ‘the society/word” in which you’d essentially  be ‘belonging’ in, she elaborates that “The self that I[she] attempted to take out into the world was rejected over and over again. And my panic at not having a self that fit, and the confusion that came from myself being rejected, created anxiety, shame and hopelessness, which kind of defined me for a long time..” After you ‘shape’ your identity, you will see yourself getting accepted and/or rejected. Even if, that  identity is created by belonging,  and is not something you can change, such as a social belonging, you just must break yourself down into lesser parts and see which one of those pieces of yourself belong in something else. In this instance ‘being rejected’ simply means try again; some pieces obviously will fit but some have to be connected, broken and sculpted to fit; while these pieces look like nothing more than pieces they fit together to make the masterpiece of a mosaic, called Identity.

Lopez, Mark Hugo. “Hispanic and Latino Identity Is Changing.” Nytimes. NY times, 11 June 2015. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/hispanic-and-latino-identity-is-disappearing.

Newton, Thandie. “Embracing otherness, embracing myself.” Thandie Newton: Embracing otherness, embracing myself | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., July 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/thandie_newton_embracing_otherness_embracing_myself?language=en#t-560227.

Advanced Essay #3 What Truly Contributes to Defining our Identity?

Posted by Joseph Lee in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

Introduction

I had a little bit of a hard time writing this paper. The topic of identity can be really hard to write about due to the fact that it’s so broad of a topic. But after a couple of days of thinking and sorting out my ideas, I finally was able to to come up with a question and a stable structure on how to answer my question. Overall, I’m proud of my work because I wasn’t too confident in this assignment when we first got it. But I think I met all the requirements. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts.


Essay

What truly contributes to defining our identity?


Society is so consumed in the materialistic aspect of our world. Whether it’s worrying about how many followers/likes they have on Instagram, “needing” to wear the latest fashion, religiously watching the lives of our favorite celebrities, or concerning ourselves with how much money we have/want. We believe that these things make us better, more popular, or bring us happiness. But the problem with this is that all of these material things are only temporary. They only provide temporary happiness; we as a culture strive for things to be permanent because we aren’t satisfied with temporary. In a video called “Celebrities Speak Out On Fame and Materialism”, different celebrities discuss identity and happiness in the fame industry. During an interview with actress, Cameron Diaz, she  states, “If you are looking for fame to define you, then you will never be happy. You will always be searching for happiness.” In today’s society, fame is one of the top goals people would like to achieve. But when they get there it’s like, what else is there to do now that they have everything they could every want? Fame doesn’t bring happiness and define your identity because all the praise is going towards what the person is known for, rather than who they are beyond their talent. Fame is a perfect example of how martialism as a whole shouldn’t define you. The material thing can get uninteresting really quick and it can overshadow who you really are as a person.


Our culture focuses on materialism so much that we begin to slowly forget what truly defines who we are or want to become; and that’s us. Going back to the “Celebrities Speak Out On Fame and Materialism” video, actress/model Cara Delevingne touched on the topic of identity. She says, “The most important journey…..is the journey in ourselves. To find our truth, to find who we are and what makes us happy.” It’s important that people go on this journey because it will separate us from the material world and “force” us to focus on ourselves and what we want to become in  life. This sets up the stage for what should truly define one’s identity. Before one can reach the final destination in the journey of discovering who they are, they must make one pit stop. This pit stop will be most helpful in defining one’s identity. But depending on the person, it can be extensive.


This pit stop is called expanding your horizons. This consist of several other sub-pit stops, but we are going to only focus on a couple. Such as expanding your knowledge, surrounding yourself with the right people, traveling to new places, and taking risk. By expanding your knowledge, you could learn things that can change the way you think for the better.  This can be achieved by reading more books or learning from the experiences of others. Knowledge is power; the more you know, the better you become. By surrounding yourself with the right people, you open yourself to new opinions and ideas that could indeed shape your identity. These people should be uplifting and contribute positively to upbringing of your identity, rather than being negative and influencing you to become someone that you don’t want to be.

This world is so vast and has so much to offer. By traveling to new places, you can start the process of figuring out the role you want to play in the world. Traveling doesn't just mean going to another continent or even across the country; you could also stay close to home and just travel to a part of your city(or state) that’s new to you. Your identity is shaped by your environment; by traveling to new places, you learn about what you can take away from the environment and if you are affected positively or negatively by it. By taking risk in life, you open yourself to endless possibilities that can shape your identity. If you stay in “the safety zone” of life by sticking to what you already know and have done in life, then you won’t become worse or better; you would just stay as you are. But if you take a step into “the risky zone” of life by experiencing new and different things, you may discover things that you never thought you would like, but do. You may also discover things that you never thought you could do, but can. Taking risk can be two sided, you could improve as a person or worsen, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.


The larger idea here is that our identity is defined by the world. Maybe not all of it, but certain aspects of it like culture, religion, politics, or even materialism. By expanding your horizons, you’re opening yourself up to all of the world. Experiencing all it has to offer and seeing what works for you and what doesn’t. No matter what people say defines their identity, all of their ideas are a product of their experience living in the world.



Citations:

"Celebrities Speak Out On Fame & Materialism." YouTube. Ed. Elina St-Onge. "Think For Yourself", 04 Mar. 2016. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.       <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYDKCx4hSQQ>

This is a video, but you didn't list the format we should have for videos on the MLA Style guide. So i just used the website format.





Advanced Essay #3: Society Changing Identity

Posted by Tajnia Hussain in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

This paper was for me to express my views on how society and powerful people, create ridiculous standards for people to follow, which leads people to believe in false images of becoming wealthy and someone who they are not. Along with that, my goal was to open up and write about a scene that I haven’t exactly opened up about, publicly and I have successfully accomplished that. Overall, I am proud of my end product because I portrayed everything I wanted to in as many words as I could, and I expanded on my creative writing. I spent a significant amount of time on this as well, with extensive amount of peer editing and review, and I am happy with my essay.


Identity is something that you hold dear to you. Something that you become over time, where you discover and explore different things around you, and that eventually builds up who you are. Your identity affects what people think of you and your future. Identity is everything you do, your appearance, your behavior, your daily lifestyle, etc. Identity is impacted by the people who construct society, people who have power and create expectations that you must follow. This builds a false mindset around you, that being wealthy, prosperous, and changing yourself into someone who you are not, will make you happy. When in reality, that is not the case. People slowly start to follow this mentality and change themselves so they can fit in and grow into this facade society has built for them.

A method society uses to do this, is to push people to believe that you should establish and improve your self image, so you are noticed by the more powerful people of this world so you can become affluent. Though this “improvement” occurs slowly, and in daily aspects of your life such as at work, school, financially, and economically, the continuous effort and drive to become someone you are not, adds and adds to your shoulders and augments into a heavy pressure which becomes tremendously unbearable that eventually leads you to break. Society will always have these certain rules about beauty, careers, lifestyle, etc, that will never change, and if one person follows it, it becomes a chain reaction and more people will want to follow them to “fit in” and become wealthy. This makes it even harder for people to ignore it, which is why people get sucked into perfecting themselves.

Not only are normal people affected by this, but many celebrities as well. They come from all over the world and they believed in this fantasy as you are now, but it did not end well for most. Cara Delevingne, a model, stated the truth behind this in an interview, “We are told that if we are beautiful, if we are skinny, if we are successful, famous, if we fit in, if everyone loves us, that we’ll be happy. But that’s not entirely true.” Delevingne's statement exploits society and how it feeds lies to people in order for them to being wealthy, but when they get to that point, they are no longer happy or guaranteed what they were promised in the beginning. The voice Delevingne is portraying, is that none of the things society tells you to do is the right answer, you don’t have to change yourself, just work on yourself the way you choose and you will be happy. She expresses the message to not follow the footsteps society tells you to. Russell Brand, an actor, emphasizes in an interview, “I’ve been inside now. I’ve seen the other side of the looking glass... It don’t feel your soul. I still feel empty inside.” Brand demonstrates his discomfort of being a celebrity and how he woke up from the fantasy. Once he saw past the “looking glass,” which symbolizes how society portrays the rich, he realized that it wasn’t worth believing. Being wealthy and living that kind of life will not feel your soul, like society illustrates. In the end, you will be empty and unhappy.

I, along with many others, have experienced different aspects in their life where they have been discriminated or told to change something in their appearance, attitude, or personality to fit into society or to be accepted. Personally, I was treated negatively many times during my life, but one specific aspect was directly from my relatives. My story goes hand in hand with society’s beauty standards.

It often breaks down when my family has gatherings, such as dinner at my aunts or my place. I’m always around my female cousins and aunts and it always has to come to the conversation about who's gaining or losing weight. During these times, I shy away from the circle but one particular time, I wasn’t paying attention and I was happening to be eating chocolate cake. I mean come on, who doesn’t love cake? It’s irresistible so I kept munching away.

As I was savoring the taste of the silky, smooth, milk chocolate on my tongue until one of my cousins giggles and exclaims, “Look. She can’t stop.”

The moment that statement slipped from her mouth, my face dropped and I felt a sharp pain in my heart and I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks. I set the plate of cake aside and bit excruciatingly hard on my inner lip to fight back the tears. As everyone in the room realized my sudden change of mood, their snickers died down and they moved on to another conversation.

That wasn’t the only time that happened and I do not think that will be the last either but everytime it happens, a piece of me grows even stronger and stronger to love myself, and to not follow society’s standards in beauty. I promise myself to not believe in people’s criticism and society’s false ideas and views and to only follow my own raw beliefs and not the fake ones.

Society teaches us to follow erroneous images where we are all told to look a certain way or to be a certain way. It is about finding what is for you and not letting people tell you how things are. It is all about discovering the world for yourself and seeing the truth behind it all, and then deciding what you want to do and not what society wants you to do. It is about demolishing the these barbaric images for yourself so you can move on without the burden of society.


Bibliography:

Celebrities Speak Out On Fame & Materialism. Perf. Josh Radnor, Lady Gaga, Russell Brand, Tom Shadyac, Alexi Panos, Cara Delevingne, Essena O'Neill, Alanis Morissette, Tupac Shakur. Think For Yourself. YouTube, 4 Mar. 2016. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYDKCx4hSQQ>.


Reynolds, Siimon. "How Your Self Image Determines Your Wealth." Forbes. Forbes Media, 30 Mar. 2014. Web. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/siimonreynolds/2014/03/30/how-your-self-image-determines-your-wealth/#75e7e0dc26d5>.

Advanced Essay #3 : [Identity and Belonging in the Black community]

Posted by Desarae Gilbert in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

For my essay, I wanted to engage the reader to think about the topic of identity and belonging in the Black Community. Many external occurrences can cause a person to feel alienation and this can result in a lot of negative outcomes. My goal for this assignment was to enlighten people about the mental health of black people, especially in america and how most of the time its ignored and never even talked about. Figuring out my topic was definitely difficult because I had no idea what I was going to write about, I just know I wanted it to be meaningful. I think the final product turned out well and I got my idea across successfully. 

In today's society and culture, being an individual is not only essential to your identity and what you portray yourself as, but also knowing who you are and where you fit in. For many minority groups in America, fitting in can be especially difficult because even though the U.S. is a melting pot, minority cultures and languages are often swept under the rug to make room for dominant cultural ideals. Assimilation into mainstream culture can more often than not make an individual feel out of touch with their culture and community. In a fascinating way, Aza Nedhari  evaluates oppression in the American culture and complex identity for black males specifically. “The reactionary behaviors and coping mechanisms that manifest from this cultural group may appear incomprehensible to one who is not challenged with an anomalous form of self-awareness defined by a conflicting identity that forces the Black male to view himself through the lens of the dominant culture that does not perceive and does not allow him to function as equal. “ Black males in our society are held up to a certain standard that is somewhat unattainable given that it is based on white male characteristics and paradigms. It almost seems as if black males are unsupported in our cultural, societal and economic system  based off the fact that they are seen through the “lens of the dominant culture”.


In the black community, mental health is such a taboo topic that is not often talked about. In this quote by Simone Sneed, she speaks about her experience with mental illness and the emotional tension she had developed from growing up as an outsider. “Health care providers can be insensitive to the cultural experiences of African Americans. There are some health care providers who assume that…strife in black people or having a difficult time are what’s to be expected…in some cases they may normalize what may be a traumatic reaction.” From the history of slavery to today, many African Americans, particularly those who have risen on  the socio-economic and professional ladder in the face of institutionalized racism still struggle with feeling the need to always be strong, which results in unhealthy coping mechanisms and internalized feelings of hatred. Belonging in this sense can be hard given that some are so emotionally and socially isolated that they feel as though they can not trust anyone and deal with their problems alone.


With blacks being the subject of racialized discourse that has socially established us as being criminals and unprincipled people, this challenges our right to a legitimate and respectable identity. Having a positive identity can be difficult for blacks in america because of the stigmas and stereotypes that weigh so heavily on how other people see us. This can even more difficult when the media adds on to the negative connotations. Racism Review brings up the topic of the media pandering to white audiences whiling slandering the black community in the process. “When racist media, such as Fox News, use black intellectual mercenaries to pander to white audiences to denounce a cultural practice or particular behavior in African Americans in general, they are, in essence, identifying African Americans as subjects worthy to be oppressed, absolving a racialized society of all blame for their oppressed condition and the reason such behavior has become a normalized practice.” Because of the misrepresentation of the black community on such popular platforms, this only fuels the way people see blacks.


Different aspects in life affect the way people see and recognize the black community, but most of the time that is out of our control. The constant marginalization of our culture, language, hair, skin color, and more can be a burden on our spirits, but they are all important facets of the identities of black people everywhere.  In a system we were put into where we cannot prosper may inhibit us, but it will not define us and we will continue to be strong in the face of oppression.


Works Cited


Nedhari, Aza. "In Search of Manhood: The Black Male's Struggle for Identity and Power." Inquiries Journal. N.p., 11 Nov. 2009. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


Hamm, Nia. "Black Folks and Mental Health: Why Do We Suffer in Silence?" EBONY. N.p., 01 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


"African Americans' Social & Racial Identity Under Attack -." Racism Review. N.p., 01 Apr. 2011. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.




Advanced Essay #3: Clouded Self Identity

Posted by Destiny Patton in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on


My goals for this essay were to talk about something so  i'm mom affects ones self identity. Also, my goal was to work on expanding my bigger idea as much as possible. I am very proud of how efficiently I expressed my bigger idea.

The way smoking impacts identities is so eye opening. It is away to conform to society. Some do it to look cool or make friends that they feel like they wouldn’t be friends with otherwise. Sometimes, this becomes your identity because you listen to other people’s perceptions of you. They tell you that you aren’t cool or interesting, but that smoking makes you look cooler. Your face expresses that chill nonchalant look you have knowing that you’re ruining your lung health with every puff. But that coolness masks the real issue. Many do it to get rid of stress. Lighting the end of the cigarette on a cold winter day. The minty taste of a menthol followed by the  relaxation of the exhale. It’s a relief. Though cigarettes are as addictive as heroin, the addiction barely treated. The chemicals eat you alive almost as quick as they make you feel good.Your lungs blacken and cast a shadow over the real you. You change into someone new.
Smoking gives some people confidence they wouldn’t have otherwise. The article ‘I’m a Social Smoker and Please Don’t Try to Change Me’ by Sara Dobie Bauer states that, “Smoking looks sexy, a cloud of white rolling out between parted lips. Smoking spells trouble…-and what woman doesn’t want to be in trouble.”  So, even though she knows it is bad. The author also knows that the smoke of cigarettes entices people. You look more mysterious and interesting. But, many people who do smoke do not self identify as smokers. They decide that because it is not a daily thing and because it is only for show, they do not go under that classification.
People who use cigarettes to relieve stress will be stressed later. Cigarettes can total your body leaving it only with a few good parts left. Even people who only smoke socially are left with irreversible damage. Your identity will change even if you don't self identify as a smoker. The smell will linger on your body and hair and will fill the nostrils of ones you hold close. Your lungs will struggle to grasp onto oxygen more and more. Smoking does become part of your self identity.
Self identifying can help you break away or stay inside any box that you are in. Identifying yourself based on your own opinions and self perception instead of how other people view you is a wonderful feeling. It shows that you have strength. Even then, that is still a perception of others if you are strong enough. That is what is different about self identifying, you believe that you are strong, you believe in yourself. The only thing is, some things become a part of your identity. Smoking will soon affect your life and everyone else close to you. There are things that you don't self identify with but, will affect your identity, smoking is one of them. Drinking, drugs, sports, work, etc. can affect anyone's identity even if they choose not to self identify with those things. Consequently, those things can have an even bigger impact on people around you.

Works Cited

Bauer, Sarah Dobie. "I'm a Social Smoker and Please Don't Try to Change Me."Sheknows. N.p., 6 Sept. 2016. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <http://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/1127533/in-defense-of-social-smoking>.

Asian American vs Asian Identity

Posted by Addison Zheng in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

Coming from an Asian household, but being raised in America, there are many advantages and disadvantages between Asians and Asian Americans. Asian people who immigrate to America want to be successful in this country, and have a positive and fulfilling life. Back in their home country, it was a struggle and due to multiple reasons such as poverty, low income, no jobs, etc. So for their children who are born in America, they are considered, “Asian American.”

Asian American parents, much like many immigrant families, will go through difficulty like working low paying and tiring jobs. They must work hard to achieve their goals and to provide for their families. Asian parents will encourage their child, and help them to be hard working, do well in school, and have a nice job, in the future. Such as, working at an office, becoming a dentist, or engineering, and etc.

There are also many disadvantages for Asian people who have immigrated here. But for Asian Americans, they have more an advantage living in America. For example, speaking the english language. As I grew up, I noticed that my parents struggle with speaking English and they still do. At times my parents would ask me or my brother to translate for them, like talking to a bank teller, going to pay for a bill, calling someone, etc. If an Asian American were to live in Asia, they would have the disadvantage because they have not grown up in that country, for them to know the ways of lifestyle such as speaking the language, finding jobs, communicating with people, etc.     

My parents and I, are very different, but we always come back together as one family. My parents were immigrants, but now they’re United State citizens. But for me, I wouldn’t consider them as an “Asian American,” completely because they came to America for an easy and better life. Asians that are in America still struggle today with financial problems, jobs, and communications . An example would be working at restaurant, which could be a struggle for some Asians. “Working 12 hours on the weekday, and 13 hours on the weekend was tiring,” my Mom said with energy. My parents go further into how difficult working at a restaurant is, saying that there are “no vacations, if you injured yourself for example like getting a bad cut, the boss wouldn’t care as much because they’re not going to pay for your injuries.”

My parents told me since I’m “American,” they expect me to have a better working job than them. They don’t want me to be in their shoes, working hard every single day, barely getting any breaks, getting paid $8/hour which my parents think is considerably low, etc. They want me and my brother to go to college, since they didn’t, and do extremely well because as an Asian, they want their children to be successful in life. They want their children to be better than them since they experience it themselves.

To me, being Asian American or fully Asian, I’m happy and I’m not. I can communicate with people around me, but then I don’t usually speak Chinese with my parents. Although, I understand them I can’t really speak back and if I do try, I sound like a foreigner to them. This causes me to be confused about my identity. It is really different because I feel like if I choose one between Asian American or Asian, it could be right or wrong. I don’t know where I stand when people ask me about my “identity” to be quite honest. Am I fully Asian or Asian American? To this day I’m still trying to find out where I stand.   

Bibliography:

Tan, Jude. "7 Differences between Chinese and American Culture You Should Know About Before Living and Working in China." Teach English in China - Current TEFL / ESL Teaching Jobs. N.p., 31 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


Advanced Essay #3 [Society Identity V.S Self Identity]

Posted by Jaszmine Randle in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

 Introduction:
   There are 2 different identities. Society’s identity and Your own selves identity. The one that should matter the most is your own identity, however, society’s identity always is found to be more important to people.  People allow the people in the society to identify who they are when in reality the only you can identify yourself to the fullest extent. This paper took time to create , I had to observe a lot of different sources before I stuck with some and I did a lot of rewriting. Overall I think my paper came out very well and polished.

In life, you experience obstacles before you can identify yourself and find out who you belong to or what you belong to. You will never know right away who you are. All of these things take time considering you will always be trying to figure out who you are, and what you like or dislike. People are different so they will never figure out things at the same time. However, society gets in the way of how people identify themselves. Society gets in the way when they allow people to think or believe there is only one way to live and one place to belong to.

People a part of the society are the ones who remove others of what they identify as and change their perspectives towards themselves. Since society has an ideal set on what different people of different races and genders should do or think people don’t self-identify. They allow others to identify them and let other people take control. Stereotypes play a big role in how society influences identity in our community and world. Men should wear pant suits and sneakers while women should wear dress, heels or skirts. Stereotypes like those change people’s perspectives of themselves and would cause them to question their own identity. In an article called Society shapes identity, Jessica Fussell claims “Through our gender, society dictates what jobs would be suitable for us, what we should wear, how we should look, who we are to socialize with and what is acceptable or not.”  Jessica is showing and presenting how people get identified and stereotyped based on of everything even things like gender. The article also argues that “Although each person has their own individual personality, ideas and thoughts, we are shaped by the society and culture which surrounds us every day.” What this quote dictates is that people base their personality and ideas based off what is expected of their society or culture instead of basing things off of their personal opinions or points.

It takes some people longer to figure these things out considering they are not willing to accept themselves, so they won’t be able to understand who they belong to. Rather it's a religion, race, gender or anything everyone belongs to something different and has the right to belong to something different. However, sometimes society doesn’t accept who people belong to when they rename people's identity. Heidi Durrow’s Identity, Race or Otherwise, Is Your Lived Experience claims “I spoke Danish at home. I ate Danish food. At Christmas, we danced around the Christmas tree singing Danish carols. But when I went outside my home, I was black.” In this quote you see how even though she was one thing at home, when she stepped outside she allowed the society and other people to classify her and identify her as something different. This shows how people in the society deprive people of what they are and make them be what they were perceived of observed as. Although they perceived her and observed her as something different she should still speak up but instead she won’t considering the people of the society said it.

Society identity will always have an ideal set and expectations of how each gender, race and social class should act, do or believe in. No matter how someone identifies themselves the people of the society will always deprive and remove them of what they self-identify as.  However, a self-identity is always better and you can be whatever you want when you're the only person in charge of your identity.

Bibliographies:

  • Fussell, Jessica. "Society Shapes Identity." ARTS1090 Group 3. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

  • Durrow, Heidi. "Identity, Race or Otherwise, Is Your Lived Experience." The New York Times. N.p., 16 June 2015. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Advanced Essay #3:The Hide and Seek of Race

Posted by Sandra Watson in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

Intro: My central question in my essay is How does society and the way they teach race and culture affect the knowledge of a person's racial identity ?,In my essay I tried to incorporate  experiences of not just me but students and youth as a whole and how they are affected by my essential question because I believe youth are definitely affected by it. I also tried to incorporate a lot of the quotes I found as evidence to prove my thesis to be true. I think that I did pretty well explaining such a complex topic and getting  the reader to understand the importance of the issue.


Essay:

 In every grade from kindergarten to 12th we have history as one of our main subjects. School systems have the mindset that  the curriculum they teach for this subject is suitable for all of their students. They know  that they are instilling false knowledge about American History  and neglecting their duties to help each and every child  find their own racial identity.School systems are letting the stereotypes and  misconceptions the media portrays about race teach their children and in return students are amplifying their ignorance in schools,work,at home if they don’t have the proper support  in their household  to correct their wrong information, social situations, and even more. Students who  are not taught correctly about their racial identity and aware  and informed about  other racial identities are the ones who usually end up becoming the stereotype or using their incorrect information to be little other races. If school systems cut common misconceptions and stereotypes about racial identity at the roots they’ll be no room for ignorance to grow.


The way school systems teach students about their  racial identity has gotten so out of control that it is starting to  affect the way students perceive themselves and how much effort they put into their school work .In school now a days  how well you study or how much attention you pay in class is no longer the measure of how successful you’ll be in a subject but  the color of your skin.  In an article  recently written by Heidi W.Durrow  she explained how even though she was Dominican the results she had in math decided she didn’t fit in with being Dominican but another race. “I learned that because of the peculiar way that math and race work together in America, I was black.”. The quote is a perfect example how the school system is helping to categorize races in a stereotypical way which is taking away from the  actual learning experience of the students. It is also striping them away and confusing them about their  real racial identity and leading students to believe false information about a race.


Students should  be trying to learn about their racial identity and history  without the fear of being already categorized  before they even get to show off their skills in the classroom. Without the students even getting to the point of being aware of their own racial identity, the school system does a good job of indirectly applying definitions to the social,economical, and political meanings of race. Angela Willing states ““Unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid.”  Students especially in the  12th grade and under are trying  find out their self identity and how that ties in with their racial identity but how can they, when society is already crafting the definition for them. This makes it much more confusing for students trying to find the truth about their racial identity and even makes them more vulnerable to believing stereotypes and misconceptions the media feeds them.


 It is not practical to ask the school system to teach about every single race in the world, it just isn’t possible especially in one school year. It is way too  much information and history to investigate and research but it is practical to want the school system to teach about  a wide range of different races that don’t all come from the same region. It is essential that the school system dives deeper into racial identity and eliminates misconceptions about different races. This will lower the rates of ignorance that has already spread so vastly across our country. Also  helping students find their racial identities early in life might make finding their self identity a lot easier.Students shouldn’t have to be unfortable in their own skin. Students should not have to be afraid to be who they are. The  students race should not determine  how well they do in school.The student should not be limited in their education because of their complexion. Skin color does not define the student, the student defines her or himself.


Bibliography:

Darrow, Heidi W. "Indenify Your Race or Otherwise." N.p., n.d. Web.


Willing, Angela. "Race and Racial Identitity Are Social Constucts." N.p., n.d. Web.


ENG3-022

Term
2016-17

Other Websites

Launch Canvas

Blog Tags

Teachers