Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?

In the journal "Whose Culture Is It, Anyway," author Henry Louis Gate Jr. outline the connection between race/ethnicity and secondary education or higher learning institutions. However, that is that topic is more geared towards the opening part of the purpose of his journal entry. Henry is more focused on opening Americans eyes to the fact that there is no one culture in America like many people desire. America is comprised of people who ancestors are from all around the world. He states, "To demand that Americans shuck their cultural heritages and homogenize themselves into a 'universal' WASP culture is to dream of an America in cultural white face, and that just won't do." Therefore I believe he was encouraging us to see multiculturalism as being American, and recognizing that there can't be one accepted culture for all Americans to practice. As Americans author Henry Gates Jr. would like us to recognized that America is comprised of multiple cultures and we should work on integrating all of them into an overall American culture. Simply saying its is a predominately white culture will never be accepted.

One of the reasons I chose this article is because I believe that the message has a great value for all Americans. I believe that part of the reason, as mentioned in the article, that a lot of the cultures are overlooked is because they are simply trying to meet certain quotas and only consider other ethnicity's and cultures when trying to meet certain diversity requirements. In my opinion the United States should all be considered a diverse continent and I believe we should all be accepting of all different cultures as being an American culture. Multiculturalism is what makes America who they are. Everybody has a certain culture from which there ancestors came from. People are Scottish, African, Mexican, Polish, Asian and much more and there is no such culture as being just American. Therefore I believe we should all work on exploring more cultures as Americans. I am partially frustrated when the only thing most people think of when giving me certain jobs or offering me certain positions is the fact that I am an African American female. As a nation we all need to be more focused on learning how to have values of tolerance and understand and accept culturally based issues that arise in our nation. As stated in the article we should all attempt to explore the complexities of our culture and discover what it may actually be composed of. We would all get a lot of of our American experience once we look past the fact that we are all different and have something different to contribute based on our gender or ethnicity.

Besieged by "Friends"

In the article besieged by "Friends," written by Heather Havrilesky she identifies the problems with the western influence in the Muslim world. Like many American companies, when trying to catch the attention of citizens in other countries they target children. Before 9/11 occurred Heather made a trip to the Muslim community in the Middle East and asked their opinion about the western influence. The majority of the adults present, didn't agree with the influence and were unhappy with the way it was drowning out their own culture. By targeting children, they know they have little clue of cultural relevance and their minds can be easily molded into whatever you may want them to be. She says that places like McDonald's and Dunkin Doughnuts rarely attract adults in the Middle East which is why they stick to reaching out to children. She identifies with the citizens in saying they shouldn't be forced to watch American television all the time. In all honesty, "If we were forced to watch reruns of "Shabab Online" on every channel, we'd be angry too."

After reading this article I couldn't help but to agree with the opinions of Muslims in the Middle East. Often time as a teenager I am unaware of the actions and the influences the United States spreads to the world around us. I believe that when I was in high school, and even now that I am in college, I had very little tendency to watch the news of concern myself with the actions of the United States. I believe most students at the high school age and below, and I would like to venture and say that people in the United States, have a little clue to what the United States is doing. Personally, outside of large events, I usually have no idea what the US is doing. Therefore I would like to say, that even though people might hate the people of the United States, most citizens are unaware of what we the people of the United States are doing. In my personal opinion, I believe I would also be aggravated if lets say the Asian culture was forced onto the majority of us. I am used to practicing certain things, and am very strong in my culture and religion. However, if we were bombarded by the Asian culture I believe we would also have to agree that we aren't happy with the way that the we are forced to do certain things, and that our culture was being wiped out and we were forced to live a lifestyle that we were unaccustomed to. However, the majority of the children in the United States, wouldn't have much of a complaint simply because they haven't gotten to the stage of knowing certain cultural practices and what we necessarily do here. That is why it always seems easiest to target children. Then when the children reach into adulthood they are fully accustomed to the lifestyle you have been instilling in them. This being said I don't agree with the forced American culture we instill in countries all around the world.

ISCORE

The Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity (ISCORE) is a somewhat of a forum on issues of race and ethnicity at specifically Iowa State University, but can also be applied to students all over the nation who are experiencing college life as the minority. The local conference is designed to model the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity also known as NCORE. NCORE is the leading and most educationally based national forum on issues of race and ethnicity while obtaining a secondary education degree, bringing together students and experts from all over the world to a designated location on an annual basis. The main goal of the conference is to help promote racial equality in institutions of higher education and instill certain goals and ideas in students that can be practiced once they arrive back at their instituiton. Its also there to help increase the oppurtunites of minority students throughout the nation by promoting certain values.

At this year's ISCORE conference I attended the session called The Hidden Curriculum: Barriers to Success for Female Students of Color. I found this session to be very helpful for the fact that it showed me some of the steps to take as an African American female to become a more successful and open up more oppurtunites for success as a student. One of the things that I enjoyed listening about was the advisors and faculties opinion on the help we seek as minority students. They claim that they give us numerous oppurtunites to get help in school and oppurtunites so that we can perform better in the classroom, but it is our fault that we have not taken advantage of any of them. In their opinion they give us numerous chance to better ourselves as students, and that the reason there is a barrier is because we make one for ourselves. However, as a student I believe that just because there is an oppurtunity placed in front of us, there is often times a fear to utilize it. I have personally been reluctant to take advantage of the oppurtunites the faculty have given me at Iowa State simply because I have a fear to utilize them. Attending Iowa State University can be a big culture shock for a lot of students upon arrival. In my opinion, I myself wasn't used to being surrounded by people of the caucasian race at all points of the day. I believe it would also make a stand if some of the advisors and faculty were minority themselves. I believe a lot more students would have the tendency to reach out to them a little more. I believe there is a barrier for success for not only female students of color, but simply students of color as well at predominately white universities and colleges. I believe that some of the suggestions they gave us about seeking help from students who look like us, and by accepting some of those resources provided for us we will be a lot more successful. I must say since second semester, when I decided to get help with my classes from the dean of diversity for the college of engineering and take help from tutors and workshops offered in the evening, I have been a lot more successful and the majority of those barriers no longer exist.

We all Have Cultural Baggage

In the article, Cultural Baggage, by Barbara Ehrenreich she highlights her struggles with never knowing much about her cultural background. She states that she always ate ethnic food and was surrounded by a lot of culture but never specifically knew about her ancestors. By being deprived of certain cultural aspects throughout her childhood and life, Barbara is unable to bring cultural relevance to her children. She states how she hoped marrying a man from Europe would strengthen her sense of culture, however it in fact did nothing to brighten her cultural knowledge. However, at the end of the article she seems to be at peace with herself in the sense that once her children were grown, they don't feel like they lack any cultural knowledge or blame their mother for not knowing much about their heritage.

I really enjoyed this article because I felt that it was easy to relate to. It reminded me of a movie I saw a could of years ago, called Roots. It was about a man who was taken from his home in Africa and how he became a victim of slavery. However, he was determined to tell his story for every generation of children that he was alive for. He wanted the all of his descendants to know where they came from, and not allow the white people of that time to erase all of their culture from their brains. Although most of the people were born and raised during slavery time, he was determined not to have his family only identify themselves in that manner. All of this being said I have realized that I myself don't know many things about what one may call "cultural baggage." Although I was born and raised here in the United States, I am fully aware that this is not where my ancestors originated. I am of the African American descent, and know that my family also was a victim of slavery. All of this being said I know nothing of my cultural background in Africa. Another interesting fact that I learned as a child is that most African Americans have some form of white descent in them. The truth is most slave owners raped their women, and some of those women had children. Therefore, a lot of us have some white inside of us. Me personally I was also informed that my great grand grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee native American. However, outside of that information I know nothing else. In the more recent times, African Americans are starting to relate our culture with the actions of most people in the poorer neighborhoods and forgetting the more important things of what are people have done. I hope that one day when I am retired and have time, I would like to trace my ancestors back to our times in Africa.

Lets Talk about Trash!

In the article Talking Trash, by Andy Rooney he focuses on the problems associated with large numbers of trash all around the world. He gives us a play by play description of just how much trash is thrown away each and every day. We never consider when we go to a grocery store that the majority of our items are in containers and cartons and bags, and when we arrive to the checkout line all we do is place them in more bags and cartons. Rooney highlights the amount of materials that we as human discard and comes to the conclusion that we more than likely discard 25 percent of the items that we purchase. Rooney emphasizes his concern with turning our world into one massive dump if nothing is done to prevent the amount of trash we throw away. At the end of his article he reminds us that if we don't do anything to stop all of our wastes, "The Earth could end up as one huge, uninhabitable dump."

One of the reasons I chose this article to write about is my history with working in a grocery store. I worked at my neighborhood Jewel-Osco for 2 years and witnessed just the amount of waste that Rooney is talking about. For starters, all the groceries are delivered to us in boxes or cartons as they are unloaded from the truck. Then after we take these items from the truck, we take the individual cartons and bags from these boxes and put them out there for customers to purchase. Once the customer has chosen their groceries, they can then bring them to the checkout where we will bag most of their groceries. Depending on the item we may use two plastic bags, or two paper bags, or mix and match. However, often times when the consumer gets home, half of the materials used to transport the items from place to place are discarded of. Since I was in the third grade I have been informed of the problems with the amount of trash we have here on earth. I have learned about its effects on the ozone layer, and what will happen when we run out of places to throw away our trash. Although there is a recycling program in most places around the world, the truth is most people ignore these programs and simply continue to throw all of their items away. For instance, I have been living in the dorms at Iowa State University for the past nine months, and watch people constantly throw away items such as bottles and empty boxes. One of the worst displays I have seen of waste was the day after move in. There were TONS of boxes in the dumpsters that people had used to carry up all of their items. Truth is most people don't need to use boxes and cartons and plastics bags to move all of their stuff, but they choose to anyway and wind up wasting a lot of material. I see everyday that their is an abundance of trash in the trash cans and every so often wonder where all of it goes. I wonder what will actually happen when all the dumps are full, and am concerned that people will begin to take action when it is too late. I believe if we begin to conserve now and are more conscience of programs such as recycling we can eliminate the problems associated with trash. Although we are not feeling the effect of being wasteful consumers, I want to avoid the day that comes when we have nothing left to do with our "trash."

What's Globish?

In the article, If You Can't Master English, Try Globish, they author focuses on a newer language that can be interpreted by most people all over the world. In the article, author Mary Blume focuses on the advantages of having an additional language and not simply English, or French, or Spanish. This new language is comprised of only 1500 words making it easier for people all across the world to understand and learn in an efficient manner. This language lacks certain description words such as "niece" or nephew, because like the article states you can simply say, "the son of my brother." By doing this it eliminates the option of having a large amount of words to chose from and this way people can have basic communication between one another. Instead of learning a complicated individual language this new language makes it so people from all over the world can still communicate. Although this language lacks certain grammatical structure, it was simply created as a new communication tool.

My reaction to this article is that it overall seems like a good idea. I myself have spent the last 5 years trying to learn the Spanish language and still find myself lost at certain points and lacking the ability to describe certain things. In addition to that I feel that its hard for people to all across the world to learn all 6800 languages that exist. Most of them are not only complicated, but harder to learn because they are all based around different cultures and ways of speaking. By using this new language, called globish, people from the smallest African Tribes can communicate with people in France or Russia. I believe every language is unique and hold certain value, and would never agree that everyone leaves their own language and adapts to a new one. However, I do believe that it is beneficial for a person to be able to communicate with ANY person that they run across. Globish appears to not have been created simply to wipe out other languages, but as a way to eliminate a language barrier that exists between people all over the world. It takes years to master one language and it would be impossible to master all 6800. This is why if there is one globally excepted language such as globish every one's voice and opinion can be heard. However, I must say that I myself have never heard of globish before this article, and am interested in how people are going to attempt to convince people to try this new language. It seems like it would be a good idea, however most people lack the interest of learning a new language. So in my opinion it seems to be a good idea, but there will be some loop holes to fight through.

AIDS has a woman's face

In today’s world AIDS is starting to affect more and more people especially in the African countries. After reading “In Africa, AIDS Has a Woman’s Face,” I learned that one of the main people affected by AIDS over there is the women. Although its a problem for the entire continent, the author believed we should be more focused on helping out the women of Africa before we try to help the entire population. They believe the first step in fixing the AIDS epidemic is by reducing the number on women affected by AIDS.

One of the reasons I choose this story is because I have always had an interest in the AIDS epidemic and just how much it truly affects the people. I believe that people know that AIDS doesn’t simply affect people, but is wiping out mass numbers of Africans every year. However, even though we know all of these facts nothing has changed in the sense of making a better and brighter future for Africans it would appear. One of the topics that has always touched me is infants and children orphaned but the epidemic. In the states, there is no such thing as a child living alone running the household or a 14 year old in charge of all of their siblings. We have things like the foster care system and adoption and things like that simply don’t happen. Therefore every time I think about a child living alone and fending for themselves a sense of sadness comes over me. There is no way a child can usually go on living a healthy and proper life with out guidance from an authority figure. I believe the majority of things we learn come from our parents or guardians. And then when you think about the children who are fortunate enough to have an older sibling to care for them, someone still essentially suffers. I can’t imagine being pulled out of grade school and basically being expected to live the life that most people don’t hit for at least ten or fifteen years. With all this in mind my heart always goes out to the children and families placed in these situations.