Coming from a latino family I would definitely help as many immigrants as I could. It is important to me because I know the struggles my family went through to be able to come to the United States and finally become citizens. It is so sad to me to hear Sam’s stories about how common it is for Mexican’s to turn the other way for other immigrants. I have personally seen it with my own eyes and I do not understand it. The worst part it I see it within my own family and especially now that I only go home to visit. My dad is always ‘proud’ of immigrants for still doing what they can to work. For example, people sell corn on the cob, ice cream, fruit and other items on the streets back home just to make some kind of money. They also work at the majority of fast food places and restaurants as cooks or bus boys. To him, he is proud to say they are not lazy and work very hard for their money. But at the same time I recognize that he does not see them as one of his people. I think to him, he is a step above them. He always jokes around about being from Spain and never wants to tell anybody that his family is Mexican. He joked about it so much when I was growing up that my little sister used to tell people that she was from Spain when she was really young. One day my mom caught her and they had to explain to her that my dad was just playing around. Even me personally, when I go home I have to remind myself that the cooks and farmers, come from the same place my family comes from. Sometimes it is harder than others because they look ‘dirty’ or do not necessarily dress or act the way I do or am used to people acting but I respect their culture and work ethics. I know my dad’s dad is a very hard worker who learned it from his father. He is now in his mid 70s and still works as a mechanic for a bakery that he has worked for for over twenty years. I respect the immigrants, Mexican or not, for their hard work and ability to fight for their families. They realize that if they work through the struggles of every day life now, their families will be better off in the future. What I think American citizens fail to realize, like Sam said, is we are all immigrants from somewhere except Indians. I do not know what I would do exactly to help, but I know I would do everything I could to not turn the other direction because they deserve the same opportunities that everyone else was given.

I never realized how segregated schools actually were until it was brought to my attention. Being from Southern California and having white people the minority made for a huge change when I arrived in State College, Pennsylvania. I remember moving into Discover House in Beaver Halls and talking to some of my peers. One of them told me they had never seen a black person in his life before. (Besides on TV) I could not believe what he had said. It was one of the most shocking things I think I have ever heard. I most definitely believe that segregation in schools causes racism and ignorance to grow exponentially. I think parents and grandparents that tell their children that black people and brown people are less than or not as good as cause so many problems. The children are then forced to believe their parents because in segregated schools they are not given the opportunity to make their own opinions. It makes me really upset that we are taking steps backwards as a society and it seems like the majority of people who can make a difference either do not care or think things are fine the way the are. I think there will always be hate crimes and discrimination against all people until we all grow up together and see that even though we hold different things as more important we are all still one community. I believe students learn more from a diverse environment because they are forced to step out of their comfort zones. As students they must put their differences aside and work as a team which is very beneficial for their future. I think it is stupid to think that we can raise children in very different environments and expect them to just ‘come together’ in college or in the work place. Why people believe that everything will just end up fine between them dumbfounds me. I think the entire education system that we have now has become a joke and is setting not only children up to fail but also the future of our country. One day we will look back at the decisions we are making now and wonder what we were doing. What is happening in schools now is ridiculous. Schools are no longer teaching students anything more than the very minimum, if the child is in a good enough school to barely do that. Most schools with primarily black and brown students are almost hopeless. The schools I could have gone to in Los Angeles made it a fight to stay in, and also stay alive. With gangs and other bad influences, the teachers did not care and the students have no idea what it means to have some kind of future. All in all, it is infuriating to know that nothing is happening to fix this huge problem.

When Sam told us to put ourselves in their shoes I thought it would be a great idea. I am a firm believer in not judging the other side until there is at least some insight as to why they feel the way they do or why they think the way they do. I instantly felt bad for all the regular civilians that had to deal with our armed forces in their country all the time. I guess when I imagined their military standing on our college campus being purposely intimidating carrying scary weapons it just made me realize how mean we seem. I never understood why we were over there. I still do not understand why we are over there but it if it is all because of oil it just makes me so sad. I remember being in the fifth grade and seeing September 11th tear our country apart but then also bring people together. I was confused because only some people were brought together. If a family had lived here the majority of their lives but were from the Middle East they were immediately bad people. I went to school on 9/11 and not a lot of people were there because their families were afraid something would happen to their children 3,000 miles away from New York. A couple years later, a girl who lived in Pakistan came to my middle school and people would not be her friend because she was from the Middle East. It absolutely broke my heart. People would not give this girl, that was like the rest of us, a chance because of the color of her skin and where she was from. They always told her that their parents said they were not allowed to be friends with her because her family members were probably terrorists. That is when I realized how ignorant of a country we live in. The more I learn about our country the more I become disappointed because it seems like we walk around like we are perfect and everything in our country is excellent and we accept everyone, but we don’t, at all. After we learned about the bible verses that were on the snipers I was so irritated. I am not religious and I never really have been so seeing this stuff on weapons that KILL people was nauseating. That is what I don’t understand, how do people think they can go back to their superior God and be proud of killing someone else. That is the exact same thing we are fighting against. I think as a society, as a group of people, and as a culture we are very biased. We see things our way and only our way. It does not matter who else has to suffer as long as the things we need are at our feet that is all that counts. I wish we lived up to the standards we supposedly have for ourselves as Americans and stopped being so hypocritical.

Since I was a little girl I was always raised to be pretty. I was wearing make up for my costumes before I was four years old. My mom always wore make up and kept up her “look” no matter what we were doing for the day. My cousins were the same way and now they have grown up to be an esthetician, a cosmetologist, an assistant, and a teacher married to a very wealthy man, so something like a trophy wife. All of these careers have certain “looks”. I always wanted to be like my cousins so coming up with my own look was something really important to me. The difference between us though is I am very involved and have been my entire life so to me, there were and are at school where I just do not have time to wake up early to look a certain way. I do not think I ever had the choice of how I was supposed to look because it was always sort of forced on me. Being from Southern California is also very different look than being from central Pennsylvania. When I first came out to Pennsylvania I always had my hair done, my make up done and was always in a nice outfit. On the weekends I did the same thing. Once I got a job at Jimmy Johns downtown and worked on the weekends until 4 a.m. I kind of stopped caring, but when I went out to a party I still always dressed up. I would rather be over dressed than under dressed for all occasions. This holds true for the people I date. Their appearance is important to me and if I am going out and getting ready I expect them to do the same. My boyfriend now, is someone who is used to dressing comfortably and wants to be relaxed all the time but we made a pact because I said that was complete bullshit. So now if I am getting dressed up he has to, too. I think it shows in our career choices as well. I want to be someone who dresses up for work in a suit and looks nice all the time. He wants to be a Physical Education teacher which means he will be in running shorts and a t-shirt. Ultimately it does not make me think less of him, because it is what he wants but my rule is still as long as we’re going out on a date or whatever he has to get dressed up too! I enjoy getting dressed up because I feel more confident and like the way I look more than when I am just lounging around. However, I think dressing the way I do was something I was conditioned to believe and now it is just a habit.

I cannot believe that even now in 2011 there is still a barrier between white and black people. It just does not make sense to me at all. I think it is embarrassing that we live in a society that is so focused on what people look like, where people come from, and what their skin color is that people forget to look at what is going on INSIDE. That is what matters to me.
I have dated a black guy, an asian guy as in international student asian, a mexican, an italian, a “redneck” white guy, an Arab guy, a mormon and I am currently dating a white guy who is Jewish. To me, it does not matter. If we are attracted to each other who cares?
People in my family always tease me, usually my cousins for not having a “type” but I laugh at them for being so close minded. Why would I limit my choice of someone I want to spend the rest of my life with because I am afraid of what others would think of me. Yeah, right. I have learned so much about culture and life in general from each person I dated because they all had different perspectives on pretty much everything.
I dated a black guy and my parents would joke around and make comments about him until I told them to leave his color out of it. If they wanted to tease me I did not mind as long as that was not brought up. Back where I grew up Mexicans and Blacks did not get along. It was a constant rivalry especially between gangs around my neighborhood. That was really upsetting to me because since I am mexican people who I didn’t know would give me funny looks and make snarky comments because we were dating. I laughed and called them ignorant but it still bothered me sometimes.
My grandmother on my dads side did have rude racist comments that I would always fight with her about. Unfortunately, he ended up going to jail after we broke up for 3 counts of attempted murder at 1 million dollars bail for supposedly trying to kill a Mexican but it was one of his friends that tried blaming it on him.
Even through that experience, if I was single, I would definitely date a black man, or any other color, because skin tone does not and should not matter.
My family is very important to me but if they make rude, ignorant, or stupid comments I have no problem standing up against them.
One of my favorite movies is Hairspray and I think one of their quotes is “Do the checkerboard.” I am all about that!

I cannot say I have ever felt guilty for being who I am race or personality wise. I do remember though, growing up in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood and going to a pre-school where everyone spoke Spanish. My dad got a new job and I had to transfer to the school my cousins went to because I needed to be taken care of while my parents were still at work. I moved from Los Angeles to Orange County and that is a huge change. I remember telling everyone I did not speak Spanish and I think I even made fun of other kids that did. I did not want anybody to know that Spanish was actually my first language. In fact, I did not want anyone to know it was still the language I spoke at home. After a while, I decided to not even speak it with my family. If they would ask me a question in Spanish I would answer in English. I wanted nothing to do with the culture, the language or the people.
In this case I was not guilty but instead I was embarrassed and to me that is far worse. I look back and am ashamed for what I did and said but I wanted to be like all the other “rich pretty white girls.” None of my cousins spoke spanish and since they were older than me I wanted to be like them too. In Orange County, Mexicans are usually seen as dirty and ghetto and that was not something I wanted attached to my name.
Since I am pretty fair skinned I always got away with saying I was white and nobody every questioned me. Unfortunately, I do not really know what I am because I never met my biological father. It is something I have struggled with all my life because I just want to know what runs through my blood. Maybe I am white, and I had no idea.
I think beyond feeling embarrassed for myself and my actions, I feel sad for the people who are raised by their families to believe that brown and black people really are less than white people. I also feel sad knowing how stacked the odds are against brown and black people, or minorities in general. It upsets me knowing that people do look in the mirror and see themselves as “ugly” or “dirty” like the children in the video we watched today. No child or person should ever feel that way no matter what the circumstances are.
Now, I am proud of who I am, or who I think I am. I want to minor in Spanish and build a career for myself that will allow me to communicate with people of all races, genders, and cultures. I want to embrace the person I am even if it sets me apart from the people I look up to. I am me and I know I offer a lot to the world. That is good enough for me.

I do not really know how I feel about affirmative action for several different reasons. I realize now that white people, or people who or not minorities feel like it is now a disadvantage to them that we have affirmative action but in reality it was set up for a reason. I think the majority of white people just do not like the concept of them being the minorities and have little to no patience with that idea.
I wish all people could be equal because it would obviously be a lot more fair. But, we just aren’t maybe one day we will be but I really do not see it coming in the near future. I think it is sad that “white men” scholarships are questioned. I do not see what the big deal is. Let them have their own scholarship just like red heads, left handed people, and really tall people have their own. I also do not agree with all black colleges because if someone tried to start an all white college, that was called that people would freak out. If we look at SAT scores white people probably have the highest scores overall, but they are also the group that can afford to pay for SAT prep classes that just teaches them how to take the test. They also have a higher chance of having someone in their family higher up in the work environment. That in itself helps them so much because no matter what the majority of life’s accomplishments are based on who you know and who they know. With that said, even if they are not being treated necessarily as equals, even with affirmative action I don’t think people realize how many resources they actually have and are taking for granted. When I have heard people talk affirmative action a lot of times it just sounds like they want minorities to be equal with them (maybe) and cannot fathom the idea of them somehow getting a few better opportunities which upsets me because they have had so many more opportunities for all these years and now they are finally seeing what it feels like to be a minority.
I do wonder if affirmative action had anything to do with me getting into Penn State. I know I worked really hard and earned my way in but I am sure a part of it was that I am hispanic. But at the same time, I do not want to question why I got in. Was it because I am Mexican? Was it because they needed to lift diversity? Or was it because I earned it just as much as the person sitting next to me? I think to avoid these problems and to start the process of people being equal or not taking the race card into consideration job applications, scholarships, college applications and things of that sort should just take off the race box.

I do not think I would use the term “selfish” to describe somebody who chooses to have so many kids but I definitely do get a weird feeling about it. Poor or not I just do not see why somebody would want to and especially go through with having 22 children. I believe people should have the right to decide how many children they would like to have but after a certain number, maybe based on their income and house they would get some kind of fine. I know it sounds really harsh and I am not even sure I agree with my own idea but I really disagree with the fact that somebody could just ignorantly bring several kids into this world without having the means to take care of them. Unfortunately, odds are that those children will end up on welfare or not be able to make a living for themselves and that just is not fair to me. I do not understand how someone can honestly believe it would be a good idea to have that many kids or be able to house and support all of them. I think after a certain number it the oldest child turns into another parents and so many of the other children get lost in the mix. My parents have two children and I know they confuse our names, they get overwhelmed with what they have to pay for or attend for school functions. I cannot begin to imagine what things would be like if there were not only a couple or a few more siblings but twenty! I think poor or wealthy it is the same for whichever household. It makes me sick that in our culture now shows the “17 Kids and Counting” contribute to people believing it is acceptable to have that many kids. I realize to some it is apart of their religion but after a certain point I think it is silly to not be on birth control of some kind even if it is just using the withdrawal method. Shows like “17 Kids and Counting” making people believe it is acceptable or normal to have that many children when it is not because so much of their daily expenses get paid for because they are on national television. It makes me sick watching shows like this because it is so far off from reality and gives the wrong people these ideas that is is okay and on top of that even something to be proud of to have so many kids. The most upsetting part to me is that they say their God gave them the right to have that many children and it is not their fault that other people are not trusted with that right. That in itself brings up a whole different story of religious people that I clearly do not understand or agree with. In the end, I really disagree with people having that many kids because not only are they making their own lives more complicated, but the children’s lives too along with making the society worse off. In my opinion, it is a lose lose situation all the way around.

It makes me upset how ignorant I am to the rest of the world. I cannot sit here and pretend like it is only the people around me that do not “know” what is actually happening. I myself am one of those people and it is hard to accept. It is very upsetting to know that there is still slavery in the world, and even worse knowing that I am contributing to it. But, in all reality there is only a certain extent I can go to to be able to avoid all the terrible things. The older I get the more I realize how disappointing the “perfect” country we live in actually is. It was nice being a little kid, and thinking Christopher Columbus did not do anything wrong, that the white men and indians shared the land, and how much of a better country we are because we supposedly do not have racism and sexism. I see now that it’s all a facade and makes me sad knowing the truth. I hate that we as Americans out ourselves on this pedestal of how perfect we are and makes other countries worse off than they need to be. I guess it is all just how the world works but I do not understand why things got to this level. I do not see how now, after everything that we supposedly fought against for slavery are contributing and have no problem with it.

I know I take a lot of what I have for granted, especially because I choose to compare myself to those that I believe have more than me. I rarely look at the people who are looking at me, and am thankful for what I do have. It is something I have to consciously think about when I notice myself comparing what I have to what my roommate has or the girl next to me all the time.

I have never understood why we as people cannot be at least a little closer to equal when there are people dying of hunger in the world, and even in our own country. I just do not see why people need to get paid 150 million dollars for a CD they made, or a season of a sport. I am not saying everyone should get paid entirely equally but there needs to be some kind of cap. I always wonder if those people that make that sick amount of money look around and see what is really going on around them.

I think we have so many privileges in this country that people elsewhere could not even fathom. I wish people did not have to live the way they do, by barely living, probably not eating and unable to provide for themselves and their family no matter how hard they try. I want people to survive and enjoy life. To me that is a right that they deserve no matter what country they are in.

I believe both free will and determinism have had equal parts in the life I am living today. Luckily, I got out of the typical hispanic, "ghetto" living in Los Angeles when I was four. My grandparents were raised in Mexico and my parents were raised in East LA. My dads parents were very well off, had a nice house and owned a restaurant along with several properties. My moms parents were very poor, lived off of welfare, and barely made it through the system. My parents have been together for almost 30 years now and have been dating since they were about 13. However, they split up for about three years and that’s when I came into the picture. I was a child born out of wedlock in Los Angeles. My mom started working when she was 16 and has paid for everything on her own. While my dad was definitely been treated like the prince of his family because he was an only child. Since they were raised differently they had to compromise a lot with how they decided to raise me but I think I turned out pretty well. Growing up, the odds were definitely against me. Between kindergarten and high school I went to six different schools in six completely different areas. I went from a decent area, to a rich area with spoiled brats, then to the most ghetto schools in my school district to a decent area again. I could have easily gotten myself into plenty of trouble because of the group I hung out with. I knew I had to be friends with a certain group because if I was not they would probably bully me or beat me up. So instead, I talked like I could fight, was friends with the “tough guys” and kept my good grades and extracurricular activities to myself. They did not know about any of it until I graduated eighth grade as the most well rounded student in my class of 800. My neighborhood wasn’t at all a bad one, but where I was the majority of my day, and the people I hung out with were not on the same page. I chose to not let my life go down the same paths that my friends lives were going down. I am one of the only girls in my group of friends from middle school that does not have a child, or in that case, several. I have worked so hard to get where I am now. Especially because most of what I did, I hid from everyone else. My parents did not know who I hung out with because they both worked 14 hour days and I did not want them to worry about me. My friends did not know that I had good grades and lived in a nice neighborhood and I had to make sure I did not let anything slip to either group so I could fit in just until I was able to graduate. I look back on my life and realize there were many obstacles for me that I had to overcome. At the exact points I had to decide, to me, were not even options. I knew I needed to be successful and happy and I could not blame the good or the bad on anyone else except my own personal choices. I saw how hard my family worked to get out of the “ghetto” and I was not going to be the reason why we went back.