Before Sam’s lecture on illegal immigration I did not really have much opinion on it. I had not learned about illegal immigration in any of my other classes so I did not have much material to base an opinion off of. Most of my exposure to illegal immigration had been through some media coverage or in movies or television shows. Since I had not previous learned a lot of information about illegal immigration I did not want to form an opinion. I think that I have learned a lot in Sam’s class. I was really surprised to learn that businesses were the main factor that shape immigration. Before I really thought about it, it did not seem to make much sense to me. Illegal immigration seemed to be more of social issues, with Americans being angry that there were people from other countries taking their jobs. After hearing Sam’s lecture it made a lot more sense that the issue with illegal immigration is driven by businesses wanting to hire cheap labor. It makes sense that immigrants with nothing will take any job they can get, no matter what it is, in order to make a little money for their families. It also makes sense that businesses would want to hire people who will work for very, very little, it is cheaper and easy to find labor. Plus, some of the jobs that illegal immigrants are doing are jobs that Americans probably would not want to do anyways.
One of the videos that I thought was really amazing was the video about the man and his family that every single day would cook food for illegal immigrants. While there are so many negative feelings surrounding illegal immigration I thought it was really nice to see someone who was truly caring and compassionate. I could not believe that this man spent every day cooking over thirty meals, especially when he had another job. It was really amazing to see this man work and help these immigrants, particularly because for most of the illegal immigrants this was the only meal they would get each day. It was refreshing to see someone helping the immigrants, especially because the man that was helping them received no monetary compensation.
Even after Sam’s lecture I still was not quite sure what the answer to illegal immigration should be. After learning more about illegal immigration I see both sides to the argument. Illegal immigration is a complicated situation. Businesses use illegal immigrants to work for cheap and the use of immigrant work can be very helpful. But on the other side Americans are worried that their jobs are jeopardy and there is more competition for jobs. I don’t quite know what the answer should be for illegal immigration, but after Sam’s lecture I have learned a lot more.

After Sams lecture on Native Americans I felt depressed and confused about the situations that Native Americans currently live in. It is a heartbreaking story that too often we do not talk about. And that was my first question. Why do we always seem to forget about the Native Americans? They lived here first, long before the white men ever came to America, yet we are rarely even reminded of that. It was hard to hear the numerous statistics about Native Americans living in poverty, living with domestic abuse and being the victims of hate crimes. It saddens me because they have been through so much pain and hardship already. I also found it very frustrating that these were all stories that I did not previously know before class. I feel as though the history of the Native Americans is a crucial part to our American history and it should not be forgotten. I was particularly saddened by one of the videos when a Native American man was pushing his dead car with a television set in the back seat. Why was he pushing his car along the road with a television set sitting in the back seat of the car? He was planning on taking it to the pawn shop to try and get some money so he could get something to eat. It was terrible to watch and made me feel extremely sad.

After Sam’s lecture on Native Americans I felt depressed and confused about the situations that Native Americans currently live in. It is a heartbreaking story that too often we do not talk about. And that was my first question. Why do we always seem to “forget” about the Native Americans? They lived here first, long before the white men ever came to America, yet we are rarely even reminded of that. It was hard to hear the numerous statistics about Native Americans living in poverty, living with domestic abuse and being the victims of hate crimes. It saddens me because they have been through so much pain and hardship already. I also found it very frustrating that these were all stories that I did not previously know before class. I feel as though the history of the Native Americans is a crucial part to our American history and it should not be forgotten. I was particularly saddened by one of the videos when a Native American man was pushing his dead car with a television set in the back seat. Why was he pushing his car along the road with a television set sitting in the back seat of the car? He was planning on taking it to the pawn shop to try and get some money so he could get something to eat. It was terrible to watch and made me feel extremely sad.
Aside from feeling sad I also felt guilty. I felt guilty that I did not know the history and stories of the Native American people and I felt guilty that I have lived comfortably for twenty-one years on land that was stolen years ago from someone else. I found that it is a hard pill to swallow. I know that I personally was not the one who came over and took the land from the Native Americans but sometimes I have a hard time not feeling guilty. I think I feel especially guilty because I try to put myself in the shoes of a Native American and I think I would be extremely angry. To have my land taken away, my people killed and then for the people who killed my family and friends to live on that land without knowing the truth? It is especially sad for me to think about when Native Americans today live under such terrible circumstances. Another thing that saddens me is that I am not quite sure what would make the situation better. I think for one thing, we need to start teaching the story of the Native American people in school and not just the typical happy-go-lucky story about pilgrims and Indians. I think that in order for things to get better people need to know the truth.

After this class I still have somewhat mixed views on terrorism. After lecture I understand much more where people are coming from when they fight back against the United States and honestly I do not blame them. It makes sense that the people living in Iraq fight back against the United States. I think the issue is that we believe that we are doing the right thing and we are helping them, yet we do not know the truth about what life is like for them. I think that most people have good intentions when talking about Iraq and the United State’s action when dealing with other countries, but I believe that far too often people do not understand what we are truly doing when we go into another country.
What I find most frustrating is how some Americans believe that our way is the best way. Who is to say that the way we choose to live our lives is the way that everyone else in the world would want to live? What gives us the authority to say that someone in another country lives his or her life “wrong?” I find this particularly frustrating because often times when we decide that people live “wrong” we know little to nothing about their homes, their lives, anything about them! How are we to say that we know what is best for someone else when we know nothing about them. That just does not make any sense to me. When it comes to people from other cultures and nations, you cannot decide what it best for them if you do not understand them. It is frustrating to me that people feel that because the United States is a powerful country we are entitled to control other people’s lives. I believe that we should help other people and countries when it is needed but we need to understand that not everyone lives as Americans.
But I have found that the same issue bothers me here at home in the United States. I think far too often we pass judgment on others without stopping to think about that person’s situation or life. I think we all need to learn to not be as quick to judge and to step back and see things from a perspective other than our own. It aggravates me when people are judgmental and critical others because I think that far too often they choose one part of a person’s situation that they disapprove of and they ignore the rest of the circumstances.
My final thought on terrorism is that while I understand why it happens, it frustrates me because it only continues the cycle of violence. However, I’m not quite sure I have an answer for how to stop the cycle; I can only hope that in the future things progress and get better.

I think that interracial relationships are beautiful and I wish we would see more of them. I think that there is definitely something to be valued from people who can see past the color of someone’s skin and can be with a person who is different than him or her. There is a movie quote that I remember seeing a long time ago that sums up well the way I feel about interracial couples. The quote was “if everybody married someone from a different race, then in one generation there would be no prejudice.” There would be no such thing as a pure race because everyone would be mixed.
While I myself have never been in an interracial relationship I am completely open to the idea. I actually think that it would be really great and I hope that at some point in my life I will be able to be in a relationship with someone of another race. At this point in my life, the reason I have never been in an interracial relationship is because I have mainly been around white people. I went to an extremely small private school for high school and the area I am from is predominantly white. When I got to college, it was a similar situation. It was not that I went looking for the white people, but in my first dorm most of the girls on my floor were white and they became my friends.
I do not personally have any experience with an interracial relationship but I have seen one or two with my friends. One of my close friends is in an interracial relationship and I have seen that relationship develop for quite some time now. I think that it is great that my friend is dating someone who is not white, but there are problems that have come up in their relationship. I think that my friend would like to be more serious with this guy she has been seeing, but he seems hesitant to get too serious because she is white. I think that he is afraid of what his parents or family might think. I think that it’s too bad that they have this barrier in their relationship, but I understand that not everyone’s parents are going to be completely open to an interracial relationship. While we have come a long way and our society is far more accepting than it used to be, people are still extremely judgmental and that can put a lot of strain on a couple’s relationship.
I wish that more people were open to interracial relationships. I hope in the future it becomes a more common thing to see and people become more accepting of it. One final thought, I firmly believe that interracial babies are the most beautiful children in the whole entire world and I hope in the future there are more and more.

When I read the question have you ever felt guilty form being of a certain race, I had to stop and think about the question for a minute or two before I started my response. Do I feel guilty because I am white? No, I do not feel guilty because I am white. The fact that I was born white was completely out of my control. It was not as if I got up one morning and said, “hey, I think white people have it pretty good so I am going to be white.” The color of my skin is out of my hands. Because race is one of the things in life that is completely out of a person’s control it is one of the main reasons why I never understood why people discriminate on the basis of race. To me, that just does not make any sense.
But while the skin color I was born with was out of my control, I do become frustrated when my skin color has certain impacts on my life. To be honest, I do feel annoyed and guilty to know that my skin color, because I am white, can (in a sense) do more for me than someone who is born with black or brown skin. I do feel guilty that I will probably get, and have probably gotten certain advantages simply because of my skin color. I feel guilty because I do not think that it is fair to judge someone based on his or her skin color.
When watching the Kiri Davis video from class today I was reminded of that yet again. I found it so frustrating and upsetting to watch the young black children explain how the white doll was the “nice doll” and how the black doll was the “bad doll.” Again, this just does not make any sense in my mind! There are plenty of awful white people and I do not like how skin tone is equated with certain characteristics, whether they are good or bad.
I remember a situation that happened to me at a party a few years ago that I found really interesting of how these ideas are shown in society. I was talking to some guy and he asked me, “if you were walking by yourself down a dark alley, who would you be more afraid of…a black guy or a white guy coming in your direction?” Quite frankly, I thought his question was rather stupid. Why should it matter what race the man coming toward me is? If I am alone in a dark alley, I think I have more to worry about than the color of a person’s skin and there is nothing to make me think that one man would be “safer” or “more dangerous” than the other.
Back to the original question. I don’t feel guilty because I am white. There is nothing I can do about the fact that I am white, I was born that way and that is how I will stay. But I do feel frustrated about the way that I am treated because of my white skin. I’d much rather live in a world where we are colorblind to skin so everyone would be judged on what is on the inside, instead of what is on the outside.

I honestly never thought much about where I sat in lecture, even after the demonstration that Sam did in class. When I enter a new classroom for the first time I usually choose my seat based on how the classroom is set up. I prefer to sit in the back of the classroom and usually sit off to one side of the room. Where I choose to sit almost never has anything to do with the other people in the class. I pick my seat based on location more than anything else. And while I thought that the demonstration was interesting I did not think (for me at least) much thought goes into whom I sit next to. I think I like it better that I choose my seat based on how the classroom is set up because there is more of a chance that I will end up sitting next to someone who is different than me. I think that in general it is far more interesting to sit with someone that is very different than you than exactly the same, there is so much more to learn from someone who is different than you and I really think that is something to be valued.
After the demonstration that Sam did, I did notice that there were groupings of students around the classroom. I noticed that in general Asian students sat with other Asian students, black students sat with other black students, white students sat with other white students and so on and so forth. However, I think that this “grouping” of students has less to do with where students choose to sit and rather whom students choose to be friends with. In the beginning of the semester I sat with a friend of mine as well as a few of her friends and all of us are white. But it was not just a coincidence that we all decided to sit together, it seems as though the white kids/black kids/Indian kids, etc are friends with mostly white kids/black kids/Indian kids, etc. And I can see that this is the case in my own life. Being a white female, I realized that probably close to 80 or 90 percent of my friends are white. The fact that most of my friends are white partially has to do with where I grew up. I went to a very small high school and probably 99 percent of the kids in attendance were white, so it makes sense that my friends from home are white. But here at Penn State I still find that students stick to their “groups.” I would not say that I choose to be friends with other white kids, but somehow it just happens that they are the people I am around. I think that I would become friends with anyone who I spent lots of time with, regardless of race.

The more I think about the inequality in the way we live here in the United States compared to how the majority of people live throughout world I find myself becoming frustrated and slightly depressed by it. I think it is a very hard thing to take a look at the big picture and realize how much better off than someone else. It is a hard pill to swallow. Recognizing that someone else is far worse off than us means understanding that our problems are not that bad. I think that most people want to believe that their problems are legitimate. I think that people have a hard time putting life into perspective and realizing that they should not complain. I think that here in the United States most people are great at complaining. People constantly compare themselves to someone else and decide that they are so worse off. Here in the United States we are so materialistic that we do not realize the immense wealth (even those who are among the poorer) we have.
I think that is the thing that frustrates me the most; how much people living in the United States take things for granted. We are constantly worried about the most pathetic material things; who has the newest shoes? Who has the coolest phone? Who has the best computer? I find that all too often I hear people complaining about “problems;” “my clothes are not the cool clothes”, “her car is cooler than mine”, “my blackberry sucks!” Sometimes I just want to get so angry at these people and yell that some people do not even have a place to sleep at night, some mothers do not even have the ability to feed their children, and that we still have slavery in this world!
I am not sure if I would say that I always feel guilty about the way we live here in the United States, but sometimes I do feel guilty. I am extremely fortunate, but I never did anything more than anyone else to become this fortunate. I guess some would argue that the world will never be equal and that some are always going to be rich and some are always going to be poor. I think this makes sense, and I don’t think there is any point in constantly feeling guilty, especially about things that are out of a person’s control.
However, I do think that we should acknowledge that there are others who are not as fortunate as we are in the United States. I also think that since we are more fortunate we should help those who are not. Like Sam said in class, you aren’t going to be able to save the world. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give up. We can still make a difference, and as those more privileged I think we should try to.

In my experience I have seen how the choices I have made have affected my life but at the same time I know that determinism has had a lot to do with where I am today. For example, I chose to be a psychology major and not a business major or engineering major. I chose to study thing that I was interested in rather than something that I knew would guarantee a job for me immediately after college. But that was my choice to do this; I could have chosen any major that I wanted. And I knew what was implied with choosing certain majors. So I have no reason to complain about not being able to find a job immediately after college because it was my choice! If I wanted to blame my difficulty in getting a job I could say that the economy is bad, and that might be the case, but really, I can’t say that it is completely out of my hands.
At the same time, I am well aware that determinism has been a driving force in my life. The first time I became aware of this was ironically enough, when taking the SATs. I remember back in high school being frustrated by standardized tests because I wasn’t getting the scores that I had wanted. My mom tried to comfort me by explaining that standardized tests really don’t test intelligence, that they really only test if your parents have the money to pay for a tutor. And while I found it comforting that my mom did not believe in the use of standardized tests to test intelligence, that exact reason she explained was why I did better on my SATs! My parents were able to pay for a tutor to come once a week and teach me the tricks and tips of standardized tests. Had my parents not been able to afford a tutor I may not have gotten the scores to get me into Penn State and my life could have been completely different.
I was reminded of this again in class when Sam was talking about SAT scores and parental income. Listening to him talk about the statistics really made me reflect on them because I was someone who that applied to. It was a perfect example from my life that determinism does have an affect on people’s lives.
But even after reflected on these ideas, I still believe that a person’s life is split between choice and determinism. I totally agree with Sam that it is different for everyone and you really cannot know what the situation would be for individual people. We are all completely different and it is the combination of determinism as well as choice that drives our lives.

I am honestly unsure if race can stop being an issue in the future. I think that it is a possibility but I really do think that we have a long way to go. I think that race is still such an issue in society because stereotypes are constantly reinforced in society. I think that people need to change the way they think about others. People just need to realize that we are all just the same. It was like the short video we saw in class. We are all just monkeys. After watching that video I was thinking and reflecting and realized how true the video was.
It really just seems so silly to me that we would believe that some people are better than others. When you think about it, it really does not make any sense that one group of people is superior to another. I do not understand why people do not just see as well as appreciate that we are all unique and different in our own ways. I think that one of the problems is that everyone is always so concerned about what everyone else has. We are always so worried about how we size up to every other person around us. Who has the most money? Who has the nicest car? Who has the biggest house? We are constantly in competition with each other and quite frankly it is just plain silly. Why does it matter so much who is the “best?” As Sam always says, we are all going to die anyway! So really, I just do not understand why we spend so much time in competition with each other. I think this also applies to race. Why do we constantly separate ourselves on the basis of skin tone, eye types or any other physical characteristic? We are all just humans, or according to the video, monkeys.
I think that in order for race to no longer be an issue in the future we need to stop teaching that we are all so different and teach that we are all just the same. But I do think that there are some obstacles in preventing race from being a problem in the future. One issue is that people are stubborn and are not willing to change their ways. But I do think that as we move from older generations to younger generations people will become more and more tolerant of others and race will become less of an issue. However, I do not know if there will ever be a time when race is completely obsolete. I hope that one-day people can live in a world when race does not matter but I am unsure if I will see that in my lifetime.