I admire what Munoz does so much and I would definitely want to do something to help immigrants as well. I don’t think I would respond to the need as directly as him though. He puts in so much of his own time and money into these immigrants, and while I admire what he does, I don’t think I can do exactly what he does. I just don’t think that it’s worth it to put in so much of my personal time and energy to benefit so few people. I know this sounds a little bad, but it’s my honest answer. However, that’s not to say I would want to do nothing. I think that I’m the type of person who would want to make policy and infrastructure changes to fix the problem from the root rather than just alleviate the symptoms. I think that some immigrants are probably struggling because they don’t know English well enough or the laws well enough to work the system. If we could teach them English, maybe they could assimilate into American society more. If we give them basic education on laws and rights, then maybe they can protect themselves from unfair employers better. I would also want to establish a facility for these workers to sleep in so that they can have a home. And while they are back in this facility at night, we can provide them with the English and law training. I would seek donations from past immigrants who have once been in the same position and other compassionate people who are willing to help. And I might just call it a homeless shelter since it’s probably not good to advertise it as an illegal immigrant shelter.
Alternatively, even if I were to address the symptoms of homelessness and hunger the way Munoz does, I would rather donate money to and occasionally volunteer at some sort of small organization that provides food for immigrants. There are many ways to help people, and I just don’t think I could spend 6 hours a day cooking for them. And that probably also means that I’m not as selfless as Munoz is.
But if we were to turn the situation around and say that hypothetically I were once an illegal immigrant, then I’d really be much more dedicated to helping them out. Even now, when I meet someone who is younger than me attending the same college, the same major, the same classes and activities, I am so excited to reach out to them and help them out. I think that mankind just really appeals to relatability and shared experiences, and it makes us feel closer to other people like us.

I was completely shocked by some of the things Sam showed us in lecture and I really learned a lot about Native Americans in culture. I didn’t claim to know much about the Native American culture in the United States, but I certainly thought I had a general idea. I always pictured reservations to be very peaceful, beautiful, and secluded places. I thought there would be some big wooden sign—similar to those of national and state parks—identifying a reservation and that you would have to drive through a windy dirt road in the woods to get there. These reservations would be filled with ranches, horses, wooden fences, and quaint small wooden houses and the Native Americans to be dressed in mostly denim pants and jackets and cowboy hats. I imagined that they would all be really in tune with Mother Earth, nature, and the animals—like Pocahontas. I imagined little girls in their braided pigtails helping with chores around the house while the boys helped their dad with their jobs. I didn’t really think about what jobs they might have on these reservations, and I guess that’s a problem. Anyways, I was completely wrong and I feel so ignorant now.
The actual reservation looked like your typical “white trash” neighborhood—hoards trailer homes. I was completely shocked. What happened to the happiness and spirituality of the Native Americans that they depicted in Pocahontas? They seem to have been replaced by depression, oppression, alcoholism, premature death, and poverty. I cannot believe that Native Americans in this very country only have a life expectancy of 50 years, which I believe is the lowest in North and South America. When I think about poverty and sickness, I generally think of third-world countries. And it’s always weird for me to realize that there are “third-world” pockets in this country too. And honestly, it may almost be more difficult for poor people here because there is such a contrast between the wealthier and the really poor. And since they are in America, people automatically assume they’re well-off and don’t try to give as much assistance the way they do to people in developing countries.
Another thing that really struck me from lecture was a quote that went something like: “How is it that the poorest, least integrated population in America is its first peoples”. I guess I’m not really “allowed” to say this because I’m not white, but I really do think that the white people in power have really wronged Native Americans in history. We’ve made so many strides in integrating and helping African Americans and Latino students advance in society, but more needs to be done to help the Native Americans.

I absolutely love what Sam did with this topic. The Christian Invasion lecture was definitely the best and most enlightening lecture I have heard from Sam in a while, and it really did change my perspective on the Iraq War. I am the type of person that responds really well to empathy, and being able to empathize with Iraqis really helped me to understand the War from another perspective. Prior to this lecture, I didn’t really have much of an opinion about the war. I didn’t support it and I thought it was stupid that we had been there for so long but it didn’t seem like anything was happening. But I didn’t really think much about why it was that we were there. I assumed it was a response to terrorism and the oil crisis, but on such a surface level; it didn’t sink in for me just how critical and deep those roots ran in this conflict.
I never thought of the US as a hero in this conflict, but frankly, I thought more positively than negatively about the US presence in Iraq. I figured that we had overthrown a horrible dictator for the Iraqis and that we were helping them re-stabilize their government infrastructure so the Iraqis should be at least appreciative of us. But then for an hour and fifteen minutes, all of a sudden, I was on the other side of the conflict and seeing things from another perspective: Why are these foreigners on my land, trying to take things from me? Why do they think that they are better than I am and that they have ultimate authority here? Why are they mistreating my friends and family? What did we do to deserve this cruelty? Why do they think they can come to my home, yell at me in a foreign tongue, and take my resources?
These concise statements don’t really convey the complexity of the issue, but the important idea is that many Iraqis harbor these negative feelings, and that’s unfortunate because American soldiers are not all filled with bad intentions. Some of them are legitimately cruel, others are simply ignorant and unaware that their actions can be taken the wrong way, and many more and just trying to help. There is just such a miscommunication and distorted presentation of the intentions of American soldiers due to a few blown-out stories like the torture at Abu Ghraib. Just as Americans easily misjudge Middle-Easterners to be terrorists because of a few bad experiences, Iraqis do the same to us. As Sam said, people don’t have the time and resources to go out of their way to figure out if their assumptions are correct. They’re just going to believe the evidence that is openly in front of them.

I guess I feel a little uncomfortable, but not in a negative way at all. More than that, I am just really curious as to what they’re saying. Maybe this does not offend me because I am usually the one speaking in Chinese to my mom at the grocery store. Foreign languages fascinate me; it is so amazing to me that the strange combinations of sounds have so much meaning to the people speaking it but I just don’t understand at all! It is amazing to me that people can speak so loudly and fervently, yet I cannot understand their words at all. It is interesting to me that despite not being able to understand their words, you can still infer some meaning by the way they are speaking. Human emotions are universal, and can be communicated through tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbals. The Rap in 30 languages video that Sam showed in class exemplifies this idea perfectly. Even though they are all saying different words, their attire, their rhythms, and their gestures are so similar. When I watched the video, I wondered if there’s anyone in the world that can understand what everyone is saying in the whole video or in other words, knows all 30 languages. I doubt that anyone can, but I think it would be amazing if someone could. I would jump at being that person in a heartbeat. I absolutely love learning foreign languages. I know four languages right now—I’m fluent in Chinese and English and proficient in Spanish and Japanese—and even from my limited knowledge, I already feel like each language is a color in the rainbow. Each language I know has a completely different feel for me personally, and I can use each to express myself differently. English is the language I’m most comfortable with, and I think that our language is very direct and simple. Chinese, on the other hand, also uses simple grammar, but something about it is more romantic and nurturing to me, but maybe I feel that way because I speak Chinese with my Mom and watch romantic dramas in Chinese. I feel like there are more beautiful expressions and history behind the words. There also tends to be more vocabulary words that you can express your feelings with. I know both Chinese and English very well and I often find it frustrating to translate between the two because there often is not a direct translation between the two. That’s why I say languages are like different colors. If you’re blue, you can be all different shades of blue, but you’ll never be able to become green. Sometimes there’s no way a word can be translated because there’s no concept of it in the other culture.

One day, there will not be purely Asian communities, all-white schools, all-black clubs, all-Indian reservations. One day, people will be confused about whether their roots are Hispanic, Asian, or Black rather than whether their roots are Irish, German, or French. One day, black children won’t be asking their mothers why other children have light skin because we’ll all be shades of brown. One day, no one will know about squinty Asian eyes or tall Jewish noses or kinky black hair because no one will be monoracial and no one will be the epitome of these racial stereotypes. I dream of this day because then all of humanity will be united and we can finally see past the ironic %0.01 of our genome that accounts for the differences in our physical features. This concept always really upsets me because I study biology and I know that inside of us, we’re all the same. We are all born with two kidneys and a heart, our bodies function the same way, and we are %99.9 exactly the same. It’s like some sick joke that the %0.01 that accounts for the physical differences that have caused an entire race to be enslaved, wars to break out, hate and hostility between different groups, prejudice and condemnation that have limited people in their choice of residence, jobs, and schools, and just plain old social hierarchies. We are all children of God, and I just wish that people could see into each other’s hearts rather than their skin color.
But even despite what I want to believe, I know that I am guilty of the same latent and conscious prejudices, so I’d rather just get rid of race altogether. I do value individuality so I don’t exactly want everyone to look the same, but I think it would be amazing if our racial groups were mixed around enough that everyone has roots in all different races. This way, no one can discriminate against another race because everyone is every race. And the only way we can perpetuate this is through interracial dating, interracial marriage, and multiracial children. This can be difficult because people want to preserve their own cultures. I am Chinese, for example, and although I am often attracted to people of other races, I would like my children to know Chinese and having a Chinese husband would definitely help that factor. But I suppose that we must all make personal sacrifices for the betterment of the entire world. If my children not knowing Chinese and not being as “in touch” with the heritage I grew up with means that we are one step closer to an understanding world, then it’s worth it and I want to make that sacrifice.

I really want to answer the question of what stage I’m in, but so far we have only covered the first two stages of Racial Identity for Colored People, so I will just work with what we’ve learned so far. Actually, it’s kind of funny because I was trying to classify myself on the scale for white people at first because I realized that I was supposed to do it on the one for colored people. That brings me to my first point—I am definitely partly in the Pre-Awakening stage. Before this class, I used to think of myself as a not very racist person, especially because I am a minority. I thought I was a pretty intellectual person and that I had a very sophisticated view of racial issues and tolerance. But I’ve realized that I’m not; I’m actually pretty ignorant. My experience in discussion group has just been so extremely humbling because everyone has such insightful opinions and made me realize how limited my own scope of knowledge is. I used to think that maybe not thinking about race was the right thing to do, but that’s really just avoiding the problem. In the pre-awakening stage, little thought is given to racial and cultural differences and sometimes, minorities just assume that they are white. Sam said that this was especially common in Asians and that really struck a chord with me because I am Asian and I definitely feel like that. I often tell people that I associate more with white culture than Asian culture and I really just feel more comfortable hanging out with White people. In fact, I would even say I have some degree of xenophobia towards Asian people—incredibly ironic since it is my own race. For some reason, I just feel really uncomfortable hanging out with only Asian people (unless they are my good friends), especially in a large group. I feel so self-conscious that people will judge me and assume that I’m one of those Asians that only hangs out with other Asians. I’m embarrassed at the thought of that and I really don’t understand why I feel like that. Sometimes, I can even sense myself avoiding the other Asian person in the room or not being as friendly and interested in a conversation with them. I haven’t really given it much thought until recently, but I think that maybe it’s because somewhere deep down, I just want to be like everyone else. I’m tired of being different and I just don’t want to be associated with being a minority because that status separates me from the majority. When people look at me, I don’t want them to see my race, I want them to see ME.

There are many scarce resources in our world, but contrary to popular belief, food is not one of them. I have learned in my classes that there is actually enough food in the world for everyone to consume between 2000 and 3000 calories, but the problem is that the food is not distributed properly. There is so much readily available in the United States that we are throwing leftovers away everyday, food is expiring on grocery store shelves, and people are becoming obese. On the other hand, in some African nations there is virtually no food and people are literally dying of starvation. So in this scenario, we can save our scarce resources by simply not wasting food and helping to distribute it properly. In an ideal world, food won’t get spoiled or go bad, and we can just send whatever we don’t need to countries that do need it. But since this is not the case, people justify their wasteful behaviors by saying that there’s nothing they can do to help anyway. For instance, how many times have you heard someone say, “Think of all the starving children in Africa” to a person that did not finish their food? In response, they usually respond back, “But it’s not like I can just give this food to those starving children anyway.” This statement is completely true, but what if we caught the food before it was cooked and prepared? What if we simply learned to get the amount of food we need to eat to avoid waste? I’m always a little frustrated when food is being served to me because the portion sizes are nearly always larger than I intend to eat. Even when I intentionally tell people to give me less, they often still give me about the same amount of food just out of convenience and habit. It is in our CULTURE to be wasteful and take resources for granted.
I have spent two summers in Japan and they just do such a better job of preserving resources. Nearly everything is recycled—cans, bottles, plastic bags, paper, cups—even things that we would normally consider trash. At train stations, it is virtually impossible to find a trash can and instead, recycling bins for all different resources are everywhere. Also, restaurant portion sizes are much smaller in Japan so there’s not as much leftovers. There is a huge incentive to recycle in Japan because I think that there is tax on trash, and the more trash you generate, the more you have to pay. If we did something similar, then Americans would also be much more conscious about how much trash we generate and help preserve the scarce resources that we have.

“Natalie only got into Yale because she was black.” “Krishna only got into MIT because he said that he was Mexican instead of Indian.” The only time I really had a personal encounter with Affirmative Action was during the college application process. It was a time when high-achieving students who weren’t Black, Hispanic, or Native American felt unjustly treated and deprived of their opportunity to go to an Ivy League. What I am about to say might not be the most “politically correct”, or even fair to other races, but it is an honest account of what my peers and I felt at the time of our college acceptances. Back then, I saw two sides to Affirmative Action: the minorities who were not as successful in school—Black and Hispanic— and the ones who were—Asians. Both my experiences at Penn State and Sam’s teachings have taught me that the stereotypes of Asians being extremely intelligent and academically successful are not always true. However, both my upbringing and my Asian friends taught me otherwise. I grew up in a family that really valued education and academic success because both my parents had really goods and were very successful. Affirmative Action basically puts a quota on each racial group. I think the popular perception of it is that College Admissions officers have to fill up something like 6 spots with African Americans, 6 spots with Hispanics, 6 spots with Asians, and the rest with Caucasians. Essentially, each applicant is competing with other students of the same race rather than with all the other qualified students. The 6 best African Americans, 6 best Hispanics, and 6 best Asian spots will be filled. This was really frustrating to me because even though I felt like I was more qualified than some applicants of other races, it didn’t matter because I was only competing against the other Asians. Conversely, my friend Krishna (who is half-Indian, half-Mexican) purposely identified himself as only Mexican because he knew that he had a better chance at competing with other Hispanics (who tend to not be as academically successful) than other Asians. When my friend Natalie got accepted into Yale, people immediately attributed her success to her African ancestry rather than her talents. These are the things we all thought about and gossiped about behind people’s backs because everyone was thinking it, but afraid to actually pull out the race card to someone’s face. At the time, I was disappointed and maybe even a little bitter about Affirmative Action affecting the college admissions process, but now it seems like a trivial problem of the distant past. The truth is, there are so many schools, jobs, and other opportunities out there. So we lose an offer due to Affirmative Action, does it really matter? Even though I might not be getting this particular job, it is going to someone of another race that has been treated unfairly for years, and I can always find other opportunities. We are all one humanity, and we should all share our resources with one another so that everyone has the ability to succeed.

When I initially read the question, “Why do MORE educated people believe that success is mostly a result of hard work?”, I immediately agreed with it based on the underlying tendency of humans, especially Americans, to think highly of themselves. I grew up exposed to the Chinese and Japanese cultures because my parents are Chinese and they lived in Japan for six years as well. From my comparisons of the Chinese/Japanese culture versus the American culture, I have found that Chinese and Japanese cultures emphasize humility much more than the American one. Much of the traditional Chinese spoken in the first person uses humbling terms. For example, in older times (and even in formal situations today), men referred to their own sons as “dog sons” and other men’s sons as “dragon sons” or “tiger sons”. In Chinese culture, calling someone a dog is a definite insult, whereas comparing someone to a tiger or dragon is considered huge praise. That being said, these fathers are not trying to denigrate their own sons, who they place high hopes in. Rather, it is simply an expression indicating the social norm of speaking very humbly. Also, in my Japanese language class I read an article written by a Japanese man studying abroad in the US. Apparently this man had been talking to a woman who referred to her daughters as “very beautiful”. He was shocked because a Japanese woman would never say this about her children. Praising yourself or agreeing with a compliment about yourself considered arrogant and would be frowned upon by others. If I were in Japan receiving a compliment about my Japanese ability, I would respond, “No no, I am not that good”; in America, I would say “thanks”. I’ve also learned in psychology classes that Americans tend to internalize their successes and externalize their failures, meaning that they attribute their successes their own actions and their failures to factors outside of their control. On the other hand Japanese people tend to externalize their successes, meaning that they attribute their successes to society, their family, and others who have helped them along the way, and internalize their failures, meaning that they blame only themselves.
With these cultural perceptions about Americans in mind, I think that is it a fair statement to say that Americans tend to think highly of themselves and it seems reasonable that they would attribute their successes to their own actions. In terms of the relationship between education level and the perception of success due to hard work, the higher the level of education a person has, the more likely they are to be successful. But in order to obtain high level degrees, you also have to work very hard. Therefore, there is a significant correlation between hard work and success. Of course, connections and luck come into play as well in terms of securing good job opportunities, but without hard work and a degree, connections won’t do much.

This is such a difficult question to answer because the factor of which side of inequality we are on is always going to be a huge factor in how we answer this question. In today’s society, most people believe that all humans are inherently equal. It is written in the Bible, in our Constitution, and in everywhere from schools to the workplace, people claim that every person is treated equally. We like to think that everyone is equal, but our claimed or perceived ideology and its actual manifestation are worlds apart. As we’ve learned in class, there are huge racial disparities in terms of wealth and opportunity for people of different races. White people tend to possess more wealth and have better opportunities for a good education whereas black people and Native Americans seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle of attending poorer schools, not graduating, getting low-paying jobs, and having children that perpetuate the cycle. On a global scale, there are people in developing countries that are struggling for clean water, medicine, and getting enough to eat. These people are living off of less than a dollar a day. In high school, I participated in a fundraiser called 30 Hour Famine, which raised money for food and clothes for children around the world. At the time, the statistic was that 1 child dies of hunger every 7 seconds. Compared to one of these children, the typical poor minority person is infinitely times better off than them, “luckier” than them. How about that inequality?
How do we fix inequality? There are so many levels in the hierarchy of quality of life and I honestly don’t even know how to rank them all. There is always someone doing better than you, someone doing worse than you, someone doing the same as you. Someone in a lower middle-class American family might be just getting by with paying tuition, some savings in bank, and just enough financial ability to afford some leisurely vacations. They’re getting by modestly on their own and can’t afford to give up their assets to support other people. To them, inequality may mean having to work their way through college earning tuition money, and not being able to spend enough time on studying, getting involved with extracurricular activities, or leisure time. It’s unfair to them that students from upper middle class families are so well supported by their families that they can spend their free time doing whatever they want. For someone in a rural town that can’t afford to go to college because his family needs him to work on the farm in order to support his ailing mother and younger siblings, it’s unfair that the person in the lower-middle class family at least gets to go to college. For a child in a developing country who is struggling to get enough food to eat, it’s unfair that he was born into such a poor environment when the farmer boy at least gets all the food he needs and can live a long life. My point is, how do we really even define inequality and how can we possibly fix the problem when it seems to plague everyone. Fortune and misfortune are so relative. Everyone feels like they’re worse off than someone else and deserve more equality of opportunities in life. At the same time, other people in even worse circumstances admire their lives. I want to say that everyone has the responsibility to fix inequality, but I can’t even begin to define what inequality really is…