Advanced Essay #3: Social Constrictions on Identity

Introduction:

The goals of this paper was to bring up the issue of pre-chosen identities based on the values and standards we as a people created and implicated in society. Reflecting on my final product, I think my goals were met, however next time I have a stronger sense on how to achieve those even more. I believe my process was good when working on this essay and that my main idea was interesting to explore and write about.


Essay:

Identity is how we as a species have changed throughout life and tried to individualize ourselves. However, what if our identities are pre-chosen for us based on the standards of the old society we created? In the dominant American society, we can see patterns of identifying based on socialism throughout the entirety of our history as a nation and as a people. All people want to do is to fit into boxes and limit themselves based on what is more desirable in certain communities.

America has had the system of classes for as long as people can remember. High class, low class, middle class, these are just everyday terms Americans discuss frequently. However, the classes might not be as clear cut as they seem. Patricia Cohen points out, “The feeling of comparative deprivation and the ultrarich separating themselves from the rest of society helps explain why only 1 percent of Americans accept the rich or upper-income label. Even most people earning over $250,000 — the top 5 percent of wage earners — identify as middle class. There’s always someone wealthier around.” (Cohen). This ties into the feeling of wanting to identify with someone else or a larger group of people. In the United States it seems like people don’t want to be shamed for having a certain amount of money so the majority more or less puts themselves in the middle. This idea of wanting to fit in can not only be seen within the classes of America, but as a species, humans do it all the time. Everyone tries to fit in because they are scared of not fitting that standard society places.

Not only do we notice the behavior of trying to fit into society’s view of having the most popular or desirable identity in America’s political system, but it also makes itself known in American literature. Flowers for Algernon, a popular book written by Daniel Keyes, explores identity in terms of being intelligent and how that self proclamation affects the community and other people. One quote states, “Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart.” (Keyes, 1) As seen here, Charlie (the main character) believes being “smart” is the best thing to be. This point of view can also be taken out of the book and into real life as well. It is drilled in every student’s head that they need good grades to get into college, that students have to go. And the idea that “smartness” can be measured by a number is also a way society has pushed us to identify as. And once again, people usually like to be near the middle of that spectrum of between a genius or being stupid.

Trying to change your identity on the surface is also another way people want to fit into a larger group or system. In another book, Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg, the idea of changing your outward label was a major decision the main character, Rafe, decided to pursue. He was not satisfied with being labeled as different and wanted to fit in in the “normal” crowd. This idea is immortalized in the following quote, “I was thinking about how snakes shed their skin every year, and how awesome it would be if people did that too. In lots of ways, that’s what I was trying to do.” (Konigsberg, 11) Trying to change people’s views on your own identity can show that you are in fact, trying to transform yourself, no matter how small, to fit in with the popular option.

Throughout American culture, the idea of fitting into a system which is deemed more likeable and/or popular fuels how people identify today. This idea has increased drastically in the current generation due to the rapid and ever changing social media fads and trends. What is considered acceptable or not in terms of identity has always been based on the society standards we created as a people. And in reality, just having society to blame for this constriction of self is untrue. We have always been constricting ourselves.


Works Cited:

Who We Are, Is Where We Are

Introduction:

I wrote this essay with a newfound motivation for this particular unit. Personal Identity fascinates me and learning about where our identity lies, and what makes us really us is one of the key things to understanding life itself. You have to know yourself, before you try to know bigger things about the world. I really want people to question everything they thought they knew when reading my essay, and come away from reading it with a new, clearer idea of their own personal identity. 

Zahirah Poree
English 3 - Mr. Block & Mr. TB
Advanced Essay #3

Throughout the entire existence of humanity, the question of personal identity has been in the back of our minds, whether we realize it or not. Personally, I believe that question is basically a matter of opinion based on the type of person you are and what you believe ink. Where you choose to believe your personal identity lies- in your body, or in your mind, memories, beliefs and values. If we are the only us we can be, then what exactly makes us unique? Is a person’s body & physical appearance their identity, or are your memories, beliefs, values, and personality your identity? Rutger’s Professor Elizabeth Camp realized this, but also challenged it with a question of what we are:“...that I am my body, or that I am a thread of overlapping psychological states.”  We have challenged ourselves for decades over what truly makes us human, where the core of who we are, lies inside our body or our minds. In the end really, it’s basically an opinion based on the type of person you are and what you believe.

Is your body your identity? If someone were to actually replicate your thoughts, your memories, and put them in a new body, would it still be YOU? Psychologists have come up with what is called the Body Theory, which states “personal identity persists over time, because you remain in the same body from birth until death.” If this is the case, does that mean without our body, we don’t have an identity? If we are the only us we can be, then what exactly makes us unique? Is a person’s story their identity, because if so that’s messed up because stories get mistold all the time. Everybody has a story, it’s forever getting told everyday we live. Your body tells a story, it is who you are in physical form. People make changes to their bodies all the time, trying to express themselves to the world. That new hair color, the tattoo that you may have gotten during a night of bad decisions, losing those last 5 pounds, all those are changes people want to make to themselves. We all make changes to our bodies, and with every change comes a reason behind that change, and a story. These stories, the stories of our bodies, are they our identity? Stories can either be good, or be bad, and we all have both.

The mind is a powerful thing, It holds the entirety of our lives within it. Our body acts out our actions, but our mind is what controls us, records what we learn, and helps us make decisions that help us act out whatever we feel. Psychologists have also come up with a mind theory which states that: “Personal identity persists over time because you retain memories of yourself at different points, and each of those memories is connected to one before it.”. Our minds hold the things that can’t be touched such as our memories, our beliefs. our experiences that we hold close to heart, our secrets. Nobody knows what’s in your head but you. The other part of the mind theory is that, if your memory is your memory, then you must be the same person who experienced that memory. So if you have a memory from your first time you met your best friend, is part of you the same person you were when you met said best friend? Some people fully believe that yes you do remain the same in a way, but what happens if you lose your memories? Just how accurate are our memories really?  Elderly people with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease are unable to remember events in their life clearly, but instead relive a similar, but not completely accurate version of that memory. If the mind theory is something you are willing to commit to believe then you also have to accept that people stop being the same person if they lose their memories.

The question of where our personal identity lies will probably be around for as long as humanity is. It depends on the person what they choose to believe, and where they feel the most of their self is. Do you exist in your mind, or do you exist in your body? When you make the choice you must also think about whether you are, and have always been the same person from birth to death. Psychologist David DeSteno asks, "Can the present you trust the future you?", and when we think about where we exist, this is something we have to take into account. We all probably have the same common thought that we’ll be the same person from birth until death, and it’s this thought that we must go deeper into to get to the truth of where our personal identity truly lies.



Bibliography:

  1. WirelessPhilosophy. "PHILOSOPHY - Mind: Personal Identity (The Narrative Self) [HD]." YouTube. YouTube, 05 Feb. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

  2. Crashcourse. "Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19." YouTube. YouTube, 27 June 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

The Ship of Theseus

Introduction:
My goal for this paper was to explore the idea of self and existence, and to try to define the conditions of the preservation and annihilation of a life. As I wrote the paper, I found that there was no answer to any of the questions that I had. Regardless of what I believe personally, there is no way for me to prove any side to the argument aside from stating my point of view, so I chose to illustrate different sides of the issue of existence rather than clearly argue one side or another. It is up to the reader to decide how they define their existence. My goal was to give the reader options.

Essay:

There is no way to prove that the world was not created yesterday. Like a dream, we could have memories of things that did not happen: Information filling in the blanks of our non-existence. Imagine a divine, omnipotent, omniscient creator, such as God. Imagine the creator placing the Earth, and all its inhabitants, into existence just as they are now. The creator could conjure humans with memories of the past; things that never happened, but that each individual can remember. Phantom memories: Things they have learned, people they have met, experiences they have had, all of it untrue. Yet, the argument could be made that because that people have perceived these things, they are just as real.

Consider the idea that you were created as such yesterday. All of your memories from before you woke yesterday never happened, and, before your eyes opened, you did not exist. Can you prove that is not true? Do you believe it isn’t true? One could argue that who we are is a collection of our past experiences. However, this isn’t quite true. We are shaped by the memories of our past experiences. What we remember shapes who we are. We are not constantly re-learning things, we remember learning things, and our memories are often warped. We are constructed of memories and perceptions, true or false.

“Schizophrenics suffering from “thought insertion” and “alien voices” delusions report that they are not in control of their thoughts. Indeed, they often envisage a particular individual who, they claim, is doing the thinking for them, or implants thoughts in their mind.” Explains Uriah Kriegel, of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This perceived construction could be an example of created thoughts and memories, or even an artificial self. Many would disagree, stating that the thoughts come from within them, whether or not they perceive it that way. However, what happens when they lose that “particular individual,” developing their ideas and their selves independent of the entity they believed controlled them? Would they still be themselves? Many would be inclined to say yes, of course they would be themselves, but it begs a deeper question of which parts of them are them, and which parts of them can be replaced or removed before they become a new entity.

This idea has been explored through the story of The Ship of Theseus, a paradoxical thought experiment. Theseus, an ancient Greek king, thought to have founded the city of Athens, fought many naval battles on his ship. As a tribute to him, the people of Athens kept his ship on the water as a symbol. However, as the wood of the ship began to deteriorate, planks were replaced one by one, until all the wood had been replaced, and the ship had been entirely reconstructed. There is much debate as to what defines the Ship of Theseus as being the same ship, whether the ship’s physical form is what causes it to be what it is, or if there is some incorporeal quality which gives it the title of “The Ship of Theseus,” or if it is solely human perception that gives it the qualities of the Ship of Theseus, and no ship is the Ship of Theseus absent the perception of a sentient mind.

“[You’ve] replaced your outer layer of skin hundreds of times… Your red blood cells only live for about 4 months before they’re cycled out… Even your skeleton is constantly being remodeled… Just like The Doctor, or the Ship of Theseus, you’re constantly being replaced by new physical versions of yourself.” Hank Green of Crash Course Philosophy believes. It takes approximately seven years before all the cells in one’s body have been replaced, and no part of that person is the same. However, that person would most likely continue to think of themselves as themselves, and that person’s stream of consciousness and perception is the same as it was seven years prior. The individual holds all the same memories, with seven years of new ones, so this must be the same person.

Ultimately, the only thing that makes us us is the way we, and others, perceive ourselves. We perceive ourselves however we do. Some believe that the Ship of Theseus has some inherent, incorporeal quality that makes it the Ship of Theseus, and they would believe that the same is true for themselves, and their own physical beings. Others would believe that there is nothing that inherently makes us us, that we are an amalgam of our perceptions and experiences, and that there is ultimately no true self. With no way to determine the truth of anything outside of one’s head, all anyone can do is be the person they see as themselves, and carry on existing.







Works Cited:


Crashcourse. "Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19." YouTube. YouTube, 27 June 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


WirelessPhilosophy. "PHILOSOPHY - Mind: Personal Identity (The Narrative Self) [HD]."YouTube. YouTube, 05 Feb. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


Gilkey, Charlie. "The Ship of Theseus and Personal Identity." Productive Flourishing. N.p., 09 May 2008. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Advanced Essay #3: Living a "Checkered" Life

Into:

While writing this paper, trying to depict a life with family members who don’t look the same as you was one of my goals. Living with the denial of “the way you came out” vs how everyone else had. Seeing if the differences between you and maybe your second cousin would change how the people treat you when you’re together, opposed to when you’re separated.

By saying “checkered”, I did it with regard to skin color, instead of the common “black and white” or “black and red” reference with any checkerboard. Since it was pale skin and dark skin, then that would still work in conjunction with the title.

I think the essay went well. I think incorporating another language in it for the first time was rather difficult, but still came out well. Trying to find the proper translations and the correct “romaji” for the Japanese symbols was probably the hardest part of the entire essay. And also giving more insight on the interracial marriage aspect of my family was also very relieving.


Essay:

A feeling. A warm feeling. Mainly towards my lower body. The glare of the sun shields the lower half of my body, as the escaping darkness of the room fleets from the oncoming forces from light. Altogether, the shades are ripped open. The glare overtakes the room, as the golden sun shines on the disarranged items.

“おはよう、サムーくん!” (Ohayou, Samu-kun!; Good morning, Sam!) A voice tore through the silence, exactly the same way that the sun tore through my seemingly ransacked bedroom. Books tossed, animal hair on the ground, a tan, illicit fluid dripping from the pipes of my bedroom, and onto my clothes in the closet. An indistinguishable mess.

“What are you still doing in bed, man? We have an event today! Don't tell me you forgot?”

“I did. I’m sorry. What time is it?”, I asked.

“11:37”

“Oh, shit. I’ll go into the bathroom now, then.”

Snatching the blanket from the cover of the bed, I jumped off the bed frame and scurried to the door. Long, rather fake nails dug into my skin as she attempted to reach for my shirt collar. I jumped back, the blanket flying forward from my abrupt pause of motion. I turn to see her pale face. With one hand digging into the skin covering my neck, her other hand clutched a half-drunken can of 仲介 (chuchai; fruit-flavored, alcoholic drinks). I tried not to face her, scared of what might erupt from her alcoholic-fused nature.

Alcohol was always a driving factor for our family, and the inducer of all the arguments that spurred out of control in our home. Casablanca, Choukachou, Chibuku, Ibwatu, Happoshu (発泡酒), Sake (酒), and Umeshu (梅酒). These names became more commonly spoken than the names of those who lived with us. A “brewer” which uprooted more problems in our family with every sip someone took, alcohol took its place as “the one who calls the ‘shots’”.

“You should try and speak your native tongue with me. And your parents, toooo. You can’t try and hide yourself in an abyss, which we can consider your skin.”, she said, her voice slurring with every sentence exiting her mouth

Thinking about a time when I would converse with both parents in two separate languages came to show that I wasn’t in touch with my roots as much as I used to. Hearing heavy, throat-exerted “gua”’s form the African dialects, Gio and Mano, and the eerie, sharp ringing of “違うよ” (chigau-yo; wrong), heard from all the way from downstairs in the basement, so we can't hear the arguments shifting from one race to another.

I began to observe the hand on my shirt. It was pale. Very pale. Even more pale than someone on their deathbed. The contrast found between her skin and mine would give the term “checkers” a run for its money. I grab her hand and hold it tight, trying not to let go. This is family.

This is the difference between the two sides of the family. This is…

“...What I should be.”, I muttered to myself.

My cousin snatched her hand away and shoved me into the bathroom.

“Stop talking about ‘what you should be’, before I ‘should be’ you into next week!”

The door slammed behind me, and I was left with the confusion of her last statement. I grabbed my towel and turned on the hot water. Diving into the bath, I began to ponder my own existence, and if I would ever find a crossroad like that again. Would I ever find a comparison like this outside my own family tree? Would the term “race” even appear to be something that is pinned on me for only one specific group?

“Love has no barriers, I guess. Nothing can separate two people from one another. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re all here.”

I sunk into the scalding water held in the fiberglass covered bathtub, the same way I would hide myself behind the representation of my personality, my way of speech, and my seeming “first impression”. My own skin would speak for me, and even write my stories.

The thoughts of future achievements with life taking place in the United States, or “The American Dream” has been different for multiple members of my family ever since they were bonded together by marriage, and even before that. There was never a certain  degree of agreement between the two, and it only brought about more flaws and cracks in the family. Someone was always right, and someone was always wrong. And when you were considered “right”, then you molded the family into what you wanted. An empire of truths and lies were forged right before our eyes. Well, maybe below them. 2 floors below them. As the smell of alcohol rose through the house, the children fled to the top floor, hoping to survive another night in the endless battle of the “right vs. wrong” household. The house becoming a checker board. Spotting the different colored pieces across the board, confused as to what their correlation is with one another.

And someone is, and always will be right. Someone will always win.

Bibliography:

The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/balancing-integration-and-assimilation-during-the-refugee-crisis/482757/>.

"How Fluid Is Race?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 June 2015. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity>.

The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/will-immigrants-today-assimilate-like-those-of-100-years-ago/495746/>.

Advanced Essay #3 : The compromise for Identity

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

              The compromise for Identity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction

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


Essay

What truly contributes to defining our identity?


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


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


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

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


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



Citations:

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

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





Advanced Essay #3: How society destroys our identities

For this essay I wanted to talk about the lack of individuality in our lives because of the influence society has on us. How because of growing up in society we don't truly have our own identities. We don't really know who we are because of how much society has impacted us. I wanted to focus on how society does this and why we feel the need to fit into it. 

¨You shouldn't wear high heels because you're already really tall, you're going to make everyone else look so short. ¨

¨ You think so, I don´t wanna look super huge or tower over anyone.¨

¨ Yeah you're gonna look like a jolly green giant in them, just wear flats or sneakers.¨

I was 12 years old and my best friend Imani and I were trying to figure out what we were going to wear to our 7th grade school dance. It was my very first school dance and I wanted to look perfect. I had settled on wearing a dress with heels until Imani reminded me of my height. I began to feel uncomfortable being tall and I started to do and wear things that prevented me from looking any taller than I already was including wearing heels. I ended up wearing flats that night even though I really wanted to wear heels. I let someone else impact how I felt about myself and make me feel awkward about something that I can´t help. I was unknowingly lowering my own confidence so that everyone else around me could be comfortable.   

       People don't realize the ways that influential society doesn't allow us to be our true selves. We cannot completely be ourselves in this world without upsetting some people. Whether we realize it or not we are always trying to get the approval of others. We long for acceptance and equality from others before we understand it within ourselves. We are constantly unconsciously trying to please others. This makes the priorities in society very questionable.

    Who or what you choose to be is your identity. According to Siimon Reynolds of Forbes “Identity affects how you dress., what wages you ask for or what prices you charge your clients. It even affects how much money you save or spend.¨  We are asked at a very young age who we are and who we are going to be in this world that will make us successful in life. Celebrity Josh Radnor says ¨When I taste success that's when i'll be happy¨.  One does not truly know their identity and who they want to be when from birth we have each been influenced by everything we see and hear around us. In our communities we see things negative and positive that affect overall who we become. Other people shape our identities before we do because of the effect people have over each other. People change people and that’s something that will never change in the world. We will always be taught,  influenced or inspired by something we witness from another person. We all try to fit into the norms of society in order to seek approval from others. We seem to seek approval from other people before we seek it from ourselves. I never understood why this was. We value other people's opinions over our own. We give up who we really are and lose apart of our identities from doing this. We prioritize fitting in and conformity over self-love, acceptance and individuality. I wonder what age it is that you lose the satisfaction of being yourself and not caring what other people have to think of you over what you think of yourself.

Not everyone follows this. There are people out there who don't care about the approval of others or society. They go against the ordinary and do as they please. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”   Ralph Waldo Emerson said that. Some people like the risk of not fitting in and being unique. This is a risk that we should all take. I envy people who don't care about what other people think or say about them and are content with being themselves. A lot of people don´t think like this because in our community we value popularity and looking cool as opposed to having our own opinions and beliefs. Society has ruined us as people by placing expectations on us to have and like things.  We no longer have our own identities.

We let society pick our identities apart and tell us that they aren't normal, beautiful, or amazing when we shouldn´t. You are the only one who lives your life so according to Siimon Reynolds ¨you might as well take control of the process and visualise exactly what you want ”. It´s not fair for you to not be the person you want to be and are supposed to be. Be yourself and love yourself.


Advanced Essay #3: Society Changing Identity

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Bibliography:

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


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

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

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

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


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


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


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


Works Cited


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


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


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




Advanced Essay #3: Clouded Self Identity


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

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

Works Cited

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

Asian American vs Asian Identity

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bibliography:

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


Advanced Essay #3: How Money Shapes Us

Intro:

For this essay, I wanted to address how money greatly affects our well being and how it can also shape us as a person. Another thing was to also challenge myself by writing in a personal level but, at the same time give out my opinion about something that is common in society. Even though this essay challenged me in so many ways, I still believe that I did my best in putting my thoughts and research at the same time. The most challenging part of this essay way creating the draft and actually putting all my thoughts down. Despite the difficult process, I'm glad that I still managed to create this piece before the due date. 

Essay

“Money is a tool. Used properly it makes something beautiful; used wrong, it makes a mess.” We are so used to thinking that money can just get us anything that we want to possess in life which can lead us to obsess over it. Money is a concept that can be used to get through things and achieve a part of our goals. But, it does not necessarily mean that it can buy us joy in life. Through money, we can have material things to satisfy our needs and wants. It is also something that we can rely on to get through different situations in life. However, it can be very difficult to handle if we don’t use it wisely. For example, a person who has an abundance of money may abuse its value by spending heavily on material things, but later in life, this person regrets how he/she acted because of how it affected him/her physically, emotionally, and mentally. The thought of money can be very satisfying because it makes us wonder about all the possibilities that we can do with it in life. Money is not just something that is made out of paper or copper but, it can affect many of us in different ways because of its importance and value in society.

“The bottom line: money appears to have both positive and negative effects on our behavior. On the one hand, it encourages self-sufficiency and hard work; but on the other, it discourages some positive social interaction.”  Money can be a very problematic thing if we do not handle it correctly. Growing up, my mom hardly exposed my sister and I to money. We would get small amounts of money here and there for our allowance usually in the morning before we leave for school. She would reach for her purse and hand us over the crumpled 100 Peso bill which equivalents to 2 US Dollars. At the time, that was big for me especially not really having to buy anything because I packed my own lunch and I was being dropped off and picked up to and from my elementary school. I didn’t get an allowance everyday, only when my mom asks me if I needed some money for food or a school project. Growing up, I was always too shy to ask my mom for money because I always waited for her signal. But, I am glad that this was a consistent act because over the years I realized how important it is to work hard for your own money and how it can help you grow as a person if you’re handling your own money.

Through my childhood experiences, I grew up hearing that “money doesn’t grow on trees.” This has been a well-known saying that everyone is familiar with. I always heard this saying growing up and I still believe it is true. Money isn’t easy to have as it comes and goes, therefore, it needs to be used wisely. My mom always taught my sister and I to be smart when it comes to handling our money so we can be financially stable later in life. I knew that this was a good advice that I can always carry on to prepare me for adulthood and life, in general. Money can always make great things to happen, but we have to be wise about it because it can either make us or break us. Sources:

Castillo, Stephanie, and Stephanie Castillo Stephanie Is an Avid Writer, Runner, and Snacker, Though Not at the Same Time. Read More. "The Mental Effects Of Money." Medical Daily. N.p., 27 Feb. 2015. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


Gregoire, Carolyn. "How Money Changes The Way We Think And Behave." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.





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

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

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

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

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

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


Bibliographies:

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

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

Advanced Essay #3:The Hide and Seek of Race

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


Essay:

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


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


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


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


Bibliography:

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


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


The Immigrant Experience

​Introduction: Immigration is one of the most discussed topics in modern society. We've heard the opinions of political figures, celebrities, writers, and many others who share the public eye, but rarely do we hear from immigrants themselves. I feel that now, more than ever, we must take into account the responsibility we have as Americans to respect the culture and lifestyle of those who leave their homes to take shelter in a completely new place. Learning about their stories will ultimately teach us more about ourselves and American culture as a whole. 

Essay: America has has always been the beacon of hope for immigrants who sought a better life across the sea. In the days of Ellis Island, peoples from mainly European countries decided to make their mark in a new land. Their descendants reflect on their grand and great-grandparents’ culture as well as their solemn stories of the struggle to achieve the freedom they longed for and were compelled to find as they used their last scraps of cash for a ferry ticket, or left all their family and friends behind to a foreign land in which they didn’t speak the language. While the tales of pulling themselves up by the bootstraps that they passed down to their grandchildren about their first encounters off the boat are awfully triumphant, they often erase some important concepts about the ‘immigrant experience’ that many know. Those tales have ultimately bled into society and has almost created a standard of what the journey from alien to citizen should be like in this country, generating the utmost patriotic concept of the ‘American Dream.’ The driving force of the American Dream still lingers in patches of modern society, but around the world, this dream is the call to those who still seek the same life of promise those before them were hopeful to find.

I often ask my mother why she emigrated to this country. She was seventeen- a year older than I am. “And a lot shyer,” she jokes. Thinking about the transition to a completely new continent in the budding stages of adulthood seems incredibly hard, at least in my skin. Why she left always puzzled me. She answers, “To have a better life.” That’s funny. When I ask all of my friends or they ask their parents why they came here they answer the same, verbatim; it’s almost as if they were taught to say it, in textbooks or it was a proverb written on billboards. But what scares me the most about this singularity, this uniform belief, is there is still some sort of hope attached to it. In the book Forty-Cent Tip, a book compiled of tales from immigrants in the workforce, a woman states her experience emigrating from the Dominican Republic: “When I came to the United States from the Dominican Republic eight and a half years ago, I thought things were going to be much easier. In my country, I worked as a secretary at a law firm. When I came to this country, I started waiting tables in a restaurant. It was very difficult and tiring, ten or sometimes thirteen hours a day.”

I have heard this song before: the song of America being an escape, the better place for those with a dream to work and rise from their crumbling situation. When I listen and read their stories, I hear this song. It has an untiring melody. It is the pulse of the immigrant experience. This song inhabits the lungs of some: decades neutralized, but it still searches for the guaranteed hope. A Chinese woman shares this dream in her tales of immigrating to this country in 1996. “As I get older and can’t work anymore, I can’t be sure that I can continue to feed him. So now I put all my hopes for that in my daughter, who I finally brought over from China. I work so hard because I don’t want her to bring her own toilet paper to work. I want her life to be more colorful than mine. That will be the happiness I have been looking for.” Oftentimes, people come to this country believing the myth of this being the ‘greatest country in the world’, and coming from a land of severe oppression, this may seem like so. But the American Dream fabricates these ideas of success. Many immigrants work since the day they arrive upon our shores to find their own piece of that dream, but it is too frequently withheld from them, and that is often because of possession.

Americans can be very protective of this dream, and feel as though only a certain type of person deserves to partake of it. Emma Goldman illustrates this idea, stating: Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot.” As humans, migration is in our blood. Moving upwards and finding the missing variables to better ourselves is what we are always striving for, and it is a concept passed down from generation to generation. Living in a society that is an heirloom from the first immigrants should make us more aware of its importance and how it should be treated with delicacy and respect. Immigration is our culture. It is a song too frequently drowned out by the unpromised hopes of an American future, but we shouldn’t allow others to sing beside deafened ears. Though this is the land of the free, it comes at too high a price. Continuing the falsity will only generate ignorance. We must celebrate the victories, but acknowledge the undeniable struggles. We must celebrate the immigrant experience.

Sources


1. Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo M. Forty-cent Tip: Stories of New York City Immigrant Workers. Providence, RI: Next Generation, 2006. Print.

2. Goldman, Emma. What is Patriotism? San Francisco,1908. Print.


Advanced Essay #3: Art on the Web

Introduction:

My goals for this paper were to make a piece that explores the difficulties of making art in the modern day. I wanted to take a look at how the internet and online trends have combatted with honesty surrounding what people make whether it be music, visual art, or any other creative medium. My process was slow, this was the most difficult advanced essay by far. Reviewing my work was hard and I feel like this is the closest I could have come to a final product I would enjoy.


Essay:

Being both a self titled creative and shy person, I struggled for a long time to gain the confidence to share my work. The raw face to face exchange that takes place when showing someone something you have created is difficult to say the least, there is a reaction that you can gage almost instantaneously from this viewer simply through their overt emotional reaction.

I then became familiar with the internet, this vast expansive web of connection. It had loomed in my periphery, it was this mysterious complicated minefield of social standards and I made a distinct decision to avoid it. Although, for the past two years I have begun making music and I have found the internet to be a place to share it without the awkward societal exchanges that follow. This blanketing effect made it wonderfully simple for me to place my musical pursuits online, leaving my friends and strangers to peruse my work. Whereas I gained the positive side to this, there are also many people who receive hurtful and negative reactions to their work. This facade of the internet also allows people to say whatever they want without the actual threat of physical violence. An online presence involving creative pursuits have both negative and positive effects on the quality of the world.

My experiences have been solely positive on the internet. My music and art have registered fans who tend to be mostly my friends and family. But the growing use of social media in everyday life is both oversaturating these music platforms but also giving these creative people the fame and love they deserve, it divides the good artists from the bad solely based on honesty. This quote an article relating to American’s relationships with the internet from The Atlantic sums up this expansive quality of the internet perfectly: “Americans are followers: Nearly half of all Americans are now members of at least one social network, double the proportion of just two years ago.” This massive shift in human interaction has opened the world to an innumerable amount of creators who just keep coming, making the ability to stand out extremely difficult.

There are definitely negative experiences though, the internet has made this veneer of numbness that is slowly filling major sections of it. Art is extremely personal, and many times placing it on a social media platform feels vulnerable. People take this vulnerability and place nasty comments upon it for personal pleasure, the pursuit of a power complex. I have a personal example of this, a friend of a friend who attends this high school is a poet. They delivered a poem alongside a fellow student crafting a conversation between them and their future white son, going in depth about how this boy will be placed in a position where they are not allowed to feel bad for themselves. This poem was recorded and uploaded to Youtube. This being an uncomfortable subject a few people on the internet bashed it because they disagreed with the poem, then the negativity began to pick up steam and these children were being torn apart based on their physical appearances and the way they held themselves. This of course began to pull away from the few opinionated issues that followed this piece and became a conformist bully party, allowing people to attack these two peers of mine with intense superficial insults that led to these students needing support.

The internet provides the most raw gateway to human interaction, raw but isolated and removed. This honesty brings up questions about how art is dissected and viewed online, people are who they are and they place that for millions to see. Then other people who are also being genuine, will be brutally honest with no regards for feelings. I find this criticism is much worse than it would be in real life, the lack of human connection is robotic and alien. It stimulates this sense of destructive mystery, not knowing tone or context. I am a person terrified by people not liking what I make. I find real life interaction in this regard to be frightening, the idea of the internet seemed like this foreign sanctuary where I could express myself but I found it to be much worse. I need to know how people feel by sharing my music to the people I am closest to, the people I know on a deeper level who will tell me if my art or music is good or not. I find this person to person connection will forever trump the plasticity and falseness that follows the internet.


Source:

Jackson, Nicholas. "Infographic: The American Identity According to Social Media."The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

Advanced Essay #3: The "Right" Skin

Introduction:

For my essay my guiding question was In what ways does social media cultivate or challenge media? I tried to incorporate my own experience with black identity and how social media shaped that. The goal I set for myself is to establish the struggles of being a black women and feeling like you're in constant competition with people you should be united with. I tried to make my essay as relatable as possible which I why I chose to use one of my real experiences. I feel like I did a really good job expanding on this topic and really identifying a problem within social media.

Essay:

It was the summer of 2012, on a cool Tuesday morning in the middle of July. I was awakened by the smell of burnt bacon and the almost never ending sound of the smoke alarm. I ran down the stairs to find my brother almost burning down the house. My mom and I rushed to get a towel to calm down the alarm. The piercing sound finally became calm my mom then yelled and me and my brother

“Hurry up and get dress we’re going to be late”

I wasn’t exactly sure where we were going, but I wasn’t passing up any opportunity to leave the house. She made sure to tell us to pack bathing suits; I was hoping we were going to an indoor pool. Oh, how I loved indoor pools. It was never too hot or too cold; always just right. Best thing of all-there wasn’t that burning sun on my back. We drove in the car for almost three hours and to to my dismay, we pulled up to the beach. Don’t get me wrong, the beach was fun; the nice cool breeze in my hair, the clear water, the tangy smell of sea salt in the air, but there was just that one thing: the sun. I hated the sun for one good reason I hated the fact that it made my complexion darker. When my skin was a shade darker, I used to feel as if that changed who I was and how people perceived me. I used to scroll on instagram and see all the memes talking about light skin black girls compared to brown skin or dark skin black girls. On my timeline in particular, light skin girls were always seen as “the prettier girl” so in my eyes I had to be as light as possible. Even in songs you would hear “light skin is the right skin.” For me, I never considered myself light skin until I started using social media and seen the huge debate between the different complexions and even the stereotypes. If I was going to be anything I had to be light skin because according to my instagram feed that was the right skin.

This idea of colorism shaped my identity as a young black women. It put black females against each other as if it was a competition and the people who determined the winners were the black men. They made females compete for their attention by demeaning their complexion and making them feel as if they weren’t the same. Black men controlled the women’s identity and social media controlled theirs. Social media fueled the idea that light skin black women were supposed to look this way and act a certain way and then undermine the black women who weren’t that complexion and try to poison their worth.  A culture that’s supposed to be united was divided. Instead of uplifting all black women as the queens they are the men put them against each other because of these unobtainable ideals of black women cluttered their minds. They gained the satisfaction of seeing them fight for their attention and they fed off of it.

In Colin Daileda’s article Race related conversation remain divided on social media he talks about how many black people talk about or see conversations about race “Around 68 percent of black people who use social media say they see posts about race and relations on their social media feeds, and 28 percent of them say they tweet and post about race as well.” Black people unite on topics like #BlackLivesMatter or #BlackTwitter but never on uplifting our women. Colorism stems all the way back to slavery the only reason light skin black women were seen as “prettier” is because they were closest to white. This idea was instilled in black minds and pushed into social media. The modern way of putting black women down.

Social media has it’s own flaws. It amplifies the wrong things and sometimes the right things. But it has challenged black identity in particular. It gives the men the idea and they push that idea onto black women tarnishing their identity before they even realize what it is. They shape themselves accordingly until they see fit. With no real idea of their true self or actual worth just the perception that social media gives them.

Bibliography:

Daileda, Colin. "Race-related conversations remain divided on social media." Mashable. Mashable, 16 Aug. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Advanced Essay #3: The Paper World Of Social Media

Intro:
With this essay I really wanted to address how social media affect us both online and in the real world. Social media has a lot of benefits, but it also has a lot of detrimental effects to our personality. I think a lot of the time when people write about social media they focus on similar issues and I attack some of those, but I also bring some new arguments to the table. I think that social media and technology has become much more present in everyday life and the real world which has increased its affect on us as a whole. Social media has really changed how we define and build ourselves and that's something we need to acknowledge and address.

Essay:

As a kid, I built people from numbers. From lists and characteristics that I believed would somehow craft a real person to bring life to my stories. I thought that knowing how a character took their coffee or what their favorite movie was would build me a real personality. Looking back on that, I almost laugh. Laugh at how short I fell from creating a real person. What I was scratching out with my ballpoint pen was a lifeless replication of the intricacies of humanity, a paper person that couldn’t even begin to comprehend the complexities of reality. Yet, what I laughed at is now an ever present and inescapable factor of our online world. Social media and the increased availability of brisk online communication have caused us to relinquish our authenticity and embrace the distortion of our personalities. We see social media as an advancement of culture and connection, but we ignore the effect it has on our personalities. We ignore the fact that so many users signed away their personality when they signed off on the swear of conformity hidden deep in terms and conditions. On social media, the mass of users have created an unspoken rulebook filled with expectations for every profile (Heitner). This hidden rulebook begins people’s journey towards the conformity and is the start of them adjusting themselves for the online community. Users start with tiny adjustments that they believe are impermanent and unimportant changes to fit in, but as time goes on and expectations grow, they change more extremely to continually receive that popular reception. Users get sucked into the popularity contest because of how incredibly evident it is online. Every second you’re on the program you see likes, follows, retweets and it begins to have this immense power over users, rather than prioritizing fun and community. Once people can see what gets the most attention, they begin to pursue those posts, activities, and events. They begin act not for themselves or their entertainment, but to get a leg up in a immaterial world. They calculate every part of their day and each post to ensure it adds exactly the right detail to their image. Elisabeth Camp argues that “Who [you are] is given by the story [you] tell” emphasizing how much power we have to alter and “better” ourselves online by being able to control what we story we tell and what character we allow people to see (Camp). Every time you scroll through someone’s feed, all that you see is the carefully curated characteristics and picturesque personality they want you to glimpse. It becomes a game to see who can become the most produced, but appear the most authentic. Social media embraces this suppression and illusion, and because of that it hurts their users as they fall prey to the game. They begin to lose their personality and integrity online, but eventually even in real life too because of the advanced tech of our phones. Our phones have become an ever present part of our life and they affect our personality immensely, illustrated by Sherry Turkle, “Our phones are not accessories, but psychologically potent devices that change not just what we do but who we are” (Turkle). As users check and log onto their phones constantly through the day, they begin to unconsciously bring their pattern of facades and lies with them even after they log off or shut their phones. They do this unconsciously, but also consciously as they see the success of their lies and begin to crave the success and false happiness they found online. Because of the positive reception and the increased time spent online today, as users wipe parts of their personalities away online, they can eventually reach a point where it’s nearly impossible to return to or ever retrieve themselves. What they were becomes a distant memory soaring away as they immerse themselves more and more into the binary of the digital world. All of these factors between the hidden rule book, the popularity contest, and constant conformity create the very same paper people that I myself used to build. Users log on one day, then another, and then every day. Each time losing a small part of themselves until they are fully paper and it’s impossible to return to who they were before. Digital literacy today is more than understanding the internet, but understanding who you are and how not to lose that. Digital literacy is about acknowledging both the strengths and the weaknesses of our’s and the digital world. We are not a world of paper people, we’re an incredibly complex world of diversity, disagreement, and depth and there is no follow, like, or retweet that should convince us to leave that behind.



Bibliography


Heitner, Devorah. "Rules for Social Media, Created by Kids." The New York Times, 5 Jan. 2017. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

 <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/well/family/the-unspoken-rules-kids-create-for-instagram.html>.


Jackson, Nicholas. "The American Identity According to Social Media." The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017. <http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/infographic-the-american-identity-according-to-social-media/243687/>.


The Narrative Self. Dir. Elisabeth Camp. Perf. Elisabeth Camp. Wireless Philosophy. Youtube, 5 Feb. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIqoN9oRgo>.


Turkle, Sherry. "Stop Googling. Let's Talk." Sunday Review. The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.      <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/stop-googling-lets-talk.html?_r=0>.


Advanced Essay #3: Self Perception Leads to Economic Status

Intro Paragraph: ​For advanced essay #3 I wanted to focus a lot on the flow of my writing and having it sound better altogether. I also wanted to better my grammar and have my writing be more analytical and helpful in strengthening my thesis. During the course of advanced essay #3 I foucessed a lot on making sure my quotes were helpful in strengthening the points I was trying to make. Looking back at my essay, I think I did a pretty good job in accomplishing my goals however my writing still has a lot to improve before I am satisfied with it. I used class time well in order to complete the essay. I also spent time at home writing and editing, I met all of the deadlines on time. I am happy with my final product however I think I can still do better. 

Essay: Many people argue identity and how one views themselves does not impact their socioeconomic status. I argue that it self perception greatly impacts one’s socioeconomic status.  Someone’s identity and mental state are key in navigating the world’s social and economic structures.  Being socially functional is incredibly important in making money, how someone functions socially is often dictated by their identity and self perception.

A socioeconomic status can be defined in two ways. The first is a socioeconomic status being defined by where they live, and what material possessions they have. That is a socially defined definition. The second way of defining socioeconomic status is one's income and where that person falls on the poverty scale. The two ways of understanding someone's socioeconomic status tend to be complicated, one way to understand the distinction between the two is by looking at an example.  If there is someone living in center city whose income is below the state poverty line and someone living in a poorer neighborhood but their income is above the state poverty line, the person living in the poorer neighborhood will be viewed by society as impoverished rather than the person living in Center City. These two definitions of socioeconomic status are important in understanding where people come from and what they value.

Community creates one's identity which in turn dictates how much money someone will make in the future. Someone from an upper class community might automatically believe that they will make a lot of money in the future due to the resources that are offered to them as well as, they have little to no interaction with poverty so it is incredibly foreign to them.  However someone from an impoverished community might believe that they cannot make more money in the future, they do not have the same resources offered as the wealthy kids do and because of where they come from they are not able to get out of the vicious cycle of society.  Between the two extremes lies the middle class, the identity of the middle class is incredibly fragile. To generalize, a lot of the middle class are insecure about their jobs, how much money they make etc. This leads a lot of the population of the middle class to at some point fall below the poverty line. There are many factors that leads to this self-perception and insecurity. A New York Times article about economic classes explains “Middle-class anxiety has been driven by several factors: increasing instability in incomes, a sense among many Americans that they are failing to keep up with the gains of previous generations, and an increasing gap between themselves and the very rich.” To sum up the causes “Middle-class anxiety” is the result of people viewing themselves as less than or failures. Failing to be as successful as previous generations and less than the middle class and the worry that they will never get there. This way of thinking does not lead to promotions and higher paychecks, rather it creates stress and anxiety that many people feed on and make money off of.

The self-perception of one’s self is only a piece of the financial puzzle. Another piece is one's identity. Sarah Grace King, an undergraduate student at Duke university, took a survey about entitlement at her university. King wrote, “Despite the apparent diversity among my respondents, a finding consistent throughout all interviews was the sentiment of entitlement— the idea that Duke students have essentially been gifted with a sort of salvation as a result of having the opportunity to attend such a prestigious institution. “ Most if not all of Duke students believed they would be successful later in life. Most of the students later in fact did become incredibly successful in their careers. Their success was a result of the prestigious school they went too, and the identity that goes along with the education. Identity is developed over time. Through one’s community growing up as well as when they are older. The upper class and upper-middle class share a similar identity. More resources are offered to the upper class as well as the upper-middle class, it is incredibly unfair and unjust and they use those resources to get a step up on everyone else. Financially the upper middle class is pulling away from everyone else. “But class is not just about money. Education is an important ingredient, too. A higher level of education tends to be associated with greater occupational prestige and autonomy, as well as job quality and security.” This only leads to greater divides amongst the classes and as a result lowers people’s perception of themselves making them believe they are less than everyone else.

Where someone comes from forms their identity and who they will be later in life. Their identity in turn will dictate their socioeconomic status. All successful people believe they are able to do what they put their mind to and this type of growth mindset comes from one’s identity and self-perception.

  
Bibliography:

New York Times: 
Cohen, Patricia. "Middle Class, but Feeling Economically Secure." New York Times. N.p., 10 Apr. 2015. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

Duke:
King, Sarah Grace. "Duke Thompson Writing Program." Duke University | Thompson Writing Program: Home. Duke, 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

Brookings:
Reeves, Richard V. "The Dangerous Separation of the American Upper Class."Brookings.edu. N.p., 3 Sept. 2015. Web.

Forbes:
Reynolds, Siimon. "How Your Self Image Determines Your Wealth." Forbes. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.





Advanced Essay 3 Be Yourself, Love Yourself

Introduction-

In my paper my central question was “Is it healthy to have a private self or public self?" One goal for my piece of writing was to just let my readers know that you should just be YOURSELF regardless of what people say about you because everyone gets talked about. Although I don’t think it’s bad to have a private and public self I just believe it shouldn’t matter how you think people view you.


Essay:

Most people act one way in public and another way in private because they feel like they can’t be themselves without being judged. At least once in a lifetime there was a moment where you may have felt uncomfortable with your environment and felt like you couldn’t be yourself. Struggling with these internal conflicts can really mess one’s confidence up and it can make one feel down. Famous people don’t really have it easy either, most of them are lost and trapped in a mind that is there but don’t really know how to separate their famous stage self to their personal home self. Finding who you are and your identity can come with many challenges in life but it starts with being comfortable in your own skin.

When I think of a public and personal identity I think of a Disney star Miley Cyrus. She was originally was on Disney channel which is mainly for kids and that’s how her career started in the music business. As her career took off, she started to grow up and grow into the women she is now, and she wanted to do more ‘grownup’ things. She felt held back because she knew she had a bunch of young kids watching her, but the Miley Cyrus on TV is not the real Miley Cyrus in real life, it’s only her when she reads the script. She struggled with handling this at first when she was transitioning. As years went on, she started to feel comfortable maybe even way too comfortable that she started to show her body on stage, create more sexual music and not caring too much about what people thought about her. Miley Cyrus once said: "I'm not really scared or insecure about anything because I'm used to people judging me. I'm used to people knocking me down, so I'm used to getting back up." This is a mindset that most people don’t have so it’s really inspiring to hear someone so famous and big say something like this and know that we aren’t alone.

Not only famous people struggle with a private and public identity, but everyone does. It can be looked at as a insecurity thing. You may think that people won’t accept you for who your true self is so you try to change and maybe act like them, or act the way you think they’ll accept you. I personally never ‘changed’ myself for anyone but I do remember a time where I know I just didn’t belong in a friend group that I associated myself with. I just got really bad vibes from certain people and I knew they would talk about me behind my back about how my personality doesn’t match theirs. Of course I cared and thought about how would I be able to fit in without being judged but after a while you forget and just start not to care. Being talked about isn’t the best feeling in the world, some people (like me) start to become self conscious, insecure and doubtful. You begin to put yourself down and you start to see the negative side of yourself rather than the positive beautiful side.

You shouldn’t let your insecurities, judgements define you. We all have once struggled with accepting something about ourselves, but that shouldn’t hold us back from being the people that we were brought on this earth to be. Ralph Emerson a famous poet observed, “ to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Love yourself there's nothing wrong with that, loving and accepting yourself is one of the most beautiful things you can possibly do and experience. Once you find yourself and accept yourself you won't care what the next person has to say about you.


Being judged is normal, having a private and public self is normal, holding back is also normal so none of these things are bad. Letting these negative things in are bad, keep them out, never let your head down and don’t look back. Finding who are may come with being talked about and maybe even being let down. It’s your job to find comfort in your own skin and to love yourself matter what is said about you.



Work Cited


"'Miley: The Movement': 10 Most Memorable Quotes From Miley Cyrus' Deluxe Doc."The Hollywood Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.



"Be Yourself Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.



Advanced Essay 3 The Division in Society

Introduction- For my paper my main question was in what ways does society divide people. There are many reasons why education , social class , cultural background etc. I tie all of this into my paper because I wanted to show more the to the topic and make it broader to people. I think I did a good job with my paper I found quotes and sources that supported my argument well. 

Essay- Makayla leaned over and whispered ¨ I can't do it anymore I don't belong here¨. Makayla was a  friend in elementary school. Makayla had a rich family  and attended private school all her life. After a while Makayla had to leave private school because her mother couldn't afford it anymore. It was surprising to hear that  rich people can be broke so fast. They had to move out their big house and move into a smaller apartment that her mother could afford. Since Makayla had to leave her house she had to leave her school and attend a public school which was something new to her. I remember the first day she walked in with fancy earrings , fancy shoes and the wrong uniform. We all stared at her because she was not dressed for public school. She sat down in the blue chair and watched the class. After class was over I went over to my introduce myself.

¨”Hi , my name is Fatoumata what's your name ¨?

She glared for a bit and said ¨ Makayla¨

¨ Well nice to meet you Makayla where are you from ?¨

¨ I'm from jersey where all of the nice homes and fancy schools are at. My mom couldn't afford my private school bill if you know what that is ?¨

I stared at her for a while do she think she is better than me because she is white ?

¨ No I don't know what you mean tell me what you mean Makayla.¨

She started to notice that I was getting upset and decided to continued with her story anyway.

¨ I just want to go back I don't belong here at all me or my mom.¨

Was rich people really this selfish , I couldn't believe it.

¨ Are you this selfish Makayla you can't even compare your story to mines its 10x worse¨.

¨ Well of course it's 10x worse you're black it's harder for you¨.

Before I could say a word my teacher came and said ¨ Girls it's time for lunch hurry I need to lock the door¨

I packed up my bags and ran out the classroom so fast. Before I could run down the stairs Makayla stopped me and said ¨ That's not what I meant Fatou¨.

¨ Don't shorten my name rich girl we're not friends and we will never be¨.

¨ Can you just listen to what I have to say please?¨

¨ What do you have to say to say how hard your life is because your mom lost a little bit of money. You have people who don't have any money and you complained about how life is so hard. You haven't seen anything yet.

I thought about what Makayla said. Black people are always categorized as the poor people. Anybody can be poor it does not depend on skin color at all. I had to tell my friends about what Makayla had said because it's been on my mind all day. After weeks went by Makayla still couldn't fit in a ¨dirty school¨ that's what she called it so I helped her fit in into her new school. I taught her that not everything is handed and it's was hard for her to adjust to her new life but she got the hang of it. She always said she wanted success one of her favorite quotes that she always said was  ¨ When I taste success that's when i'll be happy¨. She did taste success and she was happy.


What I think it's really interesting is that it kind of show all of the strength to the lower class identity. There are also costs to being lower class. What wealth, education and higher station in life gives you the freedom to focus on yourself. The author in ¨Our Kids¨ elaborates more about how the rich people live with money and how they act and how poor people have high school degree or less. ¨ Rich parents go to college , poor parents have high school degree or less.  We have brilliant black people who has masters degree and still are in school.  You don't have to be rich to attend college just have to have the mindset and potential. College is an big investment but your brain is even more.


Education plays a big role in the division of society  because now in society it all depends  on your social class if your education meets the standard that your class does. I don't see why this is very important because education is education and it should be available to everybody no matter how much you have . Education is a big part of the division because not all people are educated as much other people are.. Some schools might be dirty because they don't have a lot of resources that they can pay. In rich schools they better have resources that make the school cleaner or have better resources. People who are upper class individual are likely to attend school of higher quantity because of the money that they have. The lower class attend to schools that are not very rich. College is a choice it's not mandatory for you to go. It's hard to have success because it always depends on your culture, money,social etc.


America will always be divided because of cultural background. America always depends on the culture but with the division it's causing people to be separated.Many people heritage affects their opportunities in so many ways because the way america is setup. People are divided because they don't feel welcomed , or they just don't want to be apart of this racist divided world were in. Racism is still a problem that still goes on but we have to live with it because everyone has their own opinion. Cultural background describes the beliefs , background of the individual because it identifies a person background.  


People who grow up in lower class neighborhoods as I did will say ¨There's always someone there who will take you somewhere or watch your kid. You just always have to lean to people. Wealthier people don't have to rely on each other as much. People from lower class background are better at reading other people's emotions . They give more and help more and if someone is in need they will always be there.












Citations-


"Fairfield College Preparatory School." Fairfield College Preparatory School. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.


"Our KIds." Our Kids. Robert D Putman, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017

Influences of the Future Self

Introduction

In this essay I will be discussing how our current identity affects our future self. I provide clear evidence and give analysis to support my statement. 

Essay

We are all born into lifestyles without choice, some are more fortunate than others. Individuals are grouped based on their environment, their economic status and educational background. Those of a higher social class have more opportunities, while those of a lesser social class do not. Our future identities are influenced by our present realities.


A reference source about the consequences of social class mentioned “Social class refers to the the grouping of individuals in a stratified hierarchy based on wealth, income, education, occupation, and social network (though other factors are sometimes considered). One's position in the social class hierarchy may impact, for example, health, family life, education, religious affiliation, political participation, and experience with the criminal justice system.” Social class plays a major role in everyone’s life and determines how they live.


Environment is affected by social class because one lives where they can afford to. In a low-income community there will be a list of negative things that affect children. The adults living in that community won’t have the luxury of high paying occupations. No matter the location, children are exposed to things that will shape and influence their decisions. If violence is constantly occurring in a neighborhood the child will adapt and begin to think it’s normal, same goes for the drugs, gangs, pollution, etc. Aspirations of self, change in different communities because of different opportunities and the accessibility to information. A child in a low income neighborhood is more likely to attend their neighborhood school and because it is a low income neighborhood the school will be affected too.


Education is heavily affected by environment, Viana Y. Turcios-Cotto and Stephanie Milan talk about the differences between adolescents in education in their paper “Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Educational Expectations of Adolescents: Does Pursuing Higher Education Mean Something Different to Latino Students Compared to White and Black Students?” “There are striking disparities in the academic achievement of American youth. In 2008, approximately 81% of White students graduated from high school within four years, or on time, compared to only 62% of Black students, and 64% of Latino students. Of students who graduated, 72% of White, 56% of Black, and 64% of Latino students immediately enrolled in some form of higher education. Among students who did go on to postsecondary education, students of color were more likely to attend junior or community college and less likely to complete their degrees.” Social status plays a part in these statistics, there’s a possibility that the reason for low percentages amongst non-white students is lack of funds.


Experiences can help mold identities and make a person who they are and adds to what they know. There are events and experiences that people go through to make them feel like they aren’t good enough. Present realities shape our future identities in multiple ways that some aren’t aware of. To accept, come to the realization, and overcome the obstacles set against us is the purpose. We can choose who we want to be but we can’t change who we are. Accept, love, and embrace yourself the way you are.


Work Cited





Source: Boundless. “Consequences of Social Class.” Boundless Sociology Boundless, 26 May. 2016. Retrieved 18 Jan. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/stratification-inequality-and-social-class-in-the-u-s-9/the-impacts-of-social-class-77/consequences-of-social-class-454-8542/


Cotto, Turcios. "Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Educational Expectations of Adolescents: Does Pursuing Higher Education Mean Something Different to Latino Students Compared to White and Black Students?" Journal of Youth and Adolescence. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2013. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Definition Overload

“You gotta remember who and whose you are,” my mother told me one fine spring morning. I was eleven and  in the sixth grade. It was the day that I had to present my English paper in front of the class. Boy, was I nervous. There was not a trace of confidence in my body. I had expressed this to my mom, and she immediately gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, and that in order to first have confidence you must first have to think highly about yourself and even remember how highly God thinks of you. Little did I know how much that one little saying - that one piece of motherly advice, and with a little help of prayer and an extra boost of self-esteem, my life would be changed forever.


Ever since that moment  I never went back. I became confident, spunky, and outgoing. I had established the definition of my identity, and it stuck with me wherever I went.  Through that phrase, and through my own belief that I was God’s child, royalty and that I was Kimberly Danielle Barnes. Although this was the main place in which my defining of my identity was established ,there were other things over the years that I learned defined my identity.  The comfortability and happiness that I would later  get from friends and certain  people around me, my hobbies and other things I enjoyed, and things I participated in, would all help to not only define but to find myself.


The way by which we define ourselves, are often times not our own. The definition of identity, is often times influenced by how others around us feel  and the power by which we allow them to have. It may come from the what and desire from someone else, or what we visualize ourselves being. Our first thoughts of ourselves, however is the first establishment of it. After first defining ourselves, we then allow for it to be adjusted and refined based on what we surround ourselves with. Although the definition by which I defined my  identity was found at the time at age eleven, there were still many things, I later encountered that I allowed to have a larger impact on my overall definition. This is why identity is as fragile package, one thought, view, or opinion can either make it or break it. It is constantly changing, and sensitive to change. This is why there are so many identity adjustments we encounter. Our definitions are not constant.



In Flowers for Algernon, a man defines his identity through his ability to obtain intelligent, The smarter he becomes, the more confidence he finds within himself. However, his definition of his identity came more from based off of what others felt about and towards him. He found his intelligence and was able to determine it through the many tests he took, that would allow for him to see how smart he was. His results were given back to him, by the people who were working with him to make him smart. He could not properly spell his words, making him impaired and because of the knowledge he saw easily grasped by others around him he desired to be smart as they were. He emphasizes his desire for intelligence so that he will fit more in touch with his identity. “Miss Kinnian says  maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart.” Charlie’s definition of his identity was not complete, because of the lack of knowledge he realized he lacked. His want to be smart, would help him to complete that. His trust in Ms. Kinnian “making him smart” came from the understanding that she herself was on the level of intelligence that he wanted for himself. After months of testing and observations, he at one point reached the level of intelligence he wanted. He illustrates the change he felt not only internally but externally. “I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my  mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. “ The transition from “mentally impaired” to intelligent changed Charlie in ways he had never imagined. He finally felt confident in himself and the way he viewed himself, because of this. He now saw a man confident enough to be seen by others and now felt renewed a change in his identity. The “old Charlie Gordon” was the man he hid away, not confident and comfortable enough to show. This in turn made him uncomfortable in the definition of himself, and he quickly forgot who he used to be with the new man he had become. This is often what happens, when the definition of ourselves, stems from negativity and not things by which we find happiness and are comfortable in. However, when the way by which we define our identity stems from things that make us feel good, positive things they are easier to remember. This is why we need be careful, the things by which we let influence us and define us.


In What it Means to be a Women in Society, a woman's definition of identity came from the outside sources from around her. The beliefs that society had about women and what it meant to be one. So much so, that she herself could not really determine what it meant to be a women, without it being the actual definition of a women, influenced and established by society. She states the feelings she had upon coming to terms with herself and what it meant to be a women. “Nothing came out. How could I articulate what made me a woman without making it sound like my definition was THE definition of woman?” The author, was so used to this definition that she at first didn’t even know how to define what made a woman a woman. This happens so often, where we are so trained to think about what society has to say or societal views, that we don’t allow our own selves to do the thinking. We feed off of societal definitions, therefore not having an idea of what certain things mean ourselves. She allowed for her definition of identity to be defined by society’s overall definition. If i was defining what it meant to be a GIRL or what a GIRL was I would say myself, being me. Then I would go into my own opinions, based off of myself and how I feel. I would say a feminine female, but that is just my definition, some girls are tom-boyish or prefer sports over shopping. So, I believe that allowing our own definition of what it means to be something or a certain someone should come straight from both our opinions and also our experience and even our own lifestyles. Her definition was fully reliant on society’s opinion, this is why she had no other official definition of her own self.


We must be careful the ways in which we allow things to define us. Each one having its own impact, either positive or negative on our lives. The more positive the better, and stronger our identities become, the more negative the more unstable and fragile we allow for the impact to have on ourselves.




E2 U2: "Toda la Influencia Americana

Announcer (most energetic voice, voiceover): Leah Bradstreet

Filmer (One with the best phone): Imani’s phone, Chloe Hart

Female Model(s) (depends on who brings U.S. clothes): Imani Williams, Julia Furman (legs only), and Chloe Hart

Male Model (depends on who brings U.S. clothes): Eli Zimmerman

Editor (person/people who actually know how to edit videos): Leah Bradstreet / Chloe Hart

DJ (knows how to find good songs): Julia Furman
GUIÓN:

Announcer:

En Toda Americana Influencia, los productos están todas hechos en los Estados Unidos. Nosotros orgullosamente producimos ropa nunca hecha en maquilas. // In All American Influence the products are all made in the United States. We proudly produce clothes never made in sweatshops.

Invierno: Winter

Announcer:

¡Suéteres de niñas desde cuarenta y cinco y cincuenta y nueve dólares! ¡Suéteres de niños son cuarenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares!

// Models show off clothing

Female:: Un suéter negro y café hecho en los Estados Unidos con algodón y lana. Pantalones azul hecha en los Estados con la tela vaquera.

Male: Un suéter moreno y café hecho en los Estados con algodón. Pantalones azules oscuros hechos en los Estados con la tela vaquera.

Primavera: Spring

Announcer:

¡Puedes comprar vestidos para niñas por solo sesenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares! ¡Zapatos simples de niñas son treinta y nueve y noventa y nueve!

Female: Unas vestido y sandalias.

Verano: Summer

Announcer:

Camisetas de las niñas y los niños son solo treinta y cinco y noventa y nueve dólares.  Camisetas de mujeres y hombres desde setenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares. Pantalones cortos para niñas y niños son sesenta y nueve y noventa y nueve dólares. ¡Compra ahora!

Female: Una camiseta rosa y rojo, pantalones cortos negros, y chancletas negras todas hechas en los Estados Unidos.

Male: Una camiseta, pantalones cortos de baloncestos, y zapatos baloncestos.

Otoño: Autumn

Announcer:

Nuestras bufandas de moda son veinte y cuatro y cincuenta y nueve! ¡Tenis para mujeres y hombres son solo setenta y cuatro y noventa y nueve!

Female: Una bufanda gris, unos botas cafe, una camisa roja y blanca, y unas medias negras.

Male: Una camiseta graphica, tenis zapatos blancos, unos jeans azul

Announcer:

¡Tienda en Toda Americana Influencia para estas grandes ofertas! ¡Ten prisa, estas ofertas no duran mucho! Estamos en Uno Dos Tres Americano Forma de Sacramento, California, puedes ir al http://www.allamericaninfluence.com, o puedes llamar al (Dos Uno Cinco) Cuatro Cinco Seis - Siete Ocho Nueve Cero.


Advanced essay #3 - Keith Hodge (How social media thinks of the olympics)

Introduction:

My paper was about how social media thinks about the olympics and finding sources for this was not that hard. The two sources on social media were my starting points and I thought I can do it on social media itself but that topic is to broad. The one source I had on social media was about what is the american identity according to social media still a little to broad. Then I came across an article on how some olympic athletes compete with other countries even though they are a citizen in another so that made me think how would social media think of that and then I thought of my topic how does social media think of the olympics.

Essay:

The olympics are always a must watched event for the world whether it would be summer or winter and people love it. The olympics have been around for almost 120 years which is very impressive. While facebook and twitter have been around for about 12 years. Facebook came around during the 2004 summer games while twitter came around during 2006 winter games so facebook has seen 4 summer and 3 winter games while twitter has seen 3 summer and 3 winter games.

So if you have not figured it out by now my topic is how social media thinks about the olympics. Those two kind of make sense in a way because the olympics are a big event that happens and also social media is so huge now and if something happens in the olympics then social media talks about it and it will trend and go world wide. For example someone wins a couple gold medals or they become the best olympian ever such as michael phelps winning his record 28th olympic medal and 23rd olympic gold medal. Or even the two diving pools turning green went viral on social media even though it got annoying people loved it and kept sharing it.

The first source that I read was Ghosts in the machine it is a article about social media and how we mourn the dead. In ghosts in the machine, Jenna Wortham points out how social media is the quickest but worst way to announce a death. ¨ Social media seemed to be the quickest way to let people know why I had disappeared and why I would continue to be a ghost in my own way. But it felt wrong, even ghoulish, to announce the death of a parent in the same venue I might a new job. ¨. When I picked this quote it stood out because even though it is the quickest way it is the strangest way to share a death and social media is one of the quickest things that is why I chose this source and the quotes from this source.

In ghosts in the machine, Jenna wortham argues how the mourning process is longer on social media. ¨ When funneled through social media, death lingers longer than a traditional mourning period might call for. ¨. This quote was also very interesting to use because on social media the mourning period is much longer than the normal one. The next source is from Why some olympians compete against their home country.

In WSOCATHC, Matt Vasilogambros claims that switching nationalities is spirit. ¨ But is switching nationalities just to compete in the games in the Olympic spirit? ¨. This quote stood out because this is someone saying is this spirit or not. In WSOCATHC, Anne Donovan writes about how if you’re born here you play here.

¨ If you play in this country, live in this country, and you grow up in the heartland and you put on a Russian uniform, you are not a patriotic person in my mind. ¨.This quote stood out and also I kind of agree and disagree at the same because if you are born here play here but if that is the only way to compete in the olympics then go right ahead. The last source is The american identity according to social media. In The american identity according to social media, Nickolas Jackson illustrates that infographics are describe as a hodgepodge.

¨ Infographics are always a bit of a hodgepodge of statistics culled from a variety of sources. ¨. This quote stood out to me because a hodgepodge is basically a confused mixture of stuff so food or other items but this is a hodgepodge of statistics from a few sources. In The american identity according to social media, Nickolas jackson believes that social media has learned a lot about us. ¨ Over time, those networks have learned a lot about you, about us. What do they know? ¨.

This quote stood out to me because of the way it is worded and I don’t know but the author may be trying to tell us that social media has really developed into something big and that was my whole point. Now the conclusion like I said before my thesis is how social media thinks about the olympics. Obviously the olympics are one of the biggest events in the world and when things in the olympics happen they will go on social media which can cause negative and positive effects such as an error or blooper can go viral on social media which can cause cause negative and then a career accomplishment or world record can also go viral on social that same day and cause the opposite effect which is positive. So really what I am saying is social media influences life because what you do infuses your life and what these athletes do influences their career and lives as well.

Wortham,Jenna.Ghosts in the Machine: The New York Times Magazine,2015 Vasilogambros,Matt. Why some olympians compete against their home country: The Atlantic,2016 Jackson,Nicholas. Infographic: The American Identity According to Social Media: The Atlantic, 2011