Learning to Read

I am amazed on how intelligent Malcolm X was when he was in jail. When he was in jail he did a lot of reading and was surprised on how little the black history section was. This reminded me of Cheney's article about how women's history is not a major focus in some history text books. Why do American's only focus on the White man? To this day every time I even open up a U.S. history text book and look for the Japanese internment section I am disappointed to see it is only a small paragraph long and the rest is on the bombing of Hiroshima and the war. Japanese internment is a very important part of my heritage and I hope for text books to elaborate on this issue. If textbooks would willingly print out a longer section for the Japanese internment it would educate the younger generation of our mistakes. It seems to me that the White man is embarrassed for his error and just wants to forget it all together.

The Case Against College

I did like this article it was a bit of a relief that there are parents out there who are more understanding about what their child wants to do. My parents have both graduated from Long Beach (woohoo!) and being the typical Asian parents, they have both encouraged me to continue onto college. My parents encouragement to go to college was only a small part of why I am here. For me, I wanted to go, I wanted to get a higher degree of learning. I want to be among intelligent peers and I want to be able to voice my own opinion. And going to a JC was no option, I wanted to get into a four year college. The mentality I kept to get to a four year helped me achieve my goal. Plus I was in all AP course to help prepare myself to what the workload might be like in a college class. And also a main determining factor to me continuing my education was my friends. Most of my friends were continuing onto a four year and it was that extra push to help me get to where I am. I didn't want to be the one friend who didn't apply to schools or didn't make it. I wanted to be as successful as they are. I like the fact that Lee also acknowledged the fact that school isn't only to just get a good job. Going to college we're suppose to enjoy the moment, this is our first few steps into adulthood. We have reached a new way of learning where we get more leeway on our work, we are able to fully express ourselves .

What are Homosexuals For?

I found this article to be very interesting because currently this is the topic my friend and I have been discussing. My friend is questioning her sexuality right now and she comes to me to talk about the problems she faces since none of my other friends don't really tolerate homosexual people. And it pisses me off that my best friend would cut off all ties with my friend if she decides shes a lesbian. It hurts me that my best friend could say such a thing, shes known my friend for over 5 years and yet she'd do something like that. I wish people would see through sexual preference and focus on the kind of person they are. I would not give up my friend for the world, she is a kind and thoughtful person and I love talking to her. I believe that you are born with the kind of people you prefer, you can't change who you are more attracted to. Say you are a homosexual but deny it and force yourself to marry someone of the opposite sex. You'll be living a lie for the rest of your life and you might be unhappy as well. I've watched show on whole families being broken up: wife, husband, and kids because the person decided to come out. I don't think I could live a life of lies, you fall in love with whoever will love you back. Love is love. Why marry someone when you cannot fully love them back. If I was in a situation where I had either the choice of being with a guy who was rude and mean to me or a girl who was my significant other and there was no one else I could choose, I would probably choose the girl. In today's world I do see a very positive shift towards the LGBT community which I am extremely happy about. This whole issue on homosexuality is almost like integration of races in my opinion, we are getting one step closer to total tolerance. And I can see in the near future that there will be a huge movement towards tolerance of the LGBT community.

Miss America Beauty Queen

Reading this totally reminded me of Miss Congeniality, one of my all time favorite movies. I saw so many similarities from this, like how only the seemingly perfect girls get nominated for these beauty pageants and how they are suppose to be "scholarship" based. But picking a winner only based on looks is a bit questionable to me. Training your whole life on just being beautiful just seems wrong, but my mom said only the beautiful people ever get picked on jobs. It's a horrible truth and we as a society need to look past the beautiful people and focus on the truly talented. Of course this will be a difficult transition if we even ever think of considering that seeing as we are a nation who treat our celebrities like royalty. The media also fuels the bad image the Miss America Pageant gets all because sex sells more than brains. Today's media is filled with sex, sex, sex, and drugs. The only reason why we keep the infamous swimsuit portion is to keep the ratings up. Even though Miss America is considered a scholarship foundation they focus on the minimal effort on education. It would be interesting to see the actual questioning which got the girls into the finals. We would be seeing strong, intelligent, and beautiful women answering questions. Young girls will see and have better role models who are actually book smart, morally stable, and beautiful on the inside and out. Kate Shindle describes how winning Miss America gave her the opportunity to use her brains and help our people in need. I partly see this as a publicity stunt she is able to do those kind of things because she is the winner and deemed beautiful. Her face will be seen on magazines there are probably thousands of people doing the same thing Shindle is doing but aren't published in a magazine. With Shindle's face on magazines and media not only does she get money for it but the pageant also gets money.

One Nation Slightly Divisible

This article was very long but interesting, David Brooks talks about the difference between the north and the south. The basic message I got from this was that the north was urban and fast paced and the south was rural and slow paced. Reading this I immediately thought of Nicolas Sparks' A Walk to Remember, setting a tiny southern town with churches dotted throughout the area, down to earth white people who knew everyone there. In the cities we seem to be moving so fast we forget to take time out for ourselves to smell the flowers. For me my weekends are as packed as my weekdays, there are things to do and people to see. I am hardly at home anymore. And that is what Brooks is trying to get across that in the south people enjoy themselves without a deadline. They are there for their families and enjoying the moment, careers aren't as important as they are in the north. And when I further read about Brooks comparing the likes and dislikes of the north and south, it reminded me of the Blue Collar Comedy Troupe and all their jokes on Nascar, outdoor sports, long sleeved shirts with the sleeves cut off. Speaking of guys with sleeveless shirts, Brooks writes about the difference in men between the north and south which I found interesting. Since the south is more laid back than urban north the way men seem to dress is more laid back and well, rugged. Guys who work in office building in the big cities are expected to be more clean cut and dressed in suits. And the modest style of dress the southern men take upon also reflect on their homes. The wealthy northern families soup up their homes to see who can have the biggest driveways or extra bedrooms. But in the south, an area that is very devoted to God, most of their profits go to the church and the community. I feel that in the city people are more greedy and love to show off their newest piece of technology but in the south they take pride in their own community. What was really interesting was when Brooks stated that in a time of need, even though the north and south are as different as triangles and squares, we are able to unite and help out our country. As Americans we have been noted to be very patriotic and when 911 struck, American flags seemed to pop out of American soil. We all were pro-war we wanted to punish those who have harmed us and as united Americans we think alike. Americans are notoriously known to stick their heads into conflict without realizing the entire story. Once again our nation was divided after the war on terror began. The north and south separated on political views, the south being proud republicans still wanted war and the north saw that our social problems weren't resolving because our tax dollars were being spent on the war and wanted out. Towards the end Brooks acknowledges America as a cafeteria nation, that each region of our country has its own unique quality. Or that America is like a big high school filled with cliques, we all go to the same school and we all have school pride but individually we are different. This made me think about California, even we are split up into "SoCal" and "NorCal" it's interesting to see the difference between these two regions. We are very different on lifestyle, type of people, and dialect but ultimately we are still Californians and still Americans. And in the end of Brooks' article I was a bit confused he kept switching sides on what region he favored more. It seemed at the beginning of his article Brooks' glorified the south and in the end the north was the better region.

Letter to America

I really liked this one not because it was short, but it really captured my attention to the nostalgia of the older days. I am amazed at how Margret Atwood captures the attention of the American audience by relating to familiar things of the past like "Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the Andrew's Sisters, and Elvis." Atwood grew up in America but eventually moved to Canada and saw the changes America had made in the following years. Since Canada is like our sister country and because she was once American she gently but sternly brings up the problems Americans have issues with. Atwood recognizes the fact that America does tend to poke their noses in other countries too often enough to forget to care about our own people. "You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill a light to all nations..." The city on the hill phrase has been used since the colonization, it is the basis of how our country came to be, Atwood greatly respects America for that in the past in the time where we graciously accepted all. In a way I think Atwood's vision of America is too old fashioned, even in her childhood there were still social problems but she failed to recognized that aspect. With time America needs to evolve, as a country we cannot stay in the same state of mind, even our constitution does not fit in today's society. For example the right to bear arms, what does that mean in today's society? That we are allowed to all carry bazookas and large guns? That amendment just doesn't fit in our society, back then it was a necessity to carry a weapon around and even still it was a non-accurate rifle. Atwood also brings up the subject on our economy, America is plunged into a very large debt that grows and grows as we speak. Atwood addresses this problem because it gets personal, America and Canada are major trading countries with one and another. If the American market fails again Canada and the whole world's market will crash like it did in the 1930's. In the end Atwood does not leave us in utter despair, instead she leaves an open door to us. She makes a reference to King Arthur not being dead, but sleeping in a cave and she gives us a tip to our nation that to once restore our former glory we must dig deep into our past to find the answer. This could mean taking the back seat from the fast paced lifestyle we leave can be beneficial to our country. But also this once again proves Atwood still keeps an old fashioned mind that the old days were the better days.

Crimes against humanity

In Ward Churchill's article he spoke out against teams racially acknowledging their mascots like the Redskins for example. What I felt did not fit was that Churchill seemed to take out all his anger against the white man about having teams racially named after the Indians. "First, as a counterpart to the Redskins, we need an NFL team called the 'Niggers'..." I felt like this was uncalled for, two wrongs do not make a right. Churchill should not have pawned off a racial slur onto another ethic group. When I see the name Redskins, I do not see the name in a negative manner, rather I see a heroic chief, gallantly riding off into battle. Just like the football team does, why do we name our sports teams after groups like the vikings, patriots, chiefs, or even fighting Irish? I think that we people value the euphemistic thought of these strong brave men. Most of us know that the vikings were blood thirsty pirates and not all Indians are savages. Churchill really takes the team name Redskins too personally! Also what mostly will get in the way of changing a popular teams name and mascot are the fans. Remember back when the Anaheim Angels changed their name to the Los Angles Angels of Anaheim? There was a huge uproar among fans, hardcore fans value the proud history behind the name and the traditions. The tomahawk chop, even though it's racially deeming it still has some historic and traditional value among die hard fans. And with the hockey team the Ducks, when Disney traded over its ownership to the new owner. He wanted to change their mascot, the awesomely cool Wildwing and I remember fans didn't want to give up that mascot. And to this day because of the fans Wildwing still leads the Ducks on. I know racism is wrong and a very sensitive topic but in one of my favorite musicals called "Avenue Q" there is this song called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist". The lyrics are really true, racism will always be there although it might not be as extreme as it once was. There's a part of the song that goes, "Everyone's a little bit racist it's true, but everyone's about as racist as you, if we all could just admit, that we are racist a little bit, and everyone stop being so PC, maybe we could live in harmony!" Today it's more of a playful banter that we learn to live with. Maybe if the Redskins' mascot got a makeover Churchill will look at it as an honor.

For those of you who would like to listen to the song here it is! (:
Everyone's a Little Bit Racist-Avenue Q

arranged marriage in india

I find arranged marriages to be really old fashioned, my Great-Grandpa even didn't agree with it. He was suppose to marry my Great-Grandma's sister but ended up not, obviously. He claimed "She wasn't pretty enough." But in today's society where getting a stable career set up before marriage and with rising housing costs maybe letting mom and dad be matchmaker is a good thing. One part in every teen girl's stresses, boys is on the list and now since competition of colleges is rising dealing with boy drama can put a girl on the edge. Most girls when we have boy trouble we go to mom and when we find a boy we like we get approval from mom. Why not cut out the middle man and let mom pick for you? Then we are able to focus on our careers and financial futures. And for all you hopeless romantics, sometimes love doesn't work out how we hope it would. Now in days we have to think about finances, the cost of living has greatly increased, college tuition has gone up, and now we have to think about our children's future. The one advice my mom has given me on love is, "Don't marry for love, marry for money. Don't make the mistake I made." In a way I don't agree with it, I still hold on to the hopeless romantic. I hope to find someone I fell in love with and has money to support himself. But realistically, we now have to focus on our careers and finances.

Shakespeare in the Bush

After reading Laura Bohannan's article I found similarities to the Lion King. As some of you know Disney's Lion King was a remake of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Which uncannily fits in with this story, Laura is in Africa retelling the story of Hamlet to the tribesmen. What she finds out are that the shocking, taboo, and important themes of Hamlet are accepted traditions in their tribal society. She is shocked in that they can equally relate in their own special way even though her friend told her that anyone can understand Shakespeare in the way it's originally written. Her friend was wrong, Laura was lost in translation. What Laura needed to learn from this experience was to be open minded to different cultures and see that not everyone is the same. Luckily she was entertaining a kind audience who have seemed to embrace the western culture of life and giving her a lesson on tribal customs as well.

No Name Women

All in all I just have to say this, THANK GOODNESS I LIVE IN AMERICA! Universally, adultery is seen as a horrible thing you can do, but in western culture we see it not in a punishable act by mob, unlike other cultures around the world. I know in Asian cultures it's all about honor to your family and your family is the most important thing To do something to give your family a bad name, well it's not good. For example, in the Japanese community everyone seems to know each other and say if a teen gets caught doing drugs, the word gets spread like wildfire. Your parents are embarrassed at you because they are now known are the parents who didn't raise you right. I've heard of stories where an Asian person has forgotten of their relatives because they have done something to shame the family. But aside of Kingston's lost aunt, I can sympathize with her aunt. She was a women who was left all alone and with a low self esteem, no wonder she started to sleep around it made her feel important. And when she found out she was pregnant, she probably finally felt important for once and that someone would finally love her. Until the town rebutted against Kingston's aunt and her "demon child" she decides to kill herself. Kingston's aunt must have figured that she could never live a life with a bastard child and would never make it out on her own if she moved out. Again, in Asian culture family plays a very important role without her family she would never survive. The whole scene of the mob destroying her aunt's family home and wearing masks reminded me of the Ku Klux Klan and how they evoked fear to discourage an unwanted behavior. By doing this act, the villagers could be sending a message to all the young women in the town to not do the same thing Kingston's aunt did. What really upset me was the fact that the man who impregnated Kingston's aunt initiated the mob. It upsets me when it is equally the man's fault as it is for her aunt! A man cannot be a coward when it comes to the welfare of his child! How can you be so insensitive to the mother of your child?

A Tale of Two Divorces

This article was very interesting, I felt so much pity for Anne Roiphe's mother. To live a life of unhappy marriage must have been hell. Given that in that time, divorce was still considered to be a taboo and also woman's rights were still in their developing stage. Roiphe's mother didn't seem to have a very high self esteem either, she treated her children like they were her friends instead of mothering them and she let her husband verbally abuse her. Luckily for Roiphe, she was able to learn from her mother's mistake and divorce her husband who she thought was nothing like her father but in the end being exactly like him. And in respect for the Spice Girls I have to say...
GIRL POWER! Roiphe had much more self confidence in herself to be able to leave her ex-husband unlike her mother did. Women today have more rights and are more self confident in themselves thanks to careers. We are a different breed of women, the working woman. Housewives still exist but their numbers are diminishing. Women are not seen as the primary and sole caretakers of the home and children, men now in days are stepping up and taking care of the home. And unlike back then, today divorce has become so widely accepted but has risen a new problem. Broken families and messed up love lives. Our society needs to learn not to rush into things. As Americans we seem to have a problem with rushing into things to quickly, like the war. We need to slow down and not rush into something as important as marriage. Marriage isn't all about love anymore, with rising costs of living the meaning of marriage now means a financial partnership as well. Also the media is to blame, young girls look up to people like Britney Spears, who was shown getting married in Vegas randomly and divorced a few hours later. What is this teaching our youth? Marriage should be seen as a sacred and cherished thing, not something you can easily throw away.