Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood as a kid sanctioned me to perpetually become aware that I was different from my neighbors. Through some social interactions with my friends in elementary schools, I quickly descried that my appearances, such as my hair, eyes, and nose was different from my peers. For instance, my hair was a lot darker than most of my peers’ hair and the texture of my hair was different from most of them. “Grow out your hair” were phrases that lingered throughout my childhood days, where I had my hair at a very short length. Throughout my childhood, I longed to try to be a part of the dominant group in society such as the Caucasians, but I did not do anything to be a part of the bigger group in society. Instead, Growing up I never really felt that I could speak up in class and show my friendly personality, for fear of people making fun of me and rejecting my ideas because I was a minority in a predominantly white schools in a small town in Iowa. I always kenned I was unique and did not want to do anything that could cause others to draw their attention to that difference. For any projects in school, I would always take the assignment that required little to no speaking so that I would not have to speak in front of the dominant group because the minorities were outnumbered in the classrooms. Although, I got along with almost everybody in my elementary and middle schools, but I was not truly myself until I set foot in my home which is where I felt most comfortable. At home, I could get loose and do anything without any fear of exclusion and rejection by In high school, every clique is formed on the aspect of culture and race. Basically, you hang out with other high students that look similar to you, that dress like you, and with people with whom you feel you can somewhat relate like athletes, nerds, and people who are in the same school clubs or extracurricular activities as you. It was in high school that I truly began to have a sense of my Vietnamese culture. I ate all my ethnic food such as pho, spring rolls, and beef vermicelli soup, which is my favorite Vietnamese food. It was my high school where my outgoing and friendly personality came out. As a result, I became a more active participant in my school where I was not afraid to speak up in front of others in the classroom. I participated in a few clubs such as Spanish and STEM club and eventually one of the valedictorians of my graduating class. Although I associated with all races, I took a very special pride in hanging out with my friends in my ethnic group. Only there could my peers and I talk about the latest Vietnamese’s song by Son Tung and latest news about Vietnam such as when Barack Obama visited Vietnam or when a Vietnamese rapper rapped in front of Obama when he visited
Race has been a controversial issue throughout history and even more so today. The idea of race has contributed to the justifications of racial inequality and has led to the prejudice and discrimination of certain racial groups. Race and racism were constructed to disadvantage people of color and to maintain white power in America. Today, race has been the center of many political changes and actions that have affected people of color. The idea of race has played a role in how people from different racial groups interact amongst each other. Interactions within one’s own racial group are more common than interactions among other racial groups, at least in my own experiences. Therefore, because I have been positioned to surround myself with people from my own racial group since a very young age, I have internalized that being around my own racial group is a normal and natural occurrence.
I wanted to wear brand clothes/shoes they did, I wanted to do my hair like them, and make good grades like them. I wanted to fit in. My cultural identify took a back seat. But it was not long before I felt black and white did not mix. I must have heard too many comments asking to speak Haitian or I do not look Haitian, but more than that, I am black, so I always had to answer question about my hair or why my nose is big, and that I talked white. This feeling carried on to high school because the questions never went away and the distance between me and them grew larger. There was not much action my family could take for those moments in my life, but shared their encounters or conversations to show me I was not alone in dealing with people of other background. I surrounded myself with less white people and more people of color and today, not much has
Getting through life from conception to, the western idea of adulthood, takes many directions for every person. The impact of family, friends, everyday people and the stimuli of the various environments you were exposed to all have aided in your maturation. How do you think you turned out after being in your various environments? How did those environmental influences affect how you now behave? These influences are said to start at a young age, the age were, “preschoolers’ awareness of their ethnic or racial identity develops slowly and is subtly influenced by the attitudes of the people, schools, and other cultural institutions with which they come into contact in their community” (Feldman, 2014). Perhaps the greatest influences come from those one should be closest to, one’s family.
This is because after elementary, I moved into an Asian dominated junior high and high school. In this environment, Asian stereotypes were not taken seriously and were more often told as jokes. For example, what do you call a Vietnamese person walking a dog? A vegetarian! (my favorite joke). However, though I got over the stereotypes, my elementary years still haunt me as of today. I am now more socially awkward and uncomfortable when I am the minority or I am around white individuals. It frightens me that when I am around people who aren’t the same color as me because I feel like the judgments and incomplete stories will start to erupt, and that the incomplete stories will lead to the development of stereotypes and thus once again reenact my elementary years. This environment and atmosphere is reenacted every Monday and Wednesday’s in the WMST dialogue, where I am the minority and feelings of anxiety start to come
In light of our class discussion about the light skin, dark skin dichotomy I decided to write about my perspective on the issue. Growing up I quickly found out the color of my skin impacted my life in a foremost way. In my childhood years I traveled a lot, but I spent the majority of my life in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville is mildly diverse, especially in the area where my family and I lived. Moreover, the school I attended was predominantly white. With that being said, I was immersed into a setting where I could not culturally or ethnically relate to anymore. Furthermore, I found myself struggling with my identity. In school my peers and classmates would ask: “are you white?” Of course inside I knew who I was— I knew I was black; however, I began to lose sight of my ethnic background and ethnic identity. Furthermore, I found that it was harder for me to connect with people of my own race and ethnicity. Most of my friends where white; yet, I noticed that I was always stigmatized as the odd ball out with my “friends” and it was almost as if I was not good enough to be their f...
Although I grew up in the suburbs, I was the most urban of my peers - and one of the only African American students, not to mention a girl. Also to add onto my struggles, I was the only child, so I didn’t know much about interacting with new people who were my age. Sometimes I felt the other kids treating us differently but altogether it was a fun experience and I enjoyed being with people of different races and learning more about their families. When our family got back together and came towards the city, the other African American children would make fun of me and say things like, “You talk too white,” or “You don’t even act Black.” This was hard for me because I had never heard of “talking white” just speaking with proper English, and by “acting white” they meant I was too introverted and listened to a different type of music than them - this was weird. Because I was taught to speak a certain way and carry myself a certain way, I kept myself the way I
During my time spent in middle school most of my classmates were predominately white; due to that I picked up on many “characteristics” of my classmates, like every kid in middle school I just wanted to fit in. I dressed the way they did, spoke the way they did, shared the same interest, seemingly becoming further and further from my true race. I did not see “color”, and at first neither did my friends. It influenced me to the point where by high school I was called the “whitest black kid” in school.
Growing up in a small, rural town and coming from an immigrant family played a significant role in me wanting to understand how my environment affected my behavior. In my community, most of my peers were familiar with, or related to, one another, and the cultural values and customs with which I grew up in my immigrant family were discordant from what the majority of my peers experienced. Because of this discrepancy, balancing my familial identity with the social identity that my peers approved of was often a very difficult task. Eventually, I grew to understand myself from the crowd and became resolute about respecting values such as excelling academically and treating others with deference. However, when the majority of my peers were not as
In the history of Israel and the Church, there were many key historical moments that affected the way the Israelites interacted in their faith and the way the Church was shaped. In the early church, Gentiles wanted to become baptized and follow the example of Christ and become Christians. The process for becoming Christians was made more difficult because Jews saw themselves as the original Christians because Christ himself was a Jew. The Jewish people had two essential problems with Gentiles simply getting baptized and joining the faith; the first was that all Jews were circumcised but the Gentiles were not, and the second is that Jews had to adhere to particular dietary restrictions which were not eating animals that they considered unclean
I first became aware that people were different racially at the age of seven years old, when my parents and grandparents would tell us how our ancestors and grandparents were treated by white people before I was born. They taught us about slavery and told us all the things black people would get in trouble for, such as drinking out of the white people water fountain which was not allowed. We would listen to the stories of how my great grandmother went to jail for beating a white police officer for putting his hands on her and calling her bad names. How my great grandmother’s youngest son father is believed to be a white man because of his mix hair texture and white looking skin color.
Operant Conditioning is a way of learning that uses rewards and punishments for certain behaviors. It was first coined by BF Skinner. It is also known as Skinner Conditioning. It creates an association between a consequence and a behavior. Sometimes it is also referred to as response-stimulus conditioning. Operant conditioning is related to classical condition but focuses more on why the behavior is happening & what the drive is behind it to accomplish the task at hand.
The college I have graduated from has changed my way of thinking and imagining the world in ways I didn’t see coming. It would take an apologetics conference in Atlanta, Georgia to realize fully what my college experience had planted in my heart, and it was ugly.
Throughout this fall semester in college, I have had one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. College not only gives me an education, but real world experience as well. It will teach you many things and I know I am not done learning yet. When I first started Montgomery College, I took with the AELP English classes before I started college English now. I felt moderately unprepared taking EN 101A because it is college English. Since English is my second language, I was afraid that I was not going to get through this course. However, thanks to Prof. Vilceus and friends who helped me to get through it. Taking ENG 101 A helped me to achieve many objectives such as to learn the steps of the writing process, to improve my grammar skills and to cite an outside source.
During the weekends when I go home, I am given the pleasure of working in the after-service tutoring programs that happen at my local church. Children of all different ages get help from the Youth Group in a multitude of areas that range from statistics to simple grade-school math or writing. Children are split up based on grade-level (elementary, middle, and high school) and then once again split by the subject they need assistance in. They are then assigned teachers based on which grade levels the volunteers signed up to teach and what subjects they are adept to teach in. Though it is more of a tutoring session than an actual classroom lecture, the basics are the same and it is a great experience for both the students and the tutors. I generally
Everyone was fascinated with her. She always brought traditional Philippine food and shared it with the class. Although a few students conveyed a negative attitude towards her food, she continued to proudly promote her culture and customs. Never once did she ebb away from who she truly was. We were both racially unique, yet everyone acknowledged her for who she was. I suddenly realized that the only reason nobody welcomed me into their cohort was because I distanced myself from my identity rather than share my heritage with the rest of the class. As a result of this, I decided to embrace my diversity and the beauty of my distinctive characteristics. As a South African Indian mixed with European descent, I am proud of my own ethnicity and I have actively influenced others to embody their own differences throughout my school life and into my university