The Final Blog

In the beginning of the year in our first blog we answered the question, "Who Am I?" 

Now at the end of the year I want to say that my answer to my first blog has changed. Going through Sociology and the service experiences I have done I feel that I have grown as a person. I got new insight on why certain people do certain things and why they act the way that they do. This class has taught me to be open minded and accept people for who they are because we don't know their background so we shouldn't jude them. This class has taught me to accept people for who they are no matter what their skin color is because deep down in the inside we are all the same. 

Overall, I just want to say that Sociology was one of the best classes that I have ever taken. It has taught me to think of questions I would have never fathomed about other people and more importantly about myself. 

Crash

One of my all time favorite movies we watched in Sociology this week was called Crash. What I really liked about this movie, aside from the funny scenes, was that it had a lesson. It touched on explicit and implicit racism. Instead the movie following one character throughout the whole film this movie followed several characters and how they act in society. The movie followed: two white male cops, two married couples (white couple and black couple), a Persian family, a Hispanic family, a black detective and his brother who gets into trouble and his mom addicted to drugs and his female partner and Ludacris who steals cars throughout the movie. 

In the movie you can see how a persons race can affect how they act towards another person. 

Some examples are: 

-In the beginning of the movie when the two white male cops pull over the black married couple because they thought that they were doing something wrong just because of the color of their skin.

-When the Persian dad walks into his store and sees that it has been trashed he automatically assumes it was the Hispanic guy who came in the day before to fix his lock. He assumes the worse that the Hispanic guy gave the key away to one of his "homies" so they could go back and trash his store. 

-When the white male cop picked up the detective's brother, who is friends with Ludacris in the movie and they both go around stealing cars, and they are having a conversation and the cop was shocked to hear that he liked playing hockey. The cop only picked him up because he was trying not to judge him by his race but deep down he still had his doubts because of the way he was dressed and how torn his clothes were so when he started reaching for his pocket the cop thought he might be pulling out a gun and immediately shot him. Implicitly the cop was judging him based on his race and because of it he killed an innocent man. 

-The black married couple having an argument over who is blacker

-Ludacris at the end of the movie releasing the chinamen chained in the back of the van instead of selling them 

-the white male cop calling a black lady about his father's troubles and when the cop got upset he started saying how upset he was that there were probably three other white men before her that could have done her job better

All these examples just show how implicit and explicit racism existed throughout the movie. Society makes us have judgments about people based on their skin color, which makes us think if they are good or bad based on those judgments. 

Post 15: Race as a social construction

RACE DOES NOT EXIST!

Throughout this week in sociology we have been emphasizing how race does not exist but is biological. We like to categorize people by the color of their skin and say that this is there race. You can't just look at the color of a person's skin and automatically assume you know what they are even though that is what we all do. When you see a dark skinned person you can't just assume they are African American same thing with a light skinned person you cannot just say they are white.
This is constantly happening to me. When people first meet me they automatically think I am Mexican just because I have brown skin or because my face looks Mexican. Some people also think I look Indian because I am brown but once I say no to both guesses they safely assume I am Filipino, well only the ones who actually know how Filipinos "look".

One new thing I learned in class this week is how different people depending on where they live get more vitamin D than others this also explains why people are light skinned and why others are dark skinned. The closer you are to the equator the more melanin you have in your body which is a pigment making it user for the body to absorb vitamin D. Using me as an example I was born and raised in the Philippines which if you look in the picture below is very close to the equator. In the picture you can see how the further from the equator you are the less likely you are to absorb melanin in your body which means you are generally light skinned and vice versa if you are closer to the equator. This all shows how race truly does not exist and it is all just biological.

Post 14: New vs. Old Money & Monopoly

One way that we were shown how this is represented in real life is by playing a game of Monopoly. Each player represented a social class: upper class, middle class, and the working class. The person who represented the upper class had the most money and the person that represented the working class had the least amount of money. In reality the upper class the person with the most amount of money was probably new money because they didn't earn any of it they just had the money because their family probably has the money so the money was just passed down to them while the working class has to work for their money.

Throughout the game you just saw the person who represented the upper class had the most amount of money and just kept getting more the people who represented the lower class just kept losing their money. According to the rules of the U.S. structure of how social class and money works shows the wealthy just always stay wealthy while the lower class or the poor always stay poor. Though, some do move up to the middle class they still will never be with the upper class.

Community Service 5/10

I volunteered at the same soup kitchen as last time, A Just Harvest, and I think the second time around was even better. There were two others with me from the last group who volunteered again and it felt great knowing familiar faces. Once we arrived at the soup kitchen again it was the same task meet three new people and get to know them. This time I wasn't shy. I was able to approach several people and have conversations with them. One lady I talked to had a whole stack of papers of drawings that she drew herself. She was very funny and even gave me some of her drawings. They were incredible. The second time around the lady that was in charge of the whole thing told us three that attended the soup kitchen last time to inform everyone of what to expect and just help them out if they needed.
I was surprised to see so many familiar places in the soup kitchen, I thought I wouldn't remember any of them but I did.

This time instead of putting the food on the plate I was in charge of the dessert plate. So everyone's meal came with a meal and a dessert plate. For dessert some had brownies, cookies, scones, and each sweet dessert came with a fruit.

At the end of the day only a few of them actually came up and said thank you to us after their meal and it felt really nice to be acknowledge for what you did, especially something you volunteered for. Many of them were thankful and said how nice it was for us to take time out and come down here and help out.

One thing that I thought was funny is how a lot of the people asked us where we were from and once we told them they always wanted to know how many miles away it was. I thought it was just really interesting how most have probably never been away from Chicago so once we told them Lincolnshire or Buffalo Grove most didn't know where that was but once we told them about 30 miles they had some idea where it was.

Overall, the second time around in the soup kitchen was really beneficial and I enjoyed spending my time and volunteering there.

Community Service 4/26

For my community service I went to a soup kitchen in Chicago called A Just Harvest. We left at about 2:30 and arrived there at 3:45. We were really early so we stopped somewhere to get food first since the soup kitchen doesn't open until 4:30. I had never been to a soup kitchen before so I did not know what to expect. My thoughts were that everyone was just homeless so they had to get food at a soup kitchen. I was a bit nervous at first because you would think that we were in a bad neighborhood in Chicago and you didn't really know what to expect. But when we arrived there and the main coordinator talked to us about the people coming in I felt safer. She told us that not everyone that comes to a soup kitchen is homeless most of them use all their money from their jobs to pay for their bills and so they had no money left to buy food so they have to come to a soup kitchen to eat.
I was excited and nervous to start. Our first task was to walk up to three different people get their names and engage in conversation with them. None of us knew what to do. We all looked at each other dumbfounded because I sensed all of us felt uncomfortable to do so, but in the end we all pulled through. It was a shock to see how nice everyone was and how happy they were talking to us (and we mainly let them do the talking because we saw how happy it made them).
My job for was putting the food on the plate, well the first part of it. I put the rice and the main course on the plate then passed it down where someone else put the vegetables on the plate. This was also accompanied with a desert place. One perception we all had was that the food might not taste that good but once we saw we were all surprised. The food looked really good and smelled fantastic as well.

Overall, I walked away with a great experience and am really happy that I decided to volunteer at this soup kitchen. Everyone who volunteers there regularly were just really great people around and made everything more comfortable and helped us all feel like we belonged there and didn't treat us any different.

Social Class

This week in Sociology we talked about social class. We played a game and watched a movie on different social classes and how others perceived them.

The game we played was s metaphor to show how people that have more money have more opportunities. At first it seemed to be fair since we all had the same amount of coins to start with but then as we kept playing only a few were left with a lot of coins and almost everyone was left at the bottom with nothing. You can see this more with a graph showing a big gap in the middle because you are either at the top and very wealthy or you are at the bottom with little or no money.

The movie we watched showed how people in different classes do not like to interact with each other. Each class felt that the other was always looking down on them. Everyone feels that they do not understand the other class. But really what separates our classes? Is it money? Where we live? I think it just what we are given and what we decided to do with it that really separates us from one another.

LGBTQ

Our class had the honor of having four of our classmates talk about what its like to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. We heard each of their stories and how sad and hard reality really is for them. All of them talked about how at first they didn't want to admit that they felt different, that they weren't fitting in with everyone else and what they liked. They talked about how their parents at first couldn't accept the fact that their kid was gay but then later on they started getting used to it. What really shocked me was how one of them said that their relationship with one of their parents would never be the same again and how that parent can't even manage to look at their kid the same again. I don't understand how a parent could not accept the fact that their kid is different. That doesn't make them any less human just because they are gay or lesbian. Why are we judging people just because of the sex they like or if they want to change their body to make themselves happy. Our society can't accept the fact that some people are different because our society wants everyone to fall in the category of either being male and liking females or vice versa.

This truly was a wake up call that we all needed to see that kids that we go to school with were brave enough to come out and tell us their stories (while you could see how hard it was for them) and just wanting to be accepted by everyone. So we just need to put all social norms aside and accept everyone for what they want to be if it is what makes them happy.

What does it mean to be masculine?

After a week of talking about femininity, we spent a great deal this week talking about masculinity.

Society has grown up shaped to think of males a certain way. We have this mold that we like to put all males in thinking that they are all tough, dominant, not able to show emotion, and to be respected. Guys are supposed to be tough because while growing up they are exposed to violent video games and movies. They are to play with action figures rather than dolls (even though they are mainly the same thing). Today in society when we see a guy taking on the role that a woman is supposed to do, we find it strange. Seeing guys cooking or cleaning shouldn't be that strange. My dad cooks and cleans but that doesn't make him less of man but society might say that it does because those are the things he shouldn't be doing. 

Here is a picture that was shown in a video that we saw in class. This picture depicts a woman being submissive basically while a guy looks like he is trying to rape here with other guys in the back just watching. It is showing that guys have to be strong and dominant while females stay behind or submissive. 

Gender

This week in sociology we have been talking about gender and what people would associate females and males with. We watched two videos one for females and one for males.
For females we were generally categorized as being:
-feeble
-sweet
-stay at home to cook and clean
-we shouldn't be smart
-and every time you see an ad or commercial for a female it's always shown as being defensive or in the background

For males:
-tough
-action figures (not dolls)
-aggressive
-cant be emotional
-not supposed to cry
-cant be feminine
-can never admit defeat

Just comparing the two it's showing how the media and our surroundings an influence how we want to view ourselves. For guys they have to always be tough so they won't get called a "wimp" or a "faggot" so our guys won't question their manhood. For girls it's shown that we try to change our appearance and how we act to try and copy the models on magazines or actresses whose bodies aren't even the real things shown.

I say everyone just needs to learn and love who they truly are and accept it and not let anyone discourage you or make you question who you are as a person.

Nature vs. Nurture

After watching a couple videos of feral children it made me think about how lucky we really have it. We might complain that we don't have the nicest things or we want things other people have we should just be thankful that we have anything at all.
One of the videos we saw a girl was locked in a room until she was about 8 years old. She was in a high chair for most of her life so she became nearsighted only seeing as far as the room would go. The girl was unable to chew or so any simple basic tasks that comes natural to us. She wasn't able to walk properly or communicate with people; she was also afraid to make any sounds because she was beaten previously for making noises.
This is just one example to show how nurture is very important to a child and creating that bond with the parents. They need someone to take care of them and really make them feel that they are wanted.

American Values

Being born in a different country made a it a little bit easier for me to see American values. From the reading we had in class you could see that Americans valued working hard, change meant a positive thing, time is important, everyone is equal, every one is unique, self-preservation, etc. Most of these things you see are are positive. Americans don't like to dwell on the past or the present but rather always look to the future and believe everything will be better if it isn't already.

One quality that I find different from the Philippines (where I was born) is time. For Americans time is very important and it is considered rude if you are late but in the Philippines it is normal for people to be late. Say a family is throwing a party that starts at 7 the general rule for Filipinos is to arrive an hour or more later, it is considered "Filipino Time".

This is just one difference in values that I have noticed growing up in a different country.

The Lost Boys

In class this week we watched a movie called Lost Boys. They were a group of refugees from Sudan and they were forced to leave because of the war. Too many of them were getting killed right in the open. Once they moved to the US they could see how different it is from Sudan and their camp in Kakuma. After a while they started seeing how things work in the US. One thing they noticed is that people tend to walk by themselves. People don't walk up to each other and ask what's wrong even if people are crying. The main lesson they remember is that culture is everything. They have to remember that in a new country and being in new cultures they have too maintain their own culture. One thing they maintain is how they eat. They are not ashamed to use their hands when eating anything. The Lost Boys made sure to get the word out about the war in Sudan so they would make a walk to get people informed.

One thing I have learned from this movie is that you should always be thankful for the little things you have. When I looked at all the things they had you could see they really had nothing. They didn't even have shoes or nice clothes and that just made me realize that even if we have "little" things and to them that would seem like so much. One thing I also noticed is that the older generations didn't care about changing their appearance or their values while the younger generations change their looks and how they acted and completely forgot about their culture. In the end you can see that they still worked to support themselves in the US and to support their family in Sudan to try to get them out of there.

Five Tricks

We started off our new unit this week by playing a card game. Each table had their own set of rules but we didn't know until we switched tables. At the beginning we got a sheet of paper that explained the rules and each table practiced for a couple of rounds until we got the hang of it. Then for the rest of the game we had to play silent but we were allowed to make hand gestures and bang the table if needed. From each table we there would be one winner. The winner moved counter clockwise and the loser moved clockwise. I was the winner of my group and when I moved to the new table I was really confused with their new rules because in my table a diamond would trump over anything and the new table I moved to the clubs would trump over everything.

The lesson from this card game is that each table was it's own culture and when you move to a new table you had to learn and respect their own culture. We also learned three new terms. Culture Shock was when we moved to a new table and found out about their own "culture" that was different from ours was a shock. Ethnocentrism is thinking that your culture should be the center. So when you moved to the new table and didn't understand their rules you think that your rules from your "culture" should be the ones they should follow. Cultural Relativity is when you are relating your culture to that of the new one and how our culture makes us act a certain way socially.

He had five fingers, but only used three..

This week in class we watched a very good movie called "Bronx Tale". One thing that kept reoccurring to me during the movie was that it was a true story and was hard to believe at times. The racism throughout the movie was harsh to look at sometimes. The way Calogero (one of the main characters of the movie) or "C" and his friends treated the African American characters in the movie. Although C never minded them because they never bothered him his friends could not stand the sight of them even though messing with them gets them killed in the end.

I believe Calogero belongs to many groups: family, friends, Sonny's crew, school, people in the bar. Calogero's master status in the movie is being able to keep his friends in tact and being able to keep the peace between his family (mainly his dad) and Sonny. I do think that Calogero's master status has changed throughout the movie starting off as a child who only had to be a kid and have fun with his friends and now that he has grown up he has an even bigger role. Now Calogero can understand certain things Sonny does and can differentiate between what is right and wrong. The time this movie was set in everyone knew each other. Everyone knew each others name. The good parts of the neighborhood and the bad. Everyone knew who not to mess with, especially with Sonny. Everyone in the neighborhood is allowed to think and act the way they want. There weren't really any rules. People would get shot right in the middle of the street and people would just stop, stare, then go about their day. Calogero had many troubles in the movie especially when it came to Sonny. C's dad never wanted him to hang out with Sonny or hang out in the bar. But C of course went behind his father's back and still hung out with Sonny and his crew in the bar. This all connects because Calogero, depending on his trouble, would either get advice from Sonny or his father. I think Calogero having two different father figures in his life, and coming from two different ends of the spectrum,  has helped him realized that he should always follow his heart in the end. I think in the end a major achievement for Calogero was getting the African American girl and seeing his father pay his respects at Sonny's funeral. Calogero getting the girl in the end shows how Sonny was right in telling him to go for her even though C's own father said no. When Calogero's father pays his respects for Sonny shows how the two never truly disliked each other, Calogero's father just didn't like the fact that Sonny made him grow up so fast and how C spent so much time with Sonny in the end.

"Sonny and my father always said that when I got older, I would understand. Well, I finally did. I learned something from these two men; I learned to give love and get love unconditionally; you just have to accept people for what they are. And I learned the greatest gift of all; the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever."

In-group vs. Out-group

In the past week of Sociology we talked about what it meant to be a part of an "In" group and what it meant to be a part of an "Out" group. When we walked into class we (the students) were separated into two groups. One wearing blue jeans and the other group was for non-blue jeans. I was part of the group not wearing blue jeans and my group had to make reasons as to why we are not wearing blue jeans. All the reasons we came up with were all jokes and not meant to be taken seriously but the point of the activity was to see how easy it is to judge people who are not part of your "group".

The fact that this was going on in the past until today is shocking. It doesn't just have to do with jeans it could be the color our skin or certain people we hang out with that we get identified with. If you look throughout your whole day you can see that you interact with many different groups. The people on the outside the "Out-group" may judge us based on the different groups we go through daily. I know everyone says I don't like to judge people but we all do it because that is the society we live in. The issue we need to focus on is realizing how we can break away from this and differentiate ourselves and try not to categorize or stereotype people.

Social Construction of Reality

This week in class we learned about the social construction of reality. We did a demo in class by having someone put their saliva on a spoon. Most if not all of us thought it was gross because we have that reality that once saliva leaves our body it is nasty but if you we're in another setting like a baseball game spitting there is not frowned upon. We also watched an episode of Freaks and Geeks and looking at different groups and their functions. In the episode if you look at one person and follow them throughout the episode you can see how they go from group to group. For example, Lindsay, one of the main characters, goes from hanging out with the burnouts or the freaks, then goes with the geeks, then her family, and in large the school. In the pilot episode we see Lindsay really trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs. We get a glimpse that she is a really smart person because they make references to her being a math lets and getting A's in her classes. We see with all these different examples of how our own experiences are shaping certain decision we do and the way we look at things. We have been taught that if you dress a certain way you belong to this group and that everyone in that group acts a certain way or are all the same. But we need to look throughout our whole day with all the different people we interact with and see how they shape us.

This week..

This week in Sociology we talked about the difference with sociological mindfulness and sociological imagination. The difference between the two is that sociological mindfulness is to be open minded and to see and appreciate the unique qualities in certain things and sociological imagination is being able to take our own situations and seeing the relationship it has with society. We watched many videos in class that showed us how one voice can make such a huge difference. One video we watched was how a woman got president Obama "Fired Up and Ready to Go" by saying it over and over again until he finally said it. I believe this relates to what we learned in class because President Obama had to see things from those other 20 people's perspective. At first when he walked into the room he wasn't expecting to see only 20 people and then later he couldn't quite figure out why they all kept chanting, "fired up, ready to go." Obama had to be mindful of those other people and see how he had an affect on them (the society) and by using it in his campaign it made the people stronger and started appreciating the unique qualities of how one voice started this wave. 

It takes unique person to be mindful of others. Growing up in this society we were already taught to think certain things by seeing a person's color or what ethnicity they were. I definitely keep an open mind and like to see things from other people's perspective. I have judged people before then got to know them and was completely wrong about what I thought about them. Another way of how I think I exercise sociological mindfulness and sociological imagination in my life is being born in another country. I was born in a third world country (Philippines) and it is completely different than here in the States. Growing up with a very large family who were always together and didn't care much for have the highest of things has made me look at things differently. My parents have made me not take things for granted and to look at things from other people's perspective. I have learned that you should not judge people until you know their background story because it can explain why people act a certain way. I have a friend who went through a very traumatic experience at his old school and because of it he had to transfer to a new school and he has never been the same ever since. Now he has learned from this experience and knows not to hold on to that one moment.

                                                   

Who Am I?

First of, I don't think anyone truly understand who they are yet. We all go through a journey that makes us go through experiences we never thought we would be in but this makes us do certain actions that makes us the person we are. Even to this day I truly do not understand the person I am. I think I have a pretty good basis but we truly will never know.
Until then here are somethings about me..


10 Facts About Me

1. I'm Filipino
2. I was born in the Philippines
3. I LOVE music 
4. I have only broken one bone (my ring finger) in my whole life
5. I'm going to SDSU (San Diego State) for college this fall
6. I plan on majoring in Nursing
7. I am a middle child
8. I am very open minded and will try new things
9. I really want to go to Europe (especially London) sometime 
10. My favorite color is red 

:)