Blog #4

In the previous class meeting we had a “court case” of both the pros and cons of affirmative action. I really enjoyed this debate because both sides presented arguable statements to defend their position.  Even though from the beginning I was confused with affirmative action from the beginning, paying attention to the arguments of both sides gave me a more clear understanding of what it meant.  I think it would have been a little bit easier for me to be against affirmative action because I can relate to it more. But it was a good learning experience because we have to look at both sides of an argument not just the one that we can relate to the most.

In regards to the articles, a noticeable difference that I noticed right off the bat was that Hurtado’s article mostly talk about statistics whereas the Torres article talk a little more about what it means to be a Latino/a. I liked reading the second article more because I could relate to it on a more personal level. I too come from a culture where I believe that education is not a priority in our culture. But like the Torres article stated, we should let go of the myth that education is not important in our culture. We only see it that way because our parents are not educated and we obviously don’t ask them to help us with our homework because they don’t read or understand english fluently. I think that is the main reason why the Latino culture believes that education is not important to us, because our parents are too busy working to keep a roof over our heads that they don’t have time to help us with our homework. And even if they did have time, most of our parents don’t speak and write english fluently. A similarity between the articles was that they both are trying to define what it means to be a Latino or a Hispanic. I believe that these are just terms that the US census created and therefore we should identify with one regardless if we don’t like those terms.

From the Chang article I was surprised to see that I too tend to stereotype the Asian-Americans of being just interested in pursuing careers in mathematics and sciences. They are also interested in business and other fields. Now I wonder what made me made this assumption? I think that these stereotype is being portrayed on television and that is why a lot of us are being brainwashed to believe and connect only one characteristic to a certain race group. When in reality all races and cultures and compromised of a lot of different characteristics, morals and values. That is why we should all try to be more educated and help diversify our school campuses and neighborhoods.