Blog Post #1

This past week I really appreciated all the presentations I saw. I feel that it made the class a more comfortable atmosphere to be around in. When people break walls down like that and let people into their personal lives (which isn’t easy) like that it means a lot to me. I usually keep to myself, but it was nice to vent in a way to the whole class because I did feel stressed about the topic of identity. I got to learn a little bit about everyone. I don’t find it personally easy to open up like that, although I may be very talkative, I find it very hard because I am very attached emotionally to what I say. There are things that I brought up in my presentation where I felt I had to hold my composure and not show how much it bothered me sometimes. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person in class that experienced. After all, talking about ourselves can be a pretty “touchy” subject. Especially, to those who aren’t use to opening up. Imagine trying to do that in front of a whole crowd? In the end I’m glad we all got to share a little piece of us with the class. I appreciated it.

The readings. Where do I begin? I found it easier to explain as far as common themes. Many people seem to confuse race and ethnicity. I’ve defined race as biological (appearance and such) , so I have always marked off “white” when asked for my race. When it comes to “ethnicity” I identify as “hispanic” because it has a lot to do with your culture. I identified with the article on “White Privilege” because although I am hispanic, A LOT of people seem to always confuse me with white. It happens almost everyday. I can go places with ease and think that I won’t be followed in a store because of the way I look. In fact, I always get the most shocked look as soon as I speak in Spanish near someone. I usually get asked where I’m from and I always see the most confused expressions on peoples faces.

I’m going to be honest. When I read about how racism has improved, but not really gone away and how it is shown in our K-12 system I identified. When I was in high school our school became charter my senior year. My home school was technically a not so well-off school in a bad area, but through the magnet program I was permitted to a very nice school where the majority was white. The magnet program consisted of about 300 students, and all of us were minorities. When our school became charter they wanted to get rid of the magnet students. I still wonder why, but I have a pretty good idea. We were like a sore thumb to the school I believe. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t allowed to go charter unless they kept the magnet program. We all were very happy, I couldn’t imagine graduating anywhere else after spending several years in the magnet system at good schools. Whether we like it or not, minorities are going to continue to struggle.