Diversity

The class discussion on Wednesday, October 17th, was very informational. A lot of things were brought about society and the terms that are given to certain nationalities or groups. I found it very helpful to have different points of views coming from different people from different backgrounds and experience. That is something that I feel I never truly got growing up in private school consisting of mainly white Caucasians. We talked about the term ‘Hispanic’ being very vague and covering a lot of ground in terms of different nationalities of people which I believe is true. However, I also believe that there are a lot of other terms given such as ‘Asian’ or even ‘African-American’ that can be very vague. I understand that people come from different places and it is hard to be categorized sometimes with what one feels to be completely different group, but I also understand that every single nationality could not be named upon an application of some sort. This also made me think of being referred to as ‘White’ or ‘Caucasian’. I don’t really have a problem with that at all, but I do think that in a way that allowing and almost provoking people to forget about their heritage and where their ancestors or family came from in the first place. I also found it very interesting to look at the map and see the diversity of different groups culturally. It made me wonder how it got to be like that in the first place. I talked about where I am from, Joliet, IL and how the east side of Joliet is in majority Hispanics and African Americans. On the east side of Joliet, many things consist of this and those cultures. For example: restaurants, clothing, and grocery stores. It is definitely a different feeling when entering the east side because it is not my culture however, it is my town. Something I find very appealing about this however, is that the east side only recently (in my years) became what it is today. When my parents were young, the east side also considered part of Downtown Joliet, is where they hung out, went out, and socialized. Today is makes it very apparent that a new culture is present and it interests me to find out how exactly that began. Overall, I felt this discussion was very educational and helped me to look at everyday topics that I come across and make sense of them, when I never really questioned it before.

We Are What We Eat

I found this article very different from the rest that we have read mostly because it deals with not only the past but the present also. It made me think of a lot of things that I never really realized or thought about before but just took in because it was the “norm.” Reading this helped me to appreciate Columbus maybe more than I already do seeing that he brought over a lot of things such as pigs, cattle, horses, and sheep and opened up a lot of possibilities. It made me think of all the different food that we eat here in America and where they came from and how different cultures are mixed together to create a new cuisine. This reading was educational because it gave a lot of history as to how certain types of foods got to certain locations which shows how and why we eat what we do today and for that reason I am grateful.