March 6, 2015

This week's class was a very productive one for my group members and I.  We established our ground works and assigned each other a task.  Since our group is rather large compared to others in the class, we divided our presentation into different components.  Two of my group members will focus on an episode of "Finding Your Roots" and discussing it.  Two other groups members will be creating a skit demonstrating how people may "pre-judge" others before even speaking to them. We will have the class volunteer to act out some of the scenarios.  They will also be creating scenarios for the skit on micro-aggressions we hear all of the time.  I think that the skit is a great way to make the class become involved.  I think that they will have fun with it.  It would also provide an opportunity for those who have not experienced any type of race-bias on themselves to be able to envision how it must feel. They would be able to pretend they are in the situation.  I feel that sometimes, we need to step outside of our own ways of thinking and put ourselves in other people's shoes to be able to fully grasp how they feel.  There have been instances in my life where I needed to step outside of my way of thinking and sympathize with the other person. I feel that, that is so important in friendships, intimate relationships, or any other types of friendships. The last two members of the group would be Kim and I.  We will be creating a video using people outside of our classroom to share micro-aggressions they may have heard about themselves regarding their race and identity.  We will also be taking a closer look at both views on micro-aggressions and how people feel about it.  There are positive and negative comments.  We will be focusing on both.  I am excited to share what we have with the class.  I am nervous about presenting for that long period of time but I think that it would still be a great experience.  I am also eager to hear my fellow classmates' presentations.  I think that our class' discussion are so enriching. I leave every class with more than what I came in with.  To me that means something.

March 1, 2015

I think that conversations about race are important considering how diverse the world that we live in is.  There are so many different people from different cultures who speak different languages.  We need to be aware of that and learn to be respectful of our differences. I also think it is important to talk to children about race.  I do think that we are not born racist.  There are things that we are guilty of hearing about other cultures.   I will admit it myself.  I have heard micro-aggressions about other cultures that are outside of mine and even within mine.  What helped me not discriminate against others was my family and school.  My family is blended with so many different races.  We have close to 10 races in my family.  I love it! We learn so many different things from them.  We are able to incorporate a little of each race into our family.  I think it is a blessing.   That is why I think it is important to talk about race and how to respect another person when discussing it.  I never want to offend anyone just like I wouldn't want them to offend me.

February 28, 2015

As far as our class projects becoming a source for the outside world, that is difficult to come up with the "best" way to do so.  I think that social media would probably be a good outlet.  We can share among our friends the link of the classroom.  Besides that I am not sure.  I don't really know how we can get our ideas out there other than sharing with the people we know.  Although the challenge of that, I don't think it is a horrible idea.  We each know more than a handful of people. If we each share with others our ideas, the word could travel. 

02/23/15

I am in the Race, Ethnicity and Identity group and I am happy with my placement.  I feel like I fit into more than the other groups.  I was interested in finding out how people view themselves in terms of their identity. Our group will be starting out with depicting an episode of "Finding Your Roots". We will create a conversation around the show. As for my role in the group, I am not sure yet.  Our group is working collaboratively where we are all working on one product rather than each of us creating some separate project. We are each working together to contribute ideas and any thoughts we may feel are important or relevant to our final project.

My group will also interview people and ask them specific questions pertaining to our project.  We don't have the questions down pact as of yet but there will be a series of questions.  I was thinking that recording these interviews and displaying them to the class would be good for a visual aspect.  I think that a paper and pen interview would be kind of boring.  I think that we will have all of this figured out by next class.

As I was reading my fellow classmates' blogs I came across one that was talking about creating a video interviewing others on who they think I am. This project would be conducted to see how people stereotype, or prejudge others just by the way they look. I really like the idea of this video interview.  I would like to dig deeper and ask them how they view themselves and have them discuss some of the stereotypes they have come across due to their cultural background.  This is just an idea.  I am not sure how I would do this yet but I liked the idea of using others outside of our classroom to influence our discussions. As for materials, a video camera would be needed, interview questions, and some sort of finished video product to present as a project.

February 9, 2015

In this course, I would most like to explore a sense of who I am in terms of my race and ethnicity.  
 Coming from a different country already makes me feel different but coming here at such an early 
 age I am so "Americanized".  I would also like to learn about dealing with different ethnic backgrounds in the classroom.  I am a bilingual major and I know that I will deal with many different cultures all at once. I want to learn how to treat everyone equally and make sure that my students feel respected and know that their ethnicity is important.  As far as a group project, I think that I would like to work with ethnicity as a relation to who I am or how people identify themselves.