Census

Our society in the United States of America is comprised of people of multiple races, ethnicities, religions, cultures and beliefs. Each of these components of diversity have been the cause of much unrest and disagreement among people. In the book “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Beverly Tatum addresses the specific issue of race. Tatum examines various facets of the fact that different races are treated differently. Additionally, Tatum peels back the layers of…

One way to distinguish a person from the billions of other people in the world is by looking into their ethnicity. Ethnicity may be simplified as just a person’s origin, but arguments have been made that there is more to the world. Joane Nagel, author of “Constructing Ethnicity”, writes about what makes up the word ethnicity along with its uses in social and political spectrums. According to Diffen.com an ethnic group or ethnicity is a population group whose members identify with each other on…

Mexican American studies in Arizona have been accredited with increasing the graduation rates and improving students test scores on standardized tests in Arizona. The Tucson School District has aimed to ban ethnic studies under the guase that such course breed resentment in the students that took those specific classes against whites as well as hatred and that they also promoted division. Members of the state board view these classes not as educational, but as away to nurture future activist who…

Furthermore, my second year placement was at Jane and Finch Ontario Early Year Centre (OEYC). Before starting my placement, I was worried about the community that my centre was located. I searched, “Jane Finch Mall” in the Google and I found few articles about shooting and murders. I was very hesitant to go there for the first time. However, when I actually got there and met the people at Jane-Finch OEYC, I found out it was a very pleasant place to be at. In fact, these people were one of the…

For years, race has been a subject of controversy between those of different color. We can trace racial discrepancies in America back to the latter half of the 1800s, and still over 200 years later, struggles with race exist in the form of prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. Adam Zyglis’s “Race and America” political cartoon demonstrates the correlation between America’s symbolic Uncle Sam and the issues of strife amongst the diverse cultures, both in appearance and belief, in order to…

America is often advertised as the "Land of the Free" with "equal opportunities." However, when immigrants arrive, things do not end up in their favor. Instead, the justice system rules out the people of color and favors the White privileged and only brings complications and inconveniences to society. The American Dream is not much of a dream as it is a nightmare for many non-Caucasian individuals. Generally, most people start at different starting points in life yet, it is…

Although race is a social construction it has had serious effects on the daily life of individuals. Many individual think that racism is something at a personal level, through individual interactions. However, racism is something which affects minorities at a systemic level. It affects every aspect of society but individuals often don’t see how deeply invaded racism is into the system. One of these systems is the adoption process. The adoption industry is one that has biases because of the…

Family, School, and Environment: How Do They Affect the Student? For this ethnographical project, I observed in a Pre-K classroom at a public, urban elementary school in Birmingham Alabama. I observed in this classroom for a total of twenty-five hours during the months of November and December. During my time, I participated in regular classroom activities, attended lunch and physical education class with the students, and interviewed both the lead teacher and the teaching assistant. The…

In her essay “Feel Good Reel Food: A Taste of the Cultural Kedgeree in Gurinder Chadha’s What’s Cooking?”, Debnita Chakravarti claims that “food is employed as an eloquent indicator for attitudes and constituents of characters, a perfect conveyor of subtexts that often lie too deep for the spoken word” (18). The novel Digging to America by Anne Tyler models this concept by using food to help construct the identities and behaviours of its characters, revealing the complex tensions that exist in…

Progress and Conclusion on my Personal Growth The four diversity related topics I’ll be focusing on are: oppression & power, ethnic identity development, ableism and ageism. With the topic of oppression and power, as well as some the exercises we did, sort of made me realized how rough my bringing up and how easy some of the white students had it, regardless of their situation. It also made apparent who had more privilege than others and who was a bit more wary of the power they held with their…