The Nation

go to fulfill their wildest dreams. The only requirement to be successful in is this great land of opportunity is to have a go-getter attitude and to have the ability to take risks without fearing the possible repercussions. In the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, the author Eric Schlosser provides a chilling wake-up call through his forceful yet persuasive assault on America's fast food culture by unveiling the negative side effects of globalization and the…

Being an immigrant is not easy. Growing up in a foreign place where one does not speak the language and is completely unfamiliar to the culture can definitely put oneself in isolation. Identity has been one major issue for most minorities and immigrants. Should they maintain their culture or should they conform? This is why community is crucial for them as it is the closest thing they have to their homeland, especially for the immigrant youths who are in a constant battle in adapting to the…

After I completed the “Sorting People” activity on the PBS: Race as an Illusion website, I was told that I had correctly paired 6 out of 20 people’s faces with their corresponding U.S. racial classification. These results were not entirely surprising. I often find myself categorizing others, whether it be by gender, ethnicity, race or age, but I recognize that I am usually wrong in these assumptions. I’m horrible at guessing someone’s age and, more often than not, I’m wrong when it comes to…

There are a number of outlined strategies that can be used to reduce racism. One thing that needs to be realized is that every single person looks at racism in a different way. The only way to get these points across is to have ever individual on the same page with what racism really means. Strategies should address both official and single sources of prejudice and discrimination in the settings and circumstances in which the applicants in the program or activity learn, work, and live. This…

When biologists look to determine whether two organisms are of the same species, one of the things they often look for is whether or not these these organisms can mate and produce fertile offspring. If they can, then they are considered to be of the same species. Humans are no different; however, when it comes to the actual act of sex, so much more goes into it than the simple ability to produce offspring. Sex involves an attraction, a connection, a spark, and, as Diaz and Alexie point out, it…

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake depicts the development of a man named Nikhil Ganguli, commonly referred to as Gogol. Written in 2003, The Namesake illustrates the toils and internal journey many children of immigrants face in contemporary times. Seeing as they experience a clash between their ethnic culture and American culture, first generation children must seek a balance between the two in order to understand their identity, which is evident in Gogol’s experience. Through three phases of…

The identities I think about the most would be my race, ethnicity, national origin and socio-economic class. The 1st two I have thought about more and more in the last few countries especially in light of the publication of more and more African-Americans. As I see the media every day I feel like I am always reminded of it and how I have to always make sure that I act in a way that others cannot use to discredit my race or try to undermine my achievements to “oh you only got that…

In the beginning, there was only Adam and Eve, one people and one identity. At the eleventh generation came Noah’s and that was when we saw the first signs of different people groups. The people all spoke one language on the earth and when they tried to build a tower to reach God, God humbled them by confusing their language so that they did not understand each other and was forced to abandon the project. People dispersed over the face of the earth and hence we saw the separation of people, the…

Song of Myself “Song of Myself”, which is famous for “representing the core of Whitmans poetic vision” (Greenspan) was written in 1881 by Walt Whitman. This poem is baffling to many people because of both the symbolism and wordplay. Walt Whitman begins by introducing the subject in the poem, which is himself and he goes on by celebrating this theme. Whitman utilizes words such “I”, “myself” and his inner soul to generate a feel of being and depiction in specific sects of the poem. Whilst it…

Culturally distinct groups resisted being added to a state and tried to break away. Greeks broke free from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire ruled by the Turks controlled many ethnic groups such as Greeks, Arabs, Bulgarians, Armenians and Slavs. These different ethnic groups were underrepresented, where deprived from basic civil rights, and were oppressed. During the late eighteenth century, the French and the British pressured the Ottomans to grant equal rights to all people regardless of…