Reflective Essay On Race And Ethnicity

If I were to write a memoir highlighting issues of racial identity in my life, I would talk about my experiences living in rural Iowa, my interactions with my family in Chicago after I moved to Iowa, and the pressure I felt to work hard in order to break stereotypes which affected how I viewed myself as a black person.

Racism and discrimination directly and indirectly affect me because I come from a poor, uneducated Muslim family, all of which puts me into the minority category. As a minority upward mobility seems like an impossible dream. My mother was never able to attend school, and my father only studied up to the 10th grade. After moving to the United States in 2006, my parents' relied on my siblings and me to take care of many tasks that required understanding English, which forced my siblings and me to maneuver the adult world on our own. We are obliged to help with tasks such as paying bills, completing legal paperwork, and even taking my parents to the doctor and grocery stores. My family responsibility requires me to be mindful of my parents’ income, how we live, and our health. My father, who works as a cook in a restaurant, earns scarcely enough income to make ends meet. Many times these worries pressure me and I feel it is necessary for me to work and help out my family. If I do choose to take that route, I wouldn’t get my education and therefore would have a low paying job and be back in the same position as my parents and still remain poor. This is how upward mobility becomes impossible for many minority groups like me. Luckily, coming to America gave my siblings and me the opportunity to attend college. I am even more

The conversation about race, for American society, traditionally has been thwarted by its tendency to be divisive, as seen in America’s not too distant history. However, the doors for racial discussion have been opened wide, as a result of the case of Rachel Dolezal. The former Spokane NAACP leader, Rachel Dolezal, sparked outcries from American society due to her misrepresentation of her race. Questions have been raised wither race, like Dolezal has tried, can be socially constructed. Mainstream news publishers have released many articles in trying to provide perspective on this question, which personify concepts about race and ethnicity. Respectively, the articles exemplify racial hierarchy, social construction of race, denials of racism, and racialization.

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

Going into this unit, I was apprehensive because I did not know how comfortable I would be talking about race in a big group of people. I am aware that my skin color affords me privileges that others in the United Stated don’t have, but I was worried about misstepping or saying the wrong thing. The articles we read, “Words to Use” activity, and documentary episodes that we watched helped me understand why race is so hard to talk about and why it is so important for me to learn about other experiences and perspectives when it comes to race. Much of what we think about race is not true. Whether its definitions of race, race “science”, or racial requirements for citizenship, it is kind of arbitrary.

But what truly made me realize I was Chinese --that I was different-- was in first grade, when our school started giving out actual grades on tests. If I got an A+, inevitably one of my friends would say something like, “Well of course you got an A+. You’re Asian. Your parents will go crazy if you make a B.” So I asked my parents if that was true, and they hugged me and told me of course not and that as long as I was happy, grades were no

As a 15 year old girl with countless diverse hobbies, having both Irish and Chinese heritage doesn’t truly affect me: I don’t follow the rigorous studying Chinese philosophy or the natural brilliant writing Irish talent. This is because before I went to school, I did acting and dancing, so I was exposed to a more aesthetic and social side of society. However, being in a competitive school has brought another reasonable value of life. I am thus very exposed to the relativity of perspectives.

To reflect on race and ethnicity, you must know what does it mean. What is Race? What is Ethnicity? According to Parillo, Race is a categorization in which people sharing visible biological characteristics regard themselves or are regarded by others as a single group on that basis. Ethnicity is shared cultural traits and/or national origin (2016). I believe their still some confusing between the two terms. Most people I asked about race and ethnicity, they thought they were the same thing. However, I thought so too until I started this class. Race still a complicated category due to the visible biological characteristics. With the wide ranges of physical appearances, it makes it difficult to determine what category each person should be in. I believe this brings about racism. According to Parillo, racism slowly evolved out of sorting humans into categories based physical appearances (2016). However, ethnicity caused racism within the races due to the different languages and cultural traits. A good example is Rwanda genocide in 1994. This was mass slaughtered trying to wipe out the entire Tutsi ethnic group which killing over 800,000 people. In America, I wonder if the same thing is happening among African Americans. They are being sent to the prison systems due to the systematic racism They are getting longer prison sentences or getting murdered by police officers due to systematic racism.

This essay will be discussing the correlation between ethnicity and educational attainment. Whether your race affects your life chances or if other factors are involved as well. It will be looking at different ethnic minorities and how well they are doing in school.

Racism and discrimination directly and indirectly affect me because I come from a poor, uneducated Muslim family, all of which puts me into the minority category. As a minority, upward mobility seemed like an impossible dream. My mother was never able to attend school, and my father only studied up to the 10th grade. After moving to the United States in 2006, my parents' relied on us to take care of many tasks that required understanding English, which forced my siblings and me to maneuver the adult world on our own. We are obliged to help with tasks such as paying bills, completing legal paperwork, and even taking our parents to the doctor and grocery stores. My family responsibility requires me to be mindful of my parents’ income, how we live, and our health. My father, who works as a cook in a restaurant, earns scarcely enough income to make ends meet. Many times these worries, pressure me and I feel it is necessary for me to work and help out my family. If I do choose to take that route, I wouldn’t get my education and therefore would have a low paying job and be back in the same position as my parents and remain underprivileged.

I am creative, short, determined, competitive, and a dyslexic Hispanic female. Society has shown us that a large part of who we are in the United States focuses on our ethnicity and race. For every important document, we have to fill out a form asking us about our race/ethnicity. We can say that we are one race but we actually all are multiple races. Growing up I knew that I was Hispanic but I really didn’t feel like I was treated differently. I feel like because I had the lighter skin I was not viewed necessarily as a Mexican. There were a few times that I was made fun of for being Hispanic, the largest problem that I faced was people thinking that I spoke Spanish. On My mother’s side, I am 6th generation Coloradan with ties to México and on my father’s side, I am a third generation American with ties to Spain and México. Defining yourself can always be a struggle because not everyone defines you the way that you define yourself.

For the years living in the United States, I was asked all kinds of questions regarding my ethnicity and country of origin. “Does China have radio?”, “… China…How come your English is so good?!”, “…China…It must be very hard to live in your country, right?”. With good intention, they intended to generalize the major traits about an ethnicity and a country, based on limited personal knowledge and experience. For people who never travelled out of the country or even their own state, it might be hard to imagine an average family in China would not only have a radio, but color TV and VCR in 1999; nor to imagine that all students started learning English from 5th Grade all the way through college graduation. Back then, knowledge about China and Chinese was usually disseminated through outdated documentaries or Hollywood Kongfu movies. when people don’t seek to understand, knowledge of ethnicity is mostly myth.

Bananas in nooses, confederate flags hung with cotton, swastikas drawn on classroom walls - all these racist incidents have taken place on American University’s campus within the past year, and I can’t say a thing against them.

As the bus winded down the bumpy path from the Conference on National affairs there was a deep sense of unity amongst each delegate. Every delegate felt apart a family and the strongholds of societal norms had been broken in our eyes. This feeling began to dissolve as a massive wave of sound began to flood the bus.On my phone alone I had 10 news alerts,20 missed calls and over 100 text and this was the same amongst every delegate. The alerts said Dallas under fire by a sniper, Black Lives Matter Protest turns violent,Another innocent Black Man shot by police, Unarmed Black man shot by police. In that moment my fellow delegates and I were left to process a week's worth of racial tension in one split second. Leading us all to come to different conclusions of the story. The daughter of a Dallas Police officer burst into tears not knowing if her Mom was alive. A group of students on the political right called their parents and friends as they discussed ways to back the blue. A group of African American students sit puzzled after seeing the reactions of the people on the bus and the notifications on their phones. They were torn between feeling angry due to the discrimination that their people had experienced for centuries and continued to face now. And they were torn between feeling sympathetic of the fallen officer that risked their lives to protect the protesters that were protesting for the rights of their people.Meanwhile I am torn between these two feelings and dealing

When were you first aware of yourself as a member of a particular racial group? I believe I was first aware when I was eight years old. Moving from Pasadena, California around a diverse group of people to Rancho Cucamonga, California around nothing but white people. Growing up in church and living across the street from a church in Rancho Cucamonga and unable to attend because on Friday nights the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) met there, with their white sheets over their heads. Burning crosses on the neighbor’s lawn until they finally moved out. Also a year before Alex Haley release nationwide the movie Roots 1977 as a mini-series for television and we saw it in 1978 for two weeks straight. What an interesting time in my life.