Social Location Analysis

There are many factors that have contributed to my social location. The main ones that come to mind are my social class, my racial background, and my education. All around us are people who come from different areas of the world, or same areas of the world with very different demographics.

People migrate in search of better economic prospects and opportunities. Many move to enjoy a better lifestyle and improve standard of living. A segment migrates from the home country to find a secure place where they can spend lives peacefully. Recently, the increasing pace of globalization has prompted migrant workers to move from one country to another.

The reason why there were so many Mexican was because after the Mexican-American War, when the United States (US) took two-thirds of Mexican land, part of this land became California. Many Mexicans who lived in that land were still allowed to stay, but they were stripped of their property.3 Thus, most Mexican Americans became poor. One of the few jobs that would allow Mexicans to work in were in cannery farms. These jobs, however, did not pay enough for the Mexicans to afford their living expenses.4 Many Mexican families needed to live with other families in small houses to keep up with the rent.5 Since these Mexican families were living in such poor conditions, they felt they needed to negotiate with the companies and get better wages. There is also the possibility that the effects of American culture on Mexican women swayed them to unionize. Women were becoming more independent, and teenage girls, including Mexicans, wanted to be able to go on dates without chaperones. These teenagers needed to argue with their parents or get around them to succeed in doing this.6 It is possible that these rebellious attitudes toward their parents would create that mindset needed to “rebel” against companies by forming

This movie is a great example of social groups, leadership, culture, norms, society, nature and nurture, and social lives. This movie represents how the American culture chooses our social class in society. Some sociologists believed that lifestyle choices are an important influence on our social class position (Giddens, 209). Our class position is the way we dress, where we eat, where we sleep, and how we relax (Giddens,

Social location, or the status in life that people have because of their place in a society, have a huge impact on everyone. The impact that social location created could be neutral, but most of the time it will have a positive or negative impact on people. For example, an African American could be discriminated because of his ethnicity, or a patient will choose an older doctor when he needs a treatment. Different social location that we have will affect our decisions in everyday life, and most of the time it happened subconsciously, which means we don’t realize that the decisions we make are based on our social location. Like everyone else, I was affected by my own social location, both positively and negatively.

The Mexican Migrant Farm Workers’ community formed in Southern California in the 20th century because of two factors that came together: farming emphasized by migrations like the Okie farmers from the East and Mexicans “imported” to the U.S. because of the need for cheap labor as a replacement of Americans during World War II. The migrant labor group formed after an already similar group in the U.S had been established in California, the American farm workers from the East, known as the Okies. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s caused the movement of the Okies to the West and was followed by the transition from American dominant farm labor to Mexican migrant labor. The Okies reinforced farming in California through the skills they took with them,

Additionally, my parent’s substantial economic and social capital was a great asset in my career path of finding a better education outside of my community. Professor Abrego explains that one’s social location shapes an individual’s identity and how one experiences how the world treats them (Abrego, Lecture 01/06/16). In my case, there were not as many resources that my social location offered, for this reason, my mother was determined to find another high school for me to attend, away from South Central. To emphasize, my local high school carried a bad reputation of teen pregnancy, gang violence, and lacked many resources, therefore, due to my mother’s strong social capital she managed to obtain a fake address in order for me to attend a better

“They are the migrants, workers of the soil sweatshops.” Migrant farm working is the hardest work someone could have to do to get paid below minimum wage.The treatment of migrant farmworkers is not fair, the women are abused, the men are not well respected, and the children do not have a proper childhood. Compared to the average American worker, migrant farmworkers do much more physical work for less pay, when compared to above average american workers, people that sit at a desk can make billions of dollars for doing nothing at all.

Migrant workers are the reason our families to have the fruits and vegetables they need year-round. I have read the article on Cesar Chavez’s, a man who was born into a family of migrant workers, and watched a video about migrant workers. The video and article are similar, but also different in the following ways.

Helena Maria Viramontes explores the cultural barriers and poor working conditions that Mexican migrant farm workers experience. The novel gives the reader a vivid look into the rural San Joaquin Valley through the eyes of Estrella in a further depiction of the lives and conditions of her family and migrant workers around her. Viramontes examines the daily struggle of migrant workers who have no other choice but to live in the labor camps under oppressive and sometimes life threatening conditions just to be afforded basic sustenance. It is seen where on more than one occasion the main character, Estrella, must confront the reality that many living things are suffering around her due to indigence, paired with other sources of distress that are ubiquitous in the impoverished environment.

According to Gonzalez (2015), “between 1 and 3 million migrant farm workers leave their homes every year to plant, cultivate, harvest, and pack fruits, vegetables and nuts in the U.S.”. In the video How a Grape Picker Became a Vineyard Owner (n.d.), we saw how a Hispanic/Latino family both reinforces and dismisses the stereotypes of migrant Latino farm workers.

It is typical of me to preface my reflective assignments with my social location so you, the reader, may better understand my perspective before I begin with the details of the assignment. I do not plan to reflect on aspects of my social location until I analyze my values, deriving from aspects of my upbringing. I was born, and raised, in Saskatoon Saskatchewan Treaty Six, in the early era of 1990’s. In my infancy there were Residential Schools still active and the Sixties Scoop was still in effect (Niessen, 2017, p. 42). I am from a Ukrainian ancestry, my status was middle-class, and I was from a nuclear family with very loving and supportive parents.

There are two segments from the film that I found particularly relevant to the concept of ethnocentrism. In the first segment (S1), when Xi saw Kate Thompson in the bush and he thought she was the ugliest god he’d ever come across from Kalahari Desert, because her skin was white, and she was covering her body with skins that looked like it was made of cobweb. The second segment (S2) is when Xi got arrested for shooting a goat. In fact, Xi didn’t know he did something wrong and was getting in trouble, he shot the goat because he was hungry and he observed the goat as food which he would like to share, but the people who arrested him thought he was stealing the goat.

In a typical card game, one would be sitting around a table with multiple individuals, looking around the room everyone is on edge, the senses have heightened, and each person hoping to become victorious. However, during a typical visitation, guests and friends remain light-hearted, sharing stories, laughter, and a meal. A look into the intricate processes that a typical card game and social gathering demand from the brain is certainly the most intriguing part of the night.

One of the major ICC themes in the movie is the conflict between individualism and collectivism. Although not explicitly expressed, it has a strong impact on the whole course of the movie. The 4 immigrant Chinese mothers, having spent their childhood in Mainland China, embodied a strong collectivistic value. This is a dominant value in Asian culture, especially that of China. In such society, the priority of a group far exceeds that of an individual,