Immigration

From the years that I have lived in the U.S. and growing up with the struggles to be an immigrant is tough because not many people who live in the U.S. would understand our obstacles that we have to go through every day. Being known as a person of color, limited many of our privileges to living here. For example, the language and written barrier created a gap between my ethnicity to communicating with others and to not be able to speak or read in English would decrease our chances in living a normal life. I would define normal as not having to worry about how to buy food because of food labels that is not written in our own language or even the thought of not understanding someone when they speak to you who is different from your ethnicity when you need help with resources in the U.S. I believe this plays a major role in my society because many older folks would have a hard life trying to adjust to an environment and feel worthless. Feeling worthless can greatly and easily impact someone's life by making them feel discouraged to find food/shelter for themselves and/or families.
In addition, being viewed as an immigrant from others can be objectified at times if they label you as dirty or a person who they believe will pass a nasty disease to them. However, like many of my friends and family has discussed about, being an immigrant also has many advantages such as resources of medicine by using plants. Not only that but also the knowledge an individual can pass on to others that are different from them. Moreover, genetic variation from different ethnicity's can create beautiful and /or healthy babies.

Learning throughout the Course

I believe throughout this course, learning about Sociology has truly changed my perception of how people communicate with others. Although it is a bit hard to choose only one issue/concept or idea, I believe Demographic Dynamics was one of the main concept that really drew my attention. It focused on the age factor and how it plays such a big role in divorce rates, single home families and etc. The topic was interesting because after reading the chapter, I noticed that there are less divorce rates in the year of 2011 because of how the parents were raised and through the environment and society they grew up in. For example, I started to notice that there was a decrease of divorce rates with those who were born in the mid 80s. From observing families, I became more aware of how old the parents were and when they got divorced.

From the chart above, I believe as families became more aware of their resources, they were able work out their problems more. In addition, as our society increased in a better way, it started to become a "norm" that woman can become more independent so they know better to choose who their spouse would be. Furthermore, there were more marriages in the 80s was because there could have been a decrease in education and independence of man and woman. As quoted from the New York Times, "Families with highly educated mothers and families with less educated mothers are clearly moving in opposite directions." 

Sex and Gender Inequality Part 2

The video above is a video that I found on Youtube. It goes more in-depth about objectification in women through the media and how it goes far enough that men's don't even respect some women's anymore. Rather than respecting them, society drives men to think that its okay to treat women as an object. From the few topics shown on the video, it not only shows that women don't have a voice but is also helpless to asking for help from others around them. In addition, they make it seem as though the women needs to be skinny or has to take off their clothes just to attract people's eyes. I believe the video is short but proves many points to how being a women feels like. Adding on, it shows that in today's society, the idea's of women has not changed much, "despite recent advances worldwide, women still tend to suffer physically, psychologically, economically, and politically in most societies."

Demographic Dynamics

Although I was born in the U.S., my parents were both born in Lao's. I am a bit unsure of which was born where but one of my parent was born in Ban Vinai. My father was very young when he first came to the U.S., he would tell me stories about how his father, my grandfather, was a middle class farmer who didn't have as much trouble coming into the U.S. compared to other family members was because he had money. Talking to both my parents, they didn't go very in depth about how they came to the U.S. or the obstacles they faced, however, my father did talk a lot about the obstacles they faced once they got here. Adding on, he would talk about how the language created a big barrier from getting a job to learning how to drive since everything revolved around the American language, even the writing. Since my parents got married at such a young age, my father didn't graduate high school but instead got a job as a janitor at a school to try to support my mother and I. On the other hand, my mother was able to finish up high school and get her high school diploma. They both were able to manage to get jobs and learn the different culture here in America and adapt to it. The photo below shows some of my siblings and my mother.

If my immigrant family were to arrive today, it would be harder for them to get into the U.S. because I believe that today in the U.S., there are many immigrants coming into the country that the government we are in now would be more strict about who can stay and who can't. In addition, the economic is very bad around this time which would only cause the employment rate to increase if more people was unable to find a job. However, in today's society, the U.S. has also gotten better with helping new immigrants in their transition and even in providing a home or place for new members to live in. Moreover, family can also help their immigrant family through their own experiences in the U.S. Not only that, there are many programs helping those in need and wanting to learn English as a second language. From mastering English, the language barrier would be less of a problem for them and it would be easier to communicate and even create connections to finding a better living, home, job, and etc.

I believe the subject of immigration is volatile is because there are so many immigrants coming that it became part of society's norm to see different people of color.

Sex and Gender Inequality

Throughout my life growing up as a Hmong woman and within my society, it taught me that woman's were the ones staying at home and learning how to be a better house wife rather than going out into the world and exploring it. To have a discussion about the Traditional Hmong culture compared to the American Hmong culture, from past experiences and now I can tell that it is hard for some of my grandparents to understand what it means to be sexist. For example, my grandmother recently told me that when she got married to my grandfather and even though he was unfaithful to her, she did nothing but stayed home and kept everything she felt inside for the sake of her kids. She said there was nothing she could do or say since back then in her society, man had power and woman were just their followers. Hearing this from her and comparing it to the American Hmong culture I was in shock and furious! I couldn't believe that it was such a norm for the woman's that they couldn't do anything about it besides just talk about it to their family members and feel pity for themselves. From my perspective, all I knew about the Traditional culture was learning how to become a better house wife but I never really heard of stories about woman having no say in anything they wanted. Its also sad to know that they don't know how to change the situation besides putting up with everything since their society is controlled by men's making them feel useless. I believe one major down fall for the woman's is because of the disadvantages they had from migrating from Laos/Thailand to the U.S. They felt helpless for not being able to help themselves so they had to rely on their husbands. In addition, they had no idea about the resources around them that could've helped them. They didn't know the language, how to write in English, how to drive, or even how to find a stable job. Language was a great down fall because communication was one of the main keys to success. Compared to the American Hmong culture, many Hmong woman are going to college and most are even the first in their generation to go. Its just interesting to see the change that my generation of Hmong woman are going through now compared to the past. However, I am glad to be able to see and be the change of our Hmong circle because our society now is more educated to be better!

The Architecture of Inequality Part II

The photo above is famously known as Gulliver's Travels. During my Catalyst trip to Chicago, we visited the famous murals in the Latino neighborhood and came across this one. Our guide, Jose, explained to us with pride why the artist decided to do what he did. For example, in the mural you can see that the man is being held down by wires like they were being treated as prisoners and not having the freedom to do what they want. The wires not only symbolizes their freedom but also the laws that they had to abide by. Jose added on and said that when they first came into the U.S., they felt like how the Jews did back in the Holocaust due to the Star of David that they had to wear. He said their situation was similar in ways that when the Latino's wanted to go somewhere they had to carry an ID with them just to prove that they were a citizen in the U.S. Although you can't see the feet, at the end of the feet were footprints that the artist painted to show that wherever they went they had to prove their identity by stamping their finger prints onto paper as their signature, why he emphasized the prints at the feet? A question I wouldn't be able to answer myself. Moreover, the mask represented how the Latino's were as a human being, hidden. In my opinion, they felt closed out and hidden to their society, like no one heard them or cared to listen about how they felt as a citizen. Also, the pants that the man is wearing is not neat and clean but dirty and torn because of their hard work and effort to support their loved ones. Adding on, the picture was very interesting because no matter where you are or where you walked the eyes of the man would follow you. I'm not sure if the Latino's felt like they were always being watched but the eyes had a look of not pity but sadness and worries.

In addition, he explained to our group in great detail how the Latino's felt coming into the U.S. and their perspective as being the "outsiders." It was really interesting because their neighborhood was small enough that mostly everyone knew one another. When we walked the streets, Jose told us to also greet those who walked pass us so they wouldn't feel scared that we were Realtor's who were trying to buy their homes. Since our group was so big and we looked so different from them, people from all over that walked passed us would turn and look our way. There was a time when Jose was explaining to us about a mural of the neighbors and he stopped to see that some people in the neighborhood was eyeing us, I personally felt uncomfortable and thought to myself hoping that they didn't think we were Realtor's. Jose said to them in Spanish that we were students there because we wanted to learn about their culture and murals, after that they gave us reassuring smiles and welcomed us with their hello's and hand waves which made me felt more at ease and I smiled back exchanging hello's. Below are more pictures of some murals we saw.

The Architecture of Inequality

As I grew up in the United States, I've experienced many stereotypes about who I am. Throughout my middle and high school years, a lot of people I didn't know, including my Caucasion friends would ask me if I was Chinese. Interesting how most would stereotype me to one race rather than asking me what race I was. Although I was offended the first few times about it, I felt annoyed and soon started to ask myself how I would approach someone who was of different race and came down to the conclusion that I would be as curious as they were, however, I would address the question in a different manner rather than stereotyping them. As I matured and looked back on the experiences I went through with stereotypes, I also started to understand more why people thought I was Chinese. The two races had common biological traits, such as skin color, texture of hair, and shape of eyes. As quoted from David M. Newman, I didn't take the steretypes as offensive anymore unless it was intentionally from someone and if I felt a sense of uncomfortableness, then I would call them out on it.



The two photo's above are pictures of Gao Kalia Yang who is Hmong (left) and Ruby Lin who is Chinese (right), they both may have different ethnicities which is a sense of community derived from the cultural heritage shared by a category of people with common ancestry, however they share the same race.

Furthermore, growing up with the stereotypes of my race and ethnicity, I am encouraged to stand up for who I am and proudly explain to those who are willing to learn what and who the Hmong people are when others ask. When I first moved in to my dorm at Hamline, one of my roommates first question to me was, "What ethnicity/race are you?" and I answered back saying that I was Hmong. Even up to today, I am still in the process of teaching/explaining to my roommates who I am and what kind of family I grew up from. She told me one day that she thought all Hmong people were Bboy's and Bgirl's who likes to break dance since she came from a society where her Hmong friends were really into break dancing. After hearing that, I laughed and told her "not all Hmong people likes to break dance just because they did." I told her that I did a lot of different things besides dancing, such as knitting/crocheting, playing sports, singing, reading a book, hanging out with my friends and etc. She soon came to realize that we both had a lot more in common than she realized, although we both may view it or go by a situation differently, we were both about the same.