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.