Chapter six Takaki

I read Chapter six of Ronald Takaki’s book which was entitled Emigrants from Erin. In this chapter we learn all about the Irish immigrants who were basically removed from their land by tyranny and the destruction of major crop that produced a large famine that affected the whole Irish nation.
The Irish people were taken over by the British who became more like tyrants than rulers. They forced the people into a poor tenant state. Ben Franklin visited Ireland and found the Irish to be living in an “extremely poor” tenant farming type of life. The colonialism and emphasis on export had reduced their living conditions of the Irish so far, until they were barely clothed, had skinny frames, and all were only surviving by eating only potatoes every day. Many Irish men had to leave their jobs and take positions as migratory workers in other parts of Ireland; they later were able to return to their families in the fall. A million people died from famine and disease during this period of time in Ireland. Twenty percent of the people who decided to leave Ireland for America also died on the way. The Irish people contributed to the building of many of America’s roadways and canals that were being built throughout the country, and also many of the railroads as well. The Irish were pitted against other races and had fierce competition with African American for work when they arrived in America.
Why did People in America pit the Irish immigrants against the African American slaves? The answer to that question is that, when the Irish first arrived they were discriminated and though to be just as low the African American slaves. I think that white people feel as if people who are remotely different from them are inferior; I also feel that in most ways this view of other cultures and races has not changed.

Chapter 12 of Takaki - El Norte

I read Chapter twelve of Ronald Takaki’s book which is entitled “El Norte, The Borderland of Chicano America”. In this chapter I learn of Mexican immigrants, and all of their struggles and hardships looking for jobs with better money and opportunity for their families. The chapter also describes how the Mexican people were forced from their original lands, and in turn their lands became part of American territory. From the past into the present Mexican people continue to strive for the opportunity to do bigger and better things to help have better lives for themselves and their families.

For the Mexican people America was El Norte a land full of hopes and dreams. A great number of Mexican immigrants were fleeing the country to escape the starvation going on in Mexico. The great migration to America after 1900 was an extension of population movements already underway within Mexico. Once many of the people were in America they migrated to urban industrialization cities, many people found themselves trapped in a condition of cyclical unemployment as industries expanded and contracted. In 1883 a land law allowed private land development companies to receive up to one-third of any land they surveyed and subdivided. By the 1890’s about one-fifth of Mexico’s entire land area had been transferred to these companies. In 1910 frustration and anger exploded into the Mexican Revolution. Francisco Madero overthrew the Diaz government in 1911. Madero was overthrown by General Huerto, Huerta was later forced into exile. The warring factions plunged the country into chaos and violence. The civil war seemed endless forcing tens of thousands of refugees to move northward. Abouth one-tenth of the Mexican population migrated to United States, during the twentieth century Mexicans were encouraged to migrate to America because their labor was needed.

I believe that Mexican people have struggled to overcome many of the problems within their own country, then many found their way to America where they thought it would be a lot better for them. Instead many found America to be a place where they were paid low wages for very hard work, and only allowed for the most part to take jobs that didn’t require much skill.
My question is why were the Mexican people treated this way ?
I think the reason most American white people treated the Mexican people like that, is because they felt like they inferior and readily available to be taken advantage of. Also like many of the other races they discriminated against they felt like they weren’t smart enough to do anything else except for what they felt they were capable of doing.

Why I hate Abercrombie & Fitch

I read the article “Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch” by Dwight James. The article is basically self explanatory by the title; the author does like the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch. He believes that the Abercrombie company does not represent the all American image it self proclaimed to have.
Abercrombie & Fitch is clothing company that started off as something completely different kind of a company. In they year of 1913 the company expanded its inventory to include sports wear clothing. It was also the first company to supply such clothing to both men and women. Abercrombie has outfitted everyone including all types of famous clientele even Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and John F. Kennedy. The clothing company went through hard times and even filed for bankruptcy. They now have been under the same management since 1992 under Michael Jeffries. The company is well known for having controversial ad campaigns causing a problem with their extremely over sexed pictures during their marketing campaigns. They also are known for celebrating their whiteness. The company says they are the classic all American look, but many often find that in their ads and magazines that look does not include African American people, Chinese, Mexican or Latino cultures. The pictures of diversity models aren’t included on the front page of the site, but rather under a small link at the bottom of the page entitled diversity. Dwight McBride was outraged that people of color were not represented in any of the ads and basically in an unspoken way are told that the clothing is not for them.
My question is why are minorities excluded from buying Abercrombie & Fitch?
The people at Abercrombie say they do not exclude from selling to consumers of color. They have also covered themselves by making their diversity page. But in reality they are still racist and that is a problem. I don’t agree with Dwight McBride however, because he is coming from a point of view that highly disagrees with and to me is morally incorrect.

Ronal Takaki Chapter 10- Pacific Crossings

Chapter ten of Ronald Takaki’s “A Different Mirror” which is entitled Pacific Crossings (seeking the land of money trees). In this chapter we learn more about both the Chinese and Japanese people who were migrating from their native lands over to the United States.
The story begins with the telling of how Chinese people were making their way across the ocean in hope of finding a better place to live, work, and raise a family. The Chinese immigrants who were in America had a surprisingly high rate of theft and alcoholism. After seeing these results of the Chinese were being represented the Japanese decided to put a restraint over the type of people that they would let come to America and represent them as people. The Japanese arranged it so that upstanding citizens who were male and even more who were female would have an opportunity to come to America. They reestablished the Meiji dynasty, and the ruler of the dynasty declared that boys and girls would go to school side by side learning the same things. This gave more of an opportunity to Japanese women, while the Chinese population which is primarily a male dominated population continued not to give women an increase in any level or type of respect. Another way some Japanese women were allowed to come to America were picture marriages. In those cases the bride and groom to be would exchange pictures and if everything was approved by their families they would get married. This action gave a lot more women the chance to leave Japan for a better life in America. After reaching America many of the women did not just work as house wives, but many held regular jobs and even worked in the fields just as men did. They had been able to do this since many of them had worked in Japan in the industrial labor force making up nearly half of the industrial workforce in the 1940’s.
The question of this chapter I would want to ask is how the Japanese women were able to marry someone whom they had never met but only seen in pictures.It’s a part of Japanese and Chinese cultures in the most part to have arranged marriages by their parents. The only thing is that I couldn’t began to understand how you could marry let alone stay married and have love for someone you never knew that well an wasn’t your first choice or any choice at all to be married to for the rest

A Challenging Democracy

The movie clip entitled “A Challenge to Democracy” is the story of the Japanese Americans sent to live in interment camps during the war. The film clip gives an outline of what really went on during the time those people spent at the camps.
The movie starts with the massive transferring of Japanese people into the various interment camps from the west coast to the south of America. The people arrived at these camps with little or nothing. Families were put into rooms very small in size containing a couple beds, pillows, and chairs. In those small rooms relatively large families had to call this home for months and in most cases a year or more. When the people first arrived they had really no source of farming available, because they were mostly relocated to unsettled areas. The people had to rebuild irrigation systems, tend to the fields, and restart the whole process of being able to produce a main source of food for the people. Besides farming the interments camps were different from any type camps previously known in history. In the camps the people went to school and worked basically like they were in a normal environment as possible. The American government began to release Japanese after they were in the process of Americanization in these internment camps. Most were released after they had been determined to be loyal Americans. A few however were not released and had to spend time at one camp for the duration of the war. The people who were released back into society proved to be a valuable source to the American workforce, descried by most employers as very skilled and hardworking.
My question for this movie would be as to why they would put the people in camps for so long; not letting them lives their lives in a natural environment.
I believe that after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the United States felt pressure and didn’t know exactly if they could trust the Japanese Americans because they were not sure of their loyalty. So to the Government their best option available would be to put the people in an area where they could not contact without being regulated, to insure them that there were no spies in the United States. There were probably better and more stable options, but when put in that type of predicament being under much duress I believe they came up with the most resourceful solution to the problem at hand at that present time.

Chapter 4- Making Privilege Happen

I read Chapter four of the Johnson’s “Power, Privilege, and Difference” entitle making Privilege Happen. In this chapter we are given a basic overview of the how people actually make privilege happen. It is said that privilege is attached to social categories and not individuals. It also said that people are the ones that make privilege happen through what they do and don’t do in relation to others. The book gives a clear explanation of the word discrimination, which means to treat people unequally simply because they belong to a particular category. Discrimination is connected to how we think and feel about people, and prejudice plays a powerful role in this. Prejudice is a very complicated thing because it involves both ideas and feelings, another form of prejudice is known as racial prejudice. Racial Prejudice includes values that elevate whiteness above color and the belief that whites are smarter, and promotes negative feelings toward people of color. We learn just how much an impact of where a person lives really affects their life in the long run. Another important detail is also brought to our attention, which is that racism is not the only form of oppression; an ongoing epidemic also threatens women and gay men. A fact stated in the book tells that most jobs are segregated by gender; half of all workers would have to change occupations in order for women and men to be equally represented in the U.S. economy. What were also stated were the facts that black people and Latinos are significantly overly represented in clerical and support occupations, like government jobs such as mail carriers, and lower-level service and blue-collar jobs. The injustices of heterosexism, ableism, and racism affect not only the people in the categories but everyone else as well. A question that needs to be answered is how can we get more people of minority groups into higher-level jobs that can help even the gap of the between them and whites. The answer to this question would be to help disable racism and ableism to ensure others a more equal chance to qualify and attain a job of a greater level in society. I believe that the black people, and even women and gay people should have always received fair and equal treatment. I believe that everyone should be given an opportunity to prove themselves instead of being automatically disqualified for something based on a category they belong too.

Chapter 3 (Johnson)- Capitalism, Class, and the matrix of domination

In the book “Privilege, Power, and Difference”, I read chapter three entitled Capitalism, Class, and the matrix of domination. This chapter asks the question if race is socially constructed and doesn’t exist otherwise, and human beings don’t have to be afraid of each other then where does racism come from. The book goes on to mention other relative questions about where oppression, hostility, and violence comes from and why did people make it up in the first place. To be able to fully understand the concept of racism you have to know where it comes from and jus how long it has been around. The book says that racism has been around for hardly more than several centuries. Hardly more than three hundred years this in my mind is a very long time. It also states that its appearance in the Europe and American coincided with the expansion of capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism has played a major role in the development of privilege with the main goal of capitalism being to turn money into more money. Capitalism distributes wealth so unequally that the richest ten percent of the U.S. population holds more than two-thirds of all the wealth including ninety percent of cash, and more than ninety percent of business assets meaning stocks and bonds. Finally capitalism plays a major role in surrounding privilege in relation to race and gender. Another statement in the book that was made, said that white men often portray black men as predators and threat towards white women. This creates a dependent position of black men toward white men that leaves them vulnerable of the white man’s control over them .A question that was asked was how to get rid of racism. The only way to get rid of racism is to get rid of the sexism and classism as well, because these are all interconnected in and help to produce one another.
I personally think that capitalism does help reinforce racism. Simply for the fact that since capitalism distributes wealth so unequally many of the people that it affects mostly are races other than white. Privilege can defend or reinforce another form, access to one form can affect access for others, and also access to one form can serve as compensation for not having access to another. Knowing this information I think it would make a lot of sense try and curtail the way we let privilege control society and how it affects everyone.