October 25, 2012
Chapter 9- Race, Ethnicity and Immigration
This chapter talks about the different problems that
come about with different races and ethnicities, from smaller things like
racism to larger issues like genocide. The chapter also talks about expulsion
and segregation as issues that come about. One the lighter side it discusses
pluralism and assimilation instead of the former. Something that surprised me
was that besides white alone, Hispanic/Latino are the second largest group in
the United States, I don’t know why that was surprising, for some reason I
expected the Hispanic population to be the same as many of the other races we
have in the United States, they were however very close in size to Asians. Because
I am part Mexican, this topic hits closer to home with regards to immigration.
My father is legally in the United States but over the years we have known people,
who weren’t, and they were just as hard of workers as anyone else but what most
people tend to see are the people who are here illegally and are taking
advantage of the system. To me that is something I wish could change because people
like that are the ones making it difficult for the hard working people to
possibly get a better chance of becoming citizens. I also think it is sad how
much racism is still happening in the United States, it said that 34% of people
would say they have feelings of racial prejudice.
Chapter 10- Gender Inequality
For this chapter, I was glad and even a little
surprised to see how many countries around the world are actually trying to accommodate
and include people who are transgendered. I also thought it was interesting how
Native Americans had embraced transgendered people and even revered them until
the Europeans invaded. I was also surprised to read that women work 66% of the
total labor hours worldwide but only make ten percent of the world’s income. It
was also interesting to read about how women work a “second shift” after work
and how with time things are changing and men are becoming more involved in
parenting and there are more and more stay at home dads these days than ever
before.
Chapter 11- Sexual Orientation and the Struggle for
Equality
This chapter talks about the struggles behind LGBTQ
community. It goes through and discusses the different theories behind people’s
sexual orientations but comes to the conclusion that there is no clear cut
answer. It discusses how being LGBTQ is not a choice, and people can choose to
be gay or choose to be straight. The book then goes on to discuss prejudice
against LGBTQ and how many people shun them or discriminate against them. While
reading I learned about biphobia, where both homosexuals and heterosexuals
reject those who claim to be bi-sexual and these people can feel as if they are
“double discriminated”. Coming from Seattle, gay rights is a very big issue
right now, and I am glad that gay marriage is now legal there, my personal
feelings are that just because two people are the same sex doesn’t mean they
don’t love each other the same as two people from opposite sexes.
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