Final blog post

I am very glad that I took this class.  It definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things in regards to femininity and masculinity and will definitely make me question things that I may have readily accepted in the past when I confront them in the future.  I just watched a TEDxTeen talk by Tavi Gevinson, a teen fashion blogger and creator of an online magazine for teenage girls.  Rookie magazine is not the "typical" magazine for a teenage girl, but a website and magazine that is meant to answer girl's questions and inspire them.  I think that it is a really great video to watch of a young feminist - and has a lot to do with our class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6osiBvQ-RRg#!

final blog

this class has been tough for me to pay attention to. but after midterm 1 I felt the class became more interesting as the topics were more dealing with issues in the current times. I feel for this class to be more engaging it needs to use the works of these famous authors and use some of the text and how its applicable in modern society.

through course

I would like to say this course give me a lot of thoughtful concept. And I have learned new information that I've never heard about before. 

Moreover, it is good to openly discuss about topic that currently and future problems. Not only woman but also man has to be change their conceptions. 

I enjoy through this course and I think great to taking this course especially who has strong stereotype in homosexuality, feminism, masculinity, etc.

Last Thoughts

After taking this genders studies class, I have to say that this class has help me open up more thoughts on gender and society. With this said, I am able to think more critically about gender issues. The reason that I took this class before was because I was interested in gender studies, however this class has help me explore the issues even more than any of the other classes I have taken before. Ever since I have taken this class, I have even talked about some of the topics we talked in class and discussed them with my friends. Even they too find these topics we learn in class to be very interesting.

One of the topics that I find to be very interesting is the idea on how feminism is a product of men that is fed to women by the media and society. The idea that men are now suppressing women through means of media and marketing has definitely altered my ideas of the subject in marketing.

SWMS

I've learned a lot of knowledge and ideas from this class. It provides me completely different perspectives when thinking about sex, gender and the relationship between men and women. Before taking this class, I can't even tell the difference between sex and gender; I could never connect gender issues with Marxism and probably would never consider the sex discrimination contained in my biology textbooks; I would never clearly understand the meaning of plastic surgeries, the labor, as well as the Disney fairy tales that I get used to. This class covers broad range of context, and I believe everyone will gain an interesting experience from taking this class  

Conclusion of What We Have Learned

I have to admit that this class is one of the most interesting classes that I have ever taken because it is not about theories, formulas, literature, or numbers. This is a class about what we are experiencing everyday but never notice at all. My favorite topics from this class include marginalization of masculinity and intergenerations as those are topics that I have never explored before. I have thought of the inequality created between different classes, races, and genders but the various combinations that come out even have more different effects on people. The idea of pink and princess for little girls is also new to me because as a female I was never fond of those Disney stories when I was little. I have watched many of those, but I always preferred a Japanese anime called Sailor Moon where a group of girls wearing sailor outfits and beating up monsters. On the other hand, I think the downside of this class is that as an introductory class, its instructions are a little bit vague in terms of grading guidelines and thinking directions while most students are new to these topics. In overall, I have learned a lot out of this class and think it is really beneficial to my mind.

Final thoughts

This class is very beneficial to me because it provides me with tools to analyze gender and social problems. One of the topics that caught my attention was the influence of capitalism on gender, particularly on female. I wouldn't know that pick was a color for boys if I have not taken this class. I realize that there will be gender inequality for both developed and developing countries; it is just a matter of how people are equipped to fight the problems. Last but not least, this class gives me a fresh perspective, as a male, to view the gender problems from a different angle. I am now more open to the discussion of LGBT topics than ever before.

Social Issues in Gender

What I got from the class is a sense of awareness of everything related to gender. Before I never realized the social issues behind television ads like the Axe Commercials, beauty ads targeted towards women, and even the Disney movies I saw as a child. From now on I will not be able to view these things the same way as I did before. Every time I view a commercial, television show or film I will now analyze the ways in which they affect gender in our society. Taking this class has made me realize the incorrect views of society and how society has influenced me into thinking similarly.

SWMS

It's already the last week of class and there are so many things we've learned this semester.  I took this class because it fit perfectly in my time schedule.  I was always interested in psychology, even though I'm a business major so I thought that this class was going to be somewhat similar.  It was great to learn about Freud again and many other new famous people I've never heard out.  Professor Halberstam was great and made many things and concepts easy to understand.  The lecture wasn't boring like all my other classes.  We used media, such as music videos or commercials to give us a better understanding of what we were learning about.  Now, when a commercial is on, such as the Dr. Pepper commercial, I tend to analyze it and try to explain it to my girlfriend and she thinks that I'm crazy for thinking in such a way.  Also, this is the first time I'm actually reading in many years.  I've never had so much reading to do in a class before, so it helped me with my reading habits, since I dislike reading books.  One thing I wish though was for less reading.  Being a transfer student, my schedule is already hard enough and all that reading was very stressful.  Other than that, it was an overall great class.  I can walk away from this class saying that I've learned a lot about our society.

What I took from the class...oftentimes I get caught up in my own world. I think that the world only consists of my friends, my family, my problems, etc. This is a selfish perspective, but it is one that many of us naturally fall into. I think that main thing that this class accomplished was making me aware of social and political systems. So many times we live our lives with out question why? how? This class made you stop and question. It made me critically evaluate my life and where I fall in relation to others. This class made me respect and appreciate others via assigned reading and discussion shared in lecture and discussion sections. I am really happy I took this class and would recommend it to others (=

SWMS 210 in Retrospect

With the final week of classes approaching, I’ve looked back on this class specifically and I appreciate everything I’ve learned. When first registering for classes, I chose this class because it fit into my schedule and the course title sounded interesting. I had never taken a gender studies class and I thought it would be, if anything, a good experience. At the end of the semester, I can honestly say that I really enjoyed this class, and I learned so much more than I thought I would, about a vast number of topics. Manifestos, feminist movements, body image, heterosexuality vs. homosexuality, masculinity, I feel like I received an interesting and comprehensive understanding of what gender studies actually is, and I’m even thinking about minoring in it because I really liked this class and what I learned. 

One of the things I really like about this class was that everything I learned was applicable in real life. Sometimes, what we learn in the classroom doesn’t necessarily translate into the real world. But with this class, I could apply all the ideas to everyday interactions, ideas in the media, and television shows/movies. Being able to see the world with a more cultured perspective is something that I will really value. I’ve never agreed with the “ignorance is bliss” concept, and while sometimes the ideas we learn in class may reveal a side of society that we may be uncomfortable with facing, I believe that it’s better to be aware of these issues – whether it be anorexia/bulimia, the traditional male/female roles, or the Disney princesses/color pink marketing – than go through life ignorant because these ideas are what mold and shape society. I would definitely recommend this class to people, it was definitely a great experience.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Some thoughts

I registered for this course without much anticipation, reason being I knew nothing about feminism theories, nor did I engage myself in scholarly articles and books on gender. I enjoyed every single lecture by Professor Halberstam and every discussion session, with classmates sharing thought-provoking ideas and holding mind-opening discussions with Jennifer. I guess apart from the knowledge that I have garnered in these five months, the most important thing I bagged is that I have become more inquisitive and more curious about issues and events that are happening around us. Some topics may be irrelevant to me personally, but if unpacked, I could attain something beneficial from it. All in all, I had a great semester in this course!

Final thoughts

Final Thoughts

          I really never thought about feminism, Marxism or masculinity before. I took them for granted. The most helpful part should be Freud. I used to devoted my attention and explain everything to the primaeval period. Why people do this and do that? They were all habits inherited from the apes. However, as I found that many of our ideas were derived from the family, peers and society bit by bit, I see everything happens for a reason. Rather than explaining them by common sense we should seek for evidence and searching for origin.

         

          Even though I still question some of the idea the authors held, I find them interesting and worth deeper understanding. I never believe we can seek justice for everyone and I never believe absolutely fair. But through this class, I know we can, at least, let more people know what is happening in this society, why this happen. I already shared many of my idea I get from the class with my family and friends. Topic such as homosexual, heterosexual and racism are slowly changing my understanding of the real life. 

Thoughts

Honestly, I've never understood why everyone always rags on the General Ed classes.

I loved SWMS 210.

I registered for this class primarily because it fit in my schedule and only secondarily because it sounded interesting. Like many of you posted, I never really thought about gender much; I knew that women often got the short end of the equality stick and were all too frequently abused and objectified, and I hated that, but that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. This class forced me to explore this more deeply: the societal problems stemming from our understanding of gender affect issues of sexuality, ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic status, employment, your understanding of others, others' understanding of you, the list goes on. Really, this "Social Issues In Gender" class was about far more than gender; it was about social issues, period. All of them, but understood through a lens of gender.

I'm thrilled to have taken this class. As I was raving about it to a friend, I half-joked that I was considering adding a gender studies minor. The issues that we attacked are so relevant, so real, so important to so many people. I want to end discrimination, I want to end the objectification of women, I want to help all of society realize the intrinsic worth of people regardless of superficial things like appearance or gender.

Closing Ideas

I've never had interest in Gender Studies but enrolling in this class has definitely made me more aware of the problems our society has and made me have more of an interest in learning more about our social constructs. I'm not even kidding--I think I analyze every single commercial I see now. I like to see the woman-to-man interactions, women-to-women interactions, parents-to-children interactions, and especially race-to-race interactions. I see the assumptions Bouvier strived to tell her audience, I see the beauty issues Bordo talked about, and I see race issues Romero explained.

It's its so hard to sum up what I'll take home from this class. But I will explain a little story...one of my best friends is studying abroad in New Zealand right now and I just had the opportunity to have a long Skype chat with her this week! She mentioned that she wanted to possibly take up a Gender Studies minor. I've always teased her that she's an avid feminist; however, I can definitely see my best friend's viewpoints a lot more vividly as I raved about our SWMS class to her. After explaining how much I enjoyed this class, my friend wants to get a hold of my Second Wave book!

In a nutshell, the message I'm getting across from this SWMS class is that we all make choices with the way we live our life. However, it is previous societal exposures that shape or influence us to make these choices. So although we may think we are making our own decisions and being independent, we are still absorbing previous traditions that have been long upheld.

More importantly, the fact that I could go on and on about this class made me realize how beneficial this class was in my educational journey at USC. I just transferred from LMU this semester and its shocking to compare the GE classes at LMU and here. I would NEVER get such a diverse class like this at LMU that would challenge me to think for my own while also confronting me with social issues that I have always passively accepted as our American culture. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to be enrolled in such a different class and I look forward to see how this class shapes my thinking in the everyday!

Final Thoughts

I entered this class with a very positive attitude. I heard great things about the class and the general subject  matter seemed interesting from the description. I was totally right.

Being able to learn subject material with more up to date entertainment and media like Lady Gaga made the class a lot more interesting. I took a gender studies last semester for my GE 5, so some of the material flowed over into this class as well. Topics such as masculinity and heterosexuality I was able to view from a different angle and delve into the subjects deeper than the semester before. Then those concepts could relate to other topics such as cosmetic surgery and beauty. I think that was the most interesting section for me, beauty and cosmetic surgery. I really retained a lot of the information, as I did with the rest but I just found it so fascinating.

Now, I can look at the world through a more cultured pair of eyes. I have been able to relate a lot of the concepts to people and things that I've observed in my own life, probably why I'm able to retain the information so well. This class really did pinpoint the social issues in gender and sexuality in our culture today based on that. I would definitely recommend this class to any of my friends. You really do learn a lot about yourself and about society in general from it.

Maybe ignorance isn't bliss

As I sit down to write my final thoughts for this class, I can't help but be a bit saddened. I really enjoyed this class because it made me notice things that I hadn't even noticed before. Things that had just seemed so natural before, really are social constructs. Prior to this class, I was aware of some things - but for the most part I thought sexism was a thing of the past.

It almost scared me that I had been so naive. This class has made me a critical thinker. Before I was a critical thinker when it came to academia - questioning everything I was taught in school and read in books, websites, etc. - but now, I question what I'm taught in real life. This is a good skill that I'm really glad I picked up.

However, I now also see when my friends do things because of social constructs. It frustrates me how easily they are manipulated by popular culture, but I know that I was the same way. Even now, I'm sure there are forces at work on me that I remain completely unaware of.

I guess the best thing you can do is know that at the bottom of your heart you are happy with the choices you make. So, I like to wear dresses - maybe that's because society pressured me into it and maybe it's just because I like spinning around and having the skirt circle me. Either way, I am content with my decision to wear them. As long as you can understand the forces at work around you and are able to have your own reasons for making a decision, I think that's the best you can do for now.

I did appreciate this class for opening my eyes to the pressures I had previously succumbed to. I try to be much more aware now. I thought I was living happily before, but now that I understand why I may be extra self-conscious or why my mom really likes to buy me pink clothes, I am even more satisfied. Maybe it's better to understand the bigger picture and how that effects your life - maybe ignorance isn't bliss.

Class Appreciation

Of everything we have learned in lecture and discussion, I think I have most appreciated learning about domestic workers as well as watching Bread and Roses. I have grown up surrounded by people like those represented in Bread and Roses and never even gave a second thought to what their lives might be like outside of employment. The film and lecture prior truly opened my eyes to understanding the people who live, work, and grow with and around us in this world.

This class really got me thinking about life from the perspectives of those around me. I came to USC from a small town in Washington state with very little diversity. I really value learning from the perspectives of other people, instead of constantly getting fed information that has no support behind it. From the beginning of this class when we read "Ain't I a Woman" by Sojourner Truth to "The Alchemy of Race and Rights" I have been able to see the world through the eyes of someone else, someone who actually experienced the issues and problems they are discussing in their books, essays and manifestos.

I really do value the knowledge I have gained from this class as well as it's impact on my interest to now try to understand issues from that of a different perspective then my own.

"Why wasn't The Hunger Games cast as I imagined in my reading!""

Here is an article I would recommend you to read. It talks about the movie Hunger Games and Racism

http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made

'Why wasn't The Hunger Games cast as I imagined in my reading?!' is one of the racist tweets of Hunger Game fandom during last week. While the movie grosses huge at the box office, many fans are angry about the casting since it doesn’t reveal their expectations---White Rue, white Thresh and White Cinna.

I never read the novel before and I feel all the casting are just right but my friend who read the trilogy never stop to complain how disappointed he was when he see the non-white casting. However, after I do some research for the novel, I found that the characters are explicitly described as having dark skin. The ubiquity of whiteness in popular media is so overwhelming that, in the absence of any racial signifiers, people (both white and non-white) automatically assume that characters are white. White is default. Although we may find many black characters in the movie, they always die first. Moreover, most significant characters are all white. This create an image that all the minority or non-white people participated in the movie were treat like charity. The producer need these non-dominant group to show their good racial manner but never make any acknowledgment to them.

domestic labor

As a young kid growing up in Thailand, having a maids in homes has always been someone that I would see commonly. Many of the times, these maids that we have to cook and clean for us, has become family to us especially when our parents are busy working during the day. For instance, in my cousin's family, they have a maid that has been working there for over 30 years. She has already become part of the family, and my aunt and uncle has already planned for her to live with them when she retires because to them she is like their sister. Right now, at the age of late 50's she is the one that looks over the household. Although she might not be the one that brings the "bread" to the house, she is the one that keeps the house in order.

From looking at this perspective, although I find it very sad for maids to work hard to try to feed their family, the life of our maid has become much more than having a typical maid. She became the mother to the house, even the mother to my aunt and uncle. For my aunt and uncle to have the feeling of family towards her makes her very important to us. To express how important she is to my cousin's family, my aunt and uncle has given her some ownership shares to their company. This is definitely story that one hasn't heard of much. But I wanted to show an example of how having an employee that is so close to us, turn into the family.

Thoughts on Domestic Labor

When I was really young, probably before I was even in Kindergarten, my family had a nanny that took care of me and my sisters for a few years while both my parents were busy working. Unfortunately I don’t have distinct memories of her, but I have seen pictures when she went to Sea World with our family. We called her “Ah-Gou”, which I think is an informal way of saying nanny, or aunty in Chinese, but her real name was Maria. I talked to my older sister and she thinks that Ah-Gou was with our family for about 4 years. I really thought a lot about how people like Maria spend a few years taking care of children, as if they were her own, playing with them, feeding them, cleaning up after them, and it makes me feel really guilty for not having much of a recollection of the time I spent with her. My sister told me that she had some health problems and my parents had taken her to see some doctors in, but even today I don’t know where she went after taking care of us for four years, or what she’s doing now. 

I think it’s important to see from the perspective of the people who are part of the domestic labor force and I really enjoyed watching “Black Girl” because it offered a perspective that we, the more privileged middle/upper class, don’t often realize. An example that I have is from something that I am currently experiencing, living in a residence hall at USC. The cleaning staff in the building I live in are all really nice and very helpful, but I see on a daily basis how there is a separation between the students and cleaning staff. I think we often forget to appreciate how much they do for us. Instead of thanking them when we pass by them on our way out, we complain that they vacuum the halls too early in the morning. Instead of taking a few minutes out of our day to talk to them, I hear people complaining that they’ve inconveniently closed the bathroom, so they can clean it. Considering they have to clean up after a bunch of teenagers, which is no easy task, and the other numerous challenges they face, the least we can do it treat them as equals and with respect, instead of just “the help”.

Maids

Mostly, the maids who serve as live-in, live-out, or housekeepers are from southern America. Some people claim that we should not treat them with tolerance since they are illegal immigrant and hurt economy of U.S.

First of all, we should understand why they would come to America even though they know that they won't be treated equally. Mostly they would cross the border because they can't find suitable jobs in their countries and to survive, they would dare their lives to cross the border. Even though they took some economic benefactors from the U.S. economy, but it's only fraction of whole. Maybe better treatment can help them and benefit both.

balanced labor

Though there is a hierarchical structure between the host and the maid, they can still get along well with each other instead of standing in the opposite place. The conflict does exist in this labor system. The clip The Black Girl shows the difference between expectation and reality.I personally think that the movie focuses more on racial conflict rather than labor conflict, because it emphasize the contrast of skin color. In my country, domestic helpers are treated in good manner and they work hard for their employers in return. Oftentimes, a maid who has been serving in one place for years will be regarded as a family member. I have heard several examples like this in my neighborhood, so I believe there is a way fr maids and hosts to live harmonicalally.

Liberation of Black Girl

In the film Black Girl, Diouana portrays a typical "subordinate" in terms of gender, race, and class, bringing out  how severe the problems about sexism, racism, and classism have become at that time.

Her gender of female restricts her from having a wide choice of careers. The social norm around her makes her to believe that women should live for making babies, or raising babies if making babies is not enough for her to make a living. When I was watching the film, I was curious that if she likes children so much then why doesn't she choose a real career about children, such as being a teacher in kindergarten or a nurse in children daycare center? I guess that is very possibly because of the social's restriction on women working outside but not on men like her husband working as a public letter writer in front of their house. In addition, grown up in a colony by Portugal, I totally understand the feeling of Diousana on how the hierarchy of race and class works in such place. In her employer's house, she is considered as a servant instead of a worker-anyone can feel free to order her to do anything, scold at her, or even kiss her, which is not in an admiring case but an "rare animal show" case. However, the saddest of all is that these scenarios still exist in nowadays as sexiam, racism, and classism are not totally eliminated yet.

Domestic labor

The word 'domestic labor' remind me and comes up the book and movie 'The Help(2011)'.
Personally, I do not have housekeeper or typical domestic labor when I was young; however, I understand how their life were tough and hard to survived by read and watched the movie.
What we saw was a movie about the realities and policies of racism. Black people could hardly walk the streets without the possibility of running into dander. The ending shot of Viola Davis' black, and the scene with Octavia Spencer fanning an old lady, you can get a real sense of their stories. I liked it because it was clear and vivid. So we might think about the domestic labor environment that not only past but also recent.

Mistreatment to Maid Or Mistreatment from Maid?

During the discussion in class we explored into the world of domestic labor's life through a clip from the movie The Black Girl, but I found it a little bit unbalanced if we only focus on how they are treated instead of viewing them in an multi-angle way--knowing how they behave, and why they are treated that way.

Very often foreign visitors with different races other than the domestic's are judged perceptually, and many of these discrimination are built based on the years of past observation of people. Why don't we take a look on two pieces of news which happened a few years ago in Hong Kong where Philippina housework helpers are very popular and compare their situations?

Case 1: The ma'am put the hot clothing iron on the maid's arm because she was unsatisfied with the maid's work. The maid was burnt and sent to the hospital, whereas she was fired and sent back to Philippine after police's investigation.

Case 2: When there was no one at home except for the maid and the baby, the maid was annoyed by the baby's crying when she was sitting on the sofa and watching TV. Therefore she put her toe into the baby's mouth to let the baby suck it and stop crying. The incident was discovered by the baby's parents when they saw it on the short cut camera at home.

These news are remembered by me deeply because I find that the conflict between two different class is growing more complex while the outcome is always the same--the maid is fired and kicked back to home. Sometimes it is the employers' fault, and sometimes it is the maid's. I would suggest that the only solution for the problem is respect and education. No matter what class or what race people are in, we are living on the global as human as a whole.

Labor

I think that many immigrants go into domestic labor because they have only a few options because they can't speak the language. My dad came to United States from Korea about 30+ years ago.  He didn't really have any skills so he went into domestic labor.  He worked under one of his uncles that he knew from Korea who became very successful  from having a business that dealt with domestic labor.  Now, my dad is the boss and he helps many other immigrants get jobs whether they are illegal or not.  It is against the law to have illegal immigrants working under you and it's risky, but he said that he has been in the same situation and he wants to help others make a living by giving them as many jobs as they can.

Maid in Palm Springs

My mother and father illegally crossed the US-Mexican border some 40 plus years ago. When my mother came illegally she did not have many options in the workforce she could join. She ended up receiving a job as maid for a wealthy British family in Palm Springs CA. In the beginning she was mistreated by the wife, often looked down upon. After some time however, my mother was able to form a bond/friendship with the woman. From then on my mother was treated well at her job as a waitress and the wife developed respect for her. When the woman passed away, losing a battle with cancer, she left my mother some of her assets in her will.

labor force

Issues of division of labor and immigrant labor seem to always be a prominent issue. During discussion I could not help but think of the movie and book The Help. The story is a narrative of the civil rights movement through the view of black women working as maids in the south. The working force really is the backbone of the economy and this country, but it is constantly looked down upon with scrutiny. There is a problem here.

Im from Saudi Arabia and its common to have a maid in every household. It is seen as a sign of wealth - the more maids/helpers you have the more wealthy you are. I personally only had one as my mom didn't need help raising me and my sister but needed her for house chores like cooking, cleaning etc. We provided her with a room in our house and gave her food and clothing as well as money to send to her family that live back in India. She has been my maid for 18 years and sent her home for the holidays to see her kids. Treating her well was the main reason she kept coming back to us and staying with us instead of going back to India to settle down and live with her children. This is not the case for most households in Saudi Arabia. They mistreat their workers and in-turn leave their employers because of rough working conditions and abuse. There have been many cases where because of mistreatment of these household workers have lashed out at their employers. I am posting a link to an article of an indonesian maid who murdered her employer because of being constantly abused.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13860097

Au Pair

There is a program that is called "au pair in america."  Au pair means on par, or equal.  This program essentially matches your family with a young woman from a different country to be your au pair for a year.  This program allows the family to be exposed to another culture, broadening the children's horizons and educating them about the outside world, and also gives the woman the opportunity to come to America and experience another culture herself.  This is perhaps a positive side to this nanny situation.

I also found this video which is unrelated to this post/topic, but I thought that it was very related to the class and wanted to share it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g-IrhRSwF9U#!

Male labor positions

Growing up my family never had a maid or live in nanny like the ones we discussed, read about or saw in class. However I did grow up having a gardener who worked at our house for the past few years. Jesus traveled to the US from Mexico when he was younger and has been doing outdoor work for families in our area ever since. I know that male outdoor work is not the same has female domestic work but I did notice some similarities when he explained his past jobs to us. For example there was a language barrier, bathroom issues and other various problems. Most of the people in Washington state (where I am from) don't speak spanish and have not taken the time to learn it. Because of this, there were often issues with communication from the employeer to Jesus in explaining what the tasks for the day were. I remember one time when my sister and I were both at school and my mom tried to explain to Jesus to move a fallen tree from in front of our house to the backyard. When she came home from picking us up from school, we opened the garage to find the tree had been chopped up and placed in little stacks inside. Since I was taking Spanish class in high school I later explained to him (in the best way I could) what we meant. However after that both my mom and Jesus used spanish-english dictionaries to help make things easier to understand. He also mentioned that while working for other people some did not allow him to come inside the house to use the restroom. One customer had told him that he had to leave and go to the gas station a few miles away to use the restroom. I know that not everything we learned in class applies to Jesus' job, however I did think of some similarities between the two people and their positions.

Learning to pick up after yourself

My parents both grew up in other countries - India and Hong Kong. Domestic labor is the norm in these places, especially for big families. It was not even exclusively for the extremely wealthy, but almost every family had a live-in housekeeper, chef, etc. I know my mom always talks about how when she grew up her mom always had help and it was so easy to find. To both my parents, it was the norm to have this in their lives.

However, to me it seemed kind of weird. We never had a long term live-in nanny/maid, because the dynamic felt too awkward for me. I found myself helping them clean, which would upset my parents. I think my parents thought the maids were making me do the work, when I just felt like it was wrong and offered to help. After all, half the time - it was my mess.

Now that I'm older, I understand that it's the only labor a lot of these people can find. Today, we have a housekeeper that comes twice a month. She's really nice and we always have fun catching up. It still feels awkward to me, but I know she's happy for the work. She even says she'd rather me be messier so she can come more often. I don't comply, but I guess I can understand her view point.

I think it just depends on how each person treats them. As the employer, that does not give you the right to be rude or exploit your power. When the employer starts power tripping, then things have gone too far and chaos is created. People need to be responsible for their own messes - which include their own prejudices.

Living the American Dream?

Well, I pretty much wrote my personal story with caretakers in Monica's blog but I'll post it here:

My caretaker was present in my life from maybe 2 years to pre-K. I don't remember her all too well but she took me to all my activities and watched over me when my mom had work. One thing that hasn't been too significant until this topic this week was the fact that I used to call her "Mama". I mean, how crushing is it for my mother to hear that your daughter is calling another woman your "Mama". 
I still consider my mom to be my true mom today. To be honest, I kind of forgot about "Mama" until this week. Which I mean goes to show that Latina workers go invisible within the American household.

I've really had a strong feeling of passion with this topic this week. Growing up in a very affluent suburb of LA, Latina domestic workers have been pretty significant in my life. A majority my friends have had Latina workers helping their households. If not, their mothers were typically stay at home moms.

In my life, I've had Mama in the beginning of my life and I've had Carmen, from Kindergarten to present day. In a nutshell, Carmen has always come once a week and pretty much just straightens out my house because both my parents work (making it a little hard for my parents to maintain the house on their own).

While reading the articles, I have felt somewhat guilty. Thinking back, I believe I haven't treated Carmen all that well. Since we have had a language barrier, I've always been courteous to her but we have never been close. We make small talk with the little Spanish I know and I have become familiar of her previous life in Guatemala but that's pretty much it. With that said, I could completely see how the Latina ladies were describing their seemingly luxurious life of being live-ins to be a horror story rather than the American dream. I recognized one part of the article I see Carmen doing every week: their only connection to their home country is listening to a Spanish radio station. Everything else is Americanized.

Also, I had the great opportunity to go on an Alternative Break trip to Guatemala this spring break. Having read the articles of this week, I could vividly imagine why women would want to come to America. Conditions in Guatemala are not prime, whatsoever. Many of the children I spoke to at the school we volunteered with mentioned, if anything, one of their parents were in America sending money for them to hopefully come join them in the States. This case luckily happened to Carmen and her daughter, Tamara. But many of the kids talked to me with sad eyes, as if they knew the reality that they would never have the chance to live the life I luckily get to live.

Anyways, this is a HUGE post. But I just wanted to share what I've been thinking :)

Domestic Labor

When I was younger, we had a babysitter/house keeper. My parents both worked so she took care of me from when I was in or right before I entered pre-school to 5th grade. She walked me to school, fed me lunch, bathed me, clothed me, brought me to play dates, walked our dog with me when we got her in 3rd grade, and then did her normal house cleaning. I never felt as though I was as emotionally attached to her as the authors from this week's reading all brought up. Like maybe when I was younger I did, but I still remember my mother being my primary parent. My babysitter never replaced that position. My mother didn't neglect me nor not want to be with me, it was just that she had to work. As I got older and started to understand the ways of the world a little more, I did understand that feeling of superiority that was also mentioned in the articles and it did make me feel a bit awkward because we'd had her so long and she was doing this stuff. I felt bad because I knew she had left her family back in Guatemala and was sending the money back home. This was probably not what she had planned to do. But she was very helpful and nice to have around.

Colors Are on a Continuous Spectrum

Colors Are on a Continuous Spectrum

People should not be differentiated by a particular color. If we think deeper into color, there is hardly a word which can precisely describe a particular color. All the colors we see is just the lights that are not absorbed by that objects. Therefore, it is our perception that people are categorized into different color. If we were to take away this perception, we would have no idea of what a color is associated with.

Race Card

"schvartze: Yiddish I won't pass on."


Yiddish is a dying language. It's a weird, adorable, Jewish grandparent language that's a combination of German and Hebrew. My cute 4-and-a-half-foot-tall grandparents speak it and many of my favorite words have come from this language. Bored and getting antsy from being stuck in the same place for too long? It's called schpilkis. Got some shit on your face but don't wanna say the explicative "shit"? It's called schmutz. Talking to someone at a cocktail party? You're shmoozing. Or kibbitzing. Yiddish is a language that has some wonderful and fun words that I will absolutely and proudly hand down to my kids as part of my heritage. However, there are some words that I refuse to hand down. Schvartze is one of them. Pronounced "shvatzah" (rhymes with matzah, which I am currently noshing on), it is a derogatory term for an African American.


My race card shows that racism is a thing (or should be a thing) of older generations that we should refuse to hand down to our kids.


And that's my spiel. Not too shmaltzy, but hopefully while reading this you didn't exclaim, "oy vey!"