For this weeks reading by Eric Fong and Elic Chan, I felt that I took more into my own considerations and learned the important factors about preference, language, central aspects of residences and demography. Before moving on, Id like to say that Lisa Lee did a fantastic and easy to follow job on her presentation on co-ethnic residency/preference. I learned from her presentation that, it was mainly focused on Indian and Chinese focusing on that they are seen as the largest visible minority/ immigrant groups in Canada, mainly through the bigger cities Toronto and our home, Vancouver. I was shocked to experience that there are co-ethnic preferences within moving preference into a neighbourhood where it is highly populated by one race or another. Thus this incudes, friends, family members, shops/mall, religion and lower funds of income. In a way it is disappointing to see that people coming into Canada from other countries, want to be or feel closer to home once they arrive to Canada making places now highly segregated with ethnicity issues and leaving out others. An example can be of Surrey where it is a highly populated area of East Indians in Newton, and many Canadians or other ethnicities do not want to move there thinking or feeling that they are not wanted or because of how it is already situated and how there is a strong sense of culture and language already embedded in that area. So, because of this, there needs to be a better solution and plan in that one does not feel left out and or thinking that one is not wanted in a certain area or place. So in that being said, language has barriers and should have an central aspect of where everyone has a sense of belonging. Perhaps helpful situations or ideas can be of the young generations translating or volunteering something that can bring society together by being more multicultural and embracing other races and different cultures to unify as Canada, and not little India, little Italy, China town, etc. People that do come here obviously come for positive reasons and want to learn English because it is an essential language that is now needed throughout the world to work and to excel in ones education. In class, Justin mentioned this and I agree and think that people should learn English so that there won’t be such a preference for co-ethnic residency. There should be some differences (race) in one’s neighbourhood, a unique and exotic taste of different cultures and foods, to be humble, friendly and accepting of change, of people and of race, because we are all in end, just people like you and me.

When I went to the Halloween club crawl event, I felt that it was very open, loud exciting music and super cool costumes worn by students. I loved how everyone was mingling and a lot of students like myself went alone and just joined in conversations with other peeps, wanting a good time and dancing to funky songs. As a sociologist major, I of course observed the place, the people, the costumes and the food and started talking to new people within minutes. It reminds me of Lisa’s presentation co-ethnic residence because in some ways it relates to this event that was super fun. If one did not want to join a group, or if one did not want someone to join that group at the Halloween event, then there are problems were that individual may feel less welcomed or intimated by numerous reasons that we should all understand and work with, but thankfully this event was open to everyone that there needed not any kinds of so called “groups” but more of an welcome to show support to our school events at UBC. On the contrary, I do see on campus that there are co-ethnic preferences that play important factors in being in a group or club, example: one needs to meet the criteria to join a club or one needs to be of a certain ethnicity to join. I believe that because of our norms and values groups are just naturally configured like this, but it is wrong and soon enough they won’t be existing anymore due to people getting angry and frustrated by their nonsense. All in all, the Halloween night was an eventful one with lots of dancing, drinking, and most importantly, mingling with new students from all over the world!