So, I apologize that I’m a few days late. It seems that going home for Thanksgiving and being in the middle of nowhere at Grandma’s house means no internet.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this course so far. I feel it is one of the courses I have taken so far at the university level that is really engaging, and where I have to actually think, not just memorize.

Although I didn’t initially enjoy the first three works we analyzed, looking back in retrospect, I find that these works were like a shot of vodka — a bad taste at first, but with lingering taste later that makes you feel good.

A theme I connected with that was strung throughout Ruiz de Burton, Rivera, and Marti, along with “The Salt of the Earth” was the concept of “American”. Of who is, and who is not. Being born and raised in the states, it is a concept that has been present my entire life. I feel as if in both private and public primary education in the US, we learn about how great our country is because it is “a melting pot of all cultures”. But once you step outside to recess, you see all the Filipino kids playing together, all the African-American kids playing together, and all of the Caucasian kids playing together. And somehow the image of “American” is one that is primarily white.

To me, it seems like this…You can be an American if you parents were immigrants. You can be an American if your grandparents were immigrants. But only if your parents or grandparents (etc) immigrated from Europe. A family could have immigrated from China 150 years ago, and this family would somehow be viewed by the American public as “less American” than a family that immigrated from Germany 25 years ago. There is so much discrimination in the States. I can feel it from living in a liberal area of Washington State, and I can’t even begin to talk about the almost bi-polarization of races in other parts of the US I have visited–southern California, North Carolina, South Dakota. It seems as if the US wants to call itself a “melting pot” or a “racial quilt” but wants to be able to pick what ingredients go into the pot or what fabric is used in the quilt.

Why is that?