Week 6

I truly enjoyed reading the article “The Intersection of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in ldentity Development of Caribbean American Teens” by Mary C. Waters. 

I am a Life Science major and to tell you honestly I am always nervous when it comes to reading scientific papers.  This is the first time that I am reading research papers on topics other than science.  You can imagine by nervousness quadrupled when I read these “non-science” research papers.  This one paper made a lot of sense and was quite conclusive based on the data collected.  I didn’t quite understand why the Immigrant-Identified group was excluded while comparing the other groups viz. Ethnic Identified and American Identified.

The paper mentions girl’s population not being affected by feelings of racism as much as the boy’s population.  Girls seem to adjust well and adapt well to the bicultural identity.  I was also delighted to read about girls from the Ethnic Identified group that took pride in their heritage.  They seemed not to have friction with their strict parents.  These girls also intended to raise their children the way their own parent raised them.  This was quite impressive to me.  Personally, I have come across adolescent girls of Indian origin, raised in the US, quite respectful towards their Indian identity. 

This article also made me think of the book that I read last week by Gilligan, In a Different Voice.  The book compares Girl development with Boys development.  It makes me wonder if I can apply the same findings to this article.  Girls tend to be less violent and more adjusting.  Based on Waters article I felt that when it came to Identity development, girls are more condescending and more accepting.  They are able to have a bicultural identity without any regret.

Personally, I see myself as Ethnic Indentified, definitely not Immigrant Identified since it has been many years since I settled in the US and I appreciate some of the freedom that the US offers.  My eight year old daughter who was born in the US doesn’t have an identity yet.  She is in the process of developing one.   But I want to share this that I tend to be a strict parent and one time my daughter was quite upset by the way I talked to her.  She expected more politeness in my tone.  She also felt that I gave her less freedom.  There was one time that she threatened me with “I will run away to an American Parent”.  At the end I ponder over the questions, “Is there truly an American Life Style?”  and “is there truly an American Culture?”  Isn’t America supposed to be a melting pot?

Week 3

This week’s blog post has my own experience as an English Language Learner.  I could relate to the article, Effective Strategies for Developing Academic English: Professional Development and Teacher Practices, Erica Bowers; Shanan Fitts; Mathew Quirk; Woo Jung, California State University, Appalachian State University, University of California, Online publication date: 27 April 2010.

I got my basic education in India.  My schooling up to grade ten was at a private school and the medium of instruction was my native language.  There are many different languages in India - 22 official languages and several hundred dialects.  So while growing up in India, I would come across students learning in other languages.  I knew that I might have problems in college and if I chose to pursue higher education.  Since India was a British colony till 1947 the medium of education in most of the institutions of higher education is English. In any case, once I finished tenth grade I started junior college (equivalent to 11^th and 12^th grade here in US).  In junior college everything was in English.  I still remember the first day of junior college.  There were some students like me that went to a vernacular medium school (schools that operated in native language were called vernacular medium schools). However, I felt that everyone around me was proficient in English and that I would not do well academically.  Even though both of my parents spoke English and I considered myself pretty good in English I was extremely disheartened to the extent that I came home and cried for a long time. Later that year, I made friends and overall my junior college years were lot of fun. But I will never forget that first day of junior college when I felt so helpless. 

Now to relate to this article, I must mention one wonderful teacher.  She was our teacher for English tutorials.  This tutorial class met once in two weeks.  There were no exams or grades attached to it.  The day I met the teacher, I fell in love with her - she so boosted my confidence.  She frequently mentioned that it was alright to be a vernacular medium student and there is no way you should feel less about yourself.  She corrected our verbal English and gave tips on written English.  Unfortunately, this was not a full fledged course so some of my fellow classmates didn’t take it seriously.  I thoroughly admired the teacher.  She was a confident person and willing to help us.  Many years later, when I visited my junior college after finishing my Bachelor’s degree in science, I met her.  I thanked her for all her help during those junior college years.  She had almost forgotten me but her eyes did light up upon hearing me confidently speak in English.

The other comment I have for this week is on Paul Chavez’s interview in Chapter 7: Toward an Understanding of School Achievement of the book Affirming Diversity by Sonia Nieto.  I was saddened to learn about the circumstances that Paul Chavez went through in his early adolescent years.  It was interesting to learn about his feelings towards the school and the teachers in his life.  In spite of some teachers that were racist in their behavior he truly liked one teacher.   Paul went through a rough childhood and yet he was optimistic about his future.  He had faith in himself.  He felt confident that one day he would be out of the gang and he would have a better future.  He was aware that the path he had chosen in his earlier life was not leading anywhere.  He understood the concept of religion, faith and education.  His father was an alcoholic and yet, his father indicated the significance of education.  I was very touched when Paul expressed his love for his mother while being candid enough to share that he couldn’t explicitly show his affection to his mother.

Week 2

The book “Children of Immigrants” is a very comprehensive description of immigrants and their problems.  I could totally relate to a lot of the problems.  In fact for a moment I thought if this is my life story.  The examples and ideas were not only related to me but also my immediate and extended family.  The book focused mainly on Hispanic Population; a population that migrated as students in the 80s and 90s as well as a population that migrated as working professionals.  Now there is a vast difference between people that migrated based on family relations and the one migrated for professional reasons or for achieving higher education. 

I can see how a lot of immigrants come for the benefits of healthcare system and the advantages associated with it.  I have also heard of cases where parents from India visiting their children didn’t purchase insurance and when they fell sick, the burden of paying for their care either fell on the children or the medical establishment. 

Immigrants tend to have better health and they remain generally healthy.  One would think that US has one of the highest standards of hygiene in the world.  So why are the natives not healthier?  My experience says that people of other developing countries don’t have such strict standards as far as hygiene goes.  The immigrants are used to eating food that is not perfectly germ free.  The immigrants have had some childhood diseases like mumps, measles and have developed immunity to those diseases.  In the US infants are bombarded with all the immunizations and the children don’t get a chance to develop their immune systems.  My personal experience says that when I visit India, I tend to fall sick unless I watch what I eat and drink. 

Ethnic Identity Development and Multicultural Education: Ethnic identity is a slow process.  It is imperative for one to identify with one’s ethnicity.  It is also important to get rid of any negative feelings that come with ethnic identity.  You are what you are; one shouldn’t feel ashamed of one’s identity and roots.  Instead one should feel pride associated with one’s heritage and culture.  If a person has had positive feelings or experiences with his/her ethnic identity then that person can derive strength in times of oppression or discrimination.  I was intrigued by the comparison of “being” and “becoming”.  It is something that I had never come across before.  It is so natural for us to take the American norms as the way of life.  It is similar to the old adage that “when in Rome you act like Roman”.   When I was in India and even in my initial years in America I used to hear from my family the term “Americanized”.  Obviously, my Indian family didn’t quite like the idea of me getting converted to an American way of life.  After all, my culture is very different from the Western culture or at least it was when I first arrived.  The Indian culture is no longer what it was like when I was growing up.  India is in the midst of Westernization where some of the traditional values are fading.  I think, people do want to preserve their culture but it does get diluted as time goes by.  If we don’t make an attempt to preserve some cultural values, customs and traditions then it is bound to decay in due course of time.  I am trying to pass on my language to my daughter and I am finding it quite challenging.  She wants to be part of the main stream culture and sometimes expresses it blatantly.  However, she does make an attempt which is encouraging.  She has not completely given up and I will keep trying that she imbibes some of the culture that I grew up with.  I truly appreciate the author’s idea of having multicultural education as the center piece of education and that it should be taught directly and deliberately.

I enjoyed reading Hollins’ article Relating Ethnic and Racial Identity Development to Teaching.  I could relate to some of the traits that he explains.  Ideally, I’d like to become a Type III teacher per his description.  I see myself enjoying teaching even though I tend to get nervous and flustered - I can work on that.  The article also emphasizes multicultural awareness and how significant it is in today’s diverse demography.