3rd Boom and Bust Journal

Assignment #2:
A typical day as a Mexican working in a sweatshop would be awful. I would wake up early, and eat a very small breakfast, that probably wouldn't even satisfy me. I would then walk to the sweatshop, which is potentially miles away from my home, in the scorching sun, and start my day.
I imagine it would be in a large, industrial like building with very few windows and poor ventilation. The air would be stuffy and very warm because of the machinery. Due to the walk and the now warm air, my forehead would be slightly perspiring.
I would take my place at a station and start my day. The hours would be arduous and dull. My back would ache from the hard concrete floor and my head would hurt from the heat and the heat from the strain of the machinery. I would be exhausted by lunchtime.
A short reprieve would be offered around noon, and eventually a short siesta. These two things would help to break up the day and make things go more quickly. The siesta would seem far too short.
At the end of a long, exhausting day, I would trek home. I would have earned a dollar or two, and could probably not even feel the weight of it in my pocket. I imagine going home and having to look into the eyes of your family and tell them that you worked hard all day, and still could not afford to feed them.
It would be a really depressing life. The difficulties that these workers are facing everyday is very disheartening. We talked about in class how this is necessary for a country to grow, but there has to be another way to handle it than this.

2nd Boom and Bust Journal

Assignment #1: The assembly line.
Before Ford revolutionized industries across America, people could not make things cheaply. The goods were normally made piece by piece, by workers who had to work on every piece of one job. I think that the assembly line really changed things. It helped factories to mass-produce everyday things, and make them much more cheaply.
The benefits of the assembly line can still be seen today. Without the assembly line, the cost of almost everything you buy would greatly increase. The assembly line helps to regulate cost and produce lots of the same thing. I would have to pay a lot more for everyday items without the assembly line.
It has also opened up jobs, and that is important in today's economy. Assembly lines help people to specialize in one particular area. All of these are reasons as to why the assembly line was important, and how it has affected my life.

1st Boom and Bust Journal

Assignment Journal #5:
Food is an essential part of everyone's life. Food is especially essential to me. I don't eat that much, but I do eat a lot of good stuff. I know it may seem silly, but I really do believe that I would have the most difficult time not eating enough food, and not eating enough healthy food.
During the Depression it was really difficult to get enough money to buy healthy food. Right now, we are experiencing similar problems because the cost of food is so high, especially for produce. The nutrients obtained from eating fruits and vegetables weren't gotten during this time.
I think that the type of food you eat really does effect your day to day life. You will have more energy, a better attitude, and lots of other benefits of from eating healthy. The Great Depression was already a very hard time for people, and this would make it a lot harder for me and I would miss it a lot.

8th Equality Journal

I have always had qualms about the death penalty being used in the United States. I am a Christian, and I read the Bible and believe in what it says. One of the things that the Bible says is that every sin is the same. This is such a hard concept for me to grasp, and I've always struggling with understanding it. In my eyes, a child molester and a pickpocket aren't exactly comparable. But I do think about this idea when I'm looking at crimes that go on around me everyday.
The problem with the death penalty is it's one man deciding another man's fate. They're pretty much saying that the person convicted isn't fit, or equal to live. I can't believe that in our society we allow this type of judgement! Who is the government to tell someone that what they did was so awful that they're taking their life away. I think its a really tough issue facing present America.
We are all equal in the eyes of the government and I really don't think that one person's life is less valuable just because they did some atrocious act once in their life. I do believe that people can change. No matter their past holds.

7th Equality Journal

Last Tuesday night I went to this thing at the Kutztown Tavern called Theology on Tap. It's a thing that this church group does once a month. They have a prominent person come in and talk about something relating to theology. It is a lot like church.
Well last week after the leader was done talking he opened the floor up for discussion and a middle aged woman at the table next to me raised her hand. She started talking about she had been a teacher for 12 years at a private school and taught all college level classes to "gifted" highschool students. She said she liked her job, but was looking for something new. So she got a new job. She became a tenth grade english teacher at an urban school (she didn't mention the name). She taught one class that consisted of tenth grade boys who all had a parole officer. She admitted that at first she was very anxious about teaching this class of boys, but she did it anyway.
When she got past the initial difference between the public school and the private school, she started to realize what fabulous kids she was teaching. They started reading Macbeth, and she said that she enjoyed teaching it so much more to this class, rather than the private school kids, because they understood the emotions in the story so much better. She said that they were so much responsive to the learning and actually valued the information, not just the grade.
While she was teaching this class she came to admire one boy in particular. She said that he was a fabulous writer and everything he wrote she holds very dear to her heart. One day the teachers were alerted that a child was selling drugs in school and the cops were called in. It turned out that the boy selling the drugs was the boy in her class that she liked so much.
He wasn't in her class at the time that the cops came in, but when the cops came for him he said that he would like to make use of his one call. He said he wanted to go see Mrs. Henry (the teacher). He walked into her classroom, an African American, 6'2, 10th grade boy, with shackles around his wrists and surrounded by two policeman, and walked straight up to her at the front of the class and collapsed into her arms. He was sobbing. He told her he was so so so sorry for letting her down like this. He promised her that nothing like that would ever happen again, and reiterated that he was very sorry. She looked him in the eye and told him that the only person he was letting down was himself, because, "you have so much good inside of you...you have so much potential to do good..." she told him.
I think that this is an extremely compelling story. When she said this I really did have tears in my eyes, which says a lot because I don't cry easily. This goes along with equality and respect theme that I've been talking about a lot. You know that the students she was teaching prior to this 10th grade class had very few educational opportunities compared to the students she had been teaching. This is so sad because the lady recognized that these children were just as apt to learn and succeed as the others, they just didn't have the chance to. I really wonder that if that boy would have gone to school at the private school and had those types of opportunities if he would be in the same place that he is in today.

6th Equality Journal

Our class discussion today brought up some interesting thoughts, especially regarding cultural differences. I mentioned this a little bit in one of my other journals, but I have some more thoughts on it now.
I made a comment about respecting other people's cultures and how if we all did this, we wouldn't have these stereotypes. I realize it is pretty naive of me to think that everyone could be respectful, but I can dare to hope.
If every person was raised to be respectful and understanding, our world would be totally different. Even if we didn't agree with other cultures, we could agree to respect them. This sense of respect would help to bring everyone to "find the common stake" that connects us all. Because, after all, "Nothing good ever came out of hate."

5th Equality Journal

When we went to the Holocaust symposium and split up into our discussion groups, we had to go around in a circle and say our names and informally introduce ourselves. We then did some activities to reflect on our lives and see how many of us regarded stereotypes and stuff like that. The discussion leader would say a statement/question and if it applied to us we would stand up.
One of the questions was, "Have you ever been treated differently because of your gender, race, religion, or other?" A couple people stood up across the room and said why/how they had been discriminated against. One young man stood up and said that he was mistreated often because he was a homosexual. The whole group got so quiet when he said this, it was crazy! Just that one little sentence, and the huge affect it had on our little group! Needless to say, it really caused a stir and you could visibly see on people's faces if they were "o.k." with this or not.
Last Saturday night I went to the musical at Wilson with a friend of mine. We got our tickets and sat down and shortly after two young women sat down in front of us. In a very short time, it became obvious that they were lesbians. This didn't bother me at all, but it had a slightly different affect on my friend.
We're talking about treating people differently because of all their race, gender, religion, and all sorts of things, but we haven't talked about this. I think its because it is such a heated debate in our society right now.
What really makes me think is when this negativity towards homosexuals will be gone... Women had their movement, blacks had their movement, lots of races have endured discriminations and made it through, so when are we going to see this issue become just another list of prejudices of our past?

4th Equality Journal

I have been trying to think of things in Berks County that cause racial dissension. I came up with a couple ideas, but one of the things I couldn't get out of my head was the Fairgrounds Mall versus the Berkshire Mall.
Both malls have a very poor selection of stores, but looking at them from a racial standpoint, they are totally different! The Fairgrounds Mall tends to attract Hispanics and people of varying descent. The Berkshire Mall tends to attract white, suburban families.
Different groups of people going to different malls really isn't a problem, if it is by choice. The problem arises when people start viewing the malls as lesser or better than the other mall. I'd bet that if you asked everyone in our history class which mall they go to they would say the Berkshire Mall. The Fairgrounds Mall is kind of scary, I'm not going to lie. Whenever I go there I get hit on by some creepy Mexican. But other than that, why do I just accept this idea that the Fairgrounds Mall is a worse mall than the Berkshire?
It definitely comes down to race, as much as I don't like to admit it. Different malls attract different people, and most people in our class don't want to be associated with those different people.

3rd Equality Journal/Native American Journal

I have always been extremely interested in Native Americans and the history that exists between the colonization of America and Native Americans. I researched specifically the Battle at Wounded Knee and talked about that. After I read and learned more about the story, I watched the movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which was also extremely moving.
It's hard to understand how the immigrants coming to America at the time of colonization thought that they had rights to the land, when it wasn't there's! They just immediately assumed that they were more powerful than the Indians, and could push them around right off of their land!
I'm not naive enough to believe that the indians just rolled over and allowed the colonists to take their land, but they were the underdogs. The indians had no guns to defend themselves with. Arrows are a formiddable weapon, but they don't compare to the power that a gun can contain.
The particular thing that I studied, the Battle at Wounded Knee, all took place because of a cultural difference. The indians were participating in a "ghost dance", and this made the army surrounding the indians nervous. This kind of makes me think that maybe most of the racial inequalities are based on cultural differences.
The indians made us nervous because they had different methods of survival and a completely different culture. If we had been accepting of them from the beginning, and learned to appreciate and respect their way of life, would we have the problems that we had with them? Or would we have assimilated rather than practically exterminate the indians?
None of these questions can be answered exactly, but it does make you think about the current times and what we can be doing now to prevent something like this from happening again.

Equality Journal 2

I'm taking Ideas and Arts of Western Civilizations this semester. The past couple of chapters have been focusing on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. It's amazing to me how long women have been viewed as the lesser of the two sexes.
From the early B.C.'s until today women are still fighting to truly be viewed equal to their male counterparts. We have been fighting for a voice since the beginning of time! This isn't right! Why have we consistently been the people to not be heard and be overlooked?
In ancient Greece there was a famous poet named Sappho. People say she was an extraordinary poet, and she was. Her love poems were extremely beautiful and moving. If she was such an incredible poet, however, why is she not as popular as ancient male writers such as Virgil and Homer? I believe it's because she's a woman.
It's strange to me how the whole idea of female inferiority developed. Why, since the beginning of time, have we been viewed as weaker (mentally and physically) than men? I am proud to be a girl, and I think that depending on the career I choose, it could be more difficult for me to succeed than a boy in my shoes, but it's something I'm willing to work for.
By saying all of these things I feel almost less feminine. Our society teaches us that our femininity relies on the way we curl our hair, bat our eyelashes, and pose in our size 0 dress, so can we really be feminine while still maintaining our equality? Can we be domineering career women while still being the pretty housewife that comes home every night and makes dinner?
Most of these questions can't be answered directly. Different ideas can be discussed, but a right answer really isn't out there. I think it's something I'll have to grow into to discover...

1st Equality Journal

On Saturday, February 28 I went to New York. New York is a really bustling city, and you encounter a lot of different people. When your walking down the street you talk to a lot of people and lots of people approach you to ask you questions. While I was walking around the streets I observed many things. The whole experience really made me think about how even though all of our citizens are considered equal, there are still definite class levels.

In big cities there are a lot more homeless people. I saw at least five different homeless people throughout the day. Four out of the five people were not Caucasian. This is a really small sample of people, but this does pose a question: why are less homeless people white? This is a really stereotypical question, but there does appear to be a trend.

The one homeless man was holding a sign that said, "buy me a beer man!" This made me really angry. Honestly, when I give a homeless person money, I expect them to spend it on alcohol or some type of drug, I do hope this isn't true though. For a man to sit there and blatantly ask for money to feed his expensive addiction is ridiculous! It's hard to think of everyone being equal when this man is clearly advocating a lower level of life.

Sometimes I think that equality is a really difficult thing. I do feel equal to most of society. But sometimes, I have a hard time feeling equal to everyone. Some people, like the homeless people I mentioned earlier, don't seem to care that they haven't done anything with their lives. They are a totally different class of people than I am. So, the question remains, are people really equal?