Stratified Melting Pot

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/11/14/the-new-u-s-racial-ideology/

The racial divide that was once so clearly black and white has now shifted with the new waves of immigrants to the US.  Following changes and new allowances of immigrants, greater numbers of people started to immigrate to the US from Hispanic and Asian lands.  The browns and yellows have put the black and white system in flux as the bigots do not know how to classify them. Population growth has shown rise in sectors that are neither white nor black.  Jennifer Lee proposes a new system that does not base race off of white or not white, but rater black non-black.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/11/07/spanish-and-english-versions-of-a-public-advisory/

In attempts to accommodate growing populations of languages other than English, signs such as these have been erected in public places.  Interestingly enough, people speaking one language may not readily interpret the other.  Bilingual speakers, on the other hand, find messages to be misleading.  Translations in this instance are not only inaccurate; the messages have totally different meanings.  In Spanish it reads:

“Notice to the Public: Please, we need your cooperation.  Help us to maintain this clean historical museum.  All of the people who com and visit, abstain from taking anything, cutting or writing names on the cacti.  Also no eating, no drinking, no smoking, no taking shells from this whole visiting area. No admittance for children without being accompanied by an adult.”

It is important to note that there are grammatical errors in the Spanish as well as the English.  It seems as though whoever wrote the notices was not highly educated in either language. Making whites look bad to Spanish and Spanish look bad to whites.
I feel that since the museum is located in the US it is uncustomary to have the English below the Spanish.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/11/18/when-both-sides-arent-enough-reporting-on-weavers-blackface-pic/

A Halloween costume goes too far.  A white female Republican of Tennessee was greatly criticized by the media and surrounding black community for her photo taken with friend, a white pastor in black make-up, on Halloween.  Following her facebook upload and quote of the photo (“Aunt Jemima You is So Sweet”).  The inappropriateness of her comment and of the decision of the pastor to dress up as a black man were ridiculed by the outlying black community.  Apparently the woman meant no harm, but the interpretation was not taking so sweetly by other political members.

Defining people by their place of origin and skin color is such a commonplace practice here in the US and throughout the rest of the world.

The dominant ideology in the US has put Caucasians and their beliefs on a pedastal above the others.  Today the data is hard to shirk.  It is unrealistic to see whites as a majority when the “minority” populations are soaring.  Elements of uneducated assumptions are relevant in the case of the misinterpreted Spanish/English public notices as well as the misunderstood politician whom posed with her friend on Halloween.  There is a culture lag amongst the languages of communication here in the US.  Not only is there not a dominant language, the messages communicated through the means of different languages allow for different interpretations of messages. Although the example at the museum is minor, it only opens my mind to imagine what else there is that is not properly translated.

Human rights are exploited through many types of discrimination and abuse.  Migration of minority groups allows for the patterns of exploitation to follow them from their homeland.  The development of multinational corporations has opened up new means of discrimination, from skin, ethnicity, socioeconomic scale, and language.  Today as a nation we struggle to differentiate one from another.  We create borders and break down information to set us all apart when we really need to work together.

Never Date Your Boss' Daughter

When Ken moved to town, he moved to the other side of the world.  Everything changed, though not much was different.  Driving over the mountain was not an easy task, Ken nearly lost his life.  He managed to make it over and landed in Makiki.  Oftentimes the occurrences in his life seem like sheer providence, it is easy to see how small decisions can make a big impact on a life. Moving to town was certainly one of those highlighted moments for Ken. 

            Immediately following his migration over the Ko‘olau’s, Ken is following the path of his mothers dream.  He conforms to her hopes of seeing him receive a collegiate education.  Studious and hardworking, he landed a minimum wage job at the KCC Library to help offset his expenses.  Ken cut was two months shy of his associate’s degree when he found himself in Mama-San’s Club Mirage.  The display of his ‘heroic’ actions by saving the dancer from the Samoan was the deal clincher that landed him a job working at the club.

            There are direct ties that display Ken’s strong sense of familism.  He acts out in ways similar to that show his sense of obligation to his mother and father.  The desire to make his parents proud.  Ken has strong cultural ties to his Japanese heritage.  He is proud to be Japanese and his painting of Miyamoto Musashi screams it. 

            The sense of family loyalty is something that I can relate with.   Parents instill within their children that their progeny will do better, be more successful; or at least my parents did.  My mom told me that she will know that she is a good mom when her children all have bachelor’s degrees.  Each of my parents went to college and they believe that their children need to as well to establish any kind of credible career in the ‘real world’. 

            Ken worked his way up the class system while working at Mirage.  He started as a bouncer and worked his way up to doing some loan collections from bankrupt business owners.  He would beat people but never killed, that was left up to “the evil-looking Koreans Mama-san owned” (116).  Reconnecting with his old drug dealer, Freddie, Ken made capital by skimming from the top.  Parties, drugs, and sex consumed Ken’s newfound lifestyle.  His once scholastic endeavors were cut away as his books were hollowed out to store the hundreds of thousands of dollars that filtered through his hands.  There were no limits to his lifestyle, not even intimidation from the law; as two of Club Mirage’s regulars were a couple of Honolulu’s finest.

            Desensitized to the world around and the norms that barely ever existed for Ken.  His lifestyle of luxury stemmed from deviant acts of all sorts, he was just another branch on the tree. Ken’s behavior follows a pattern of cultural transmission.  He learned how to behave in his environment from the criminal behaviors that he experienced through social interaction. Ken became a product of his environment. 

            The rules of the land did not stop either.  Once he started dating Claudia, he seemed to lose motivation and interest in his work.  Claudia took up much of Ken’s time, thoughts and energy.  There is, however, an informal norm that Ken and Claudia did not take seriously, NEVER DATE YOUR BOSS’ DAUGHTER. The fairytale quickly came to an end.  As Ken said himself he was “knighted into a kingdom [he] was not born into” (115). Though he gained some prestige by moving up in the ranks, he would never be a part of the family.  He would never be Korean, and as Claudia explained the long term diplomatic history between Korea and Japan was not such a pretty one.  Ken could never be part of the in-group.

            Claudia’s pregnancy and relationship with Ken almost cost him his life.  The ties of a mother and daughter were clearly demonstrated here.  Claudia’s esteem and confidence seem to be better understood after this.  She must have known that her mother’s daughter could not be touched.  If I walked around knowing my mom had a few hit men that had my back I would be just as confident and fearless.

            Ken’s life is full of social variety.  The culture of Club Mirage is a world of its own.  There are norms and mores that follow their behavior and actions. The vigilant, Mafioso style takes things into their own hands.  Trust is within the group, outsiders walk a thin line.