Justin Morales
Response paper 7
My first recollection of race had to be of when I made my first friend at the age of 5. My first friend was my next door neighbor in Jersey City and he happened to be a white boy. His name is Greg or what the other kids and I called him Rico like rice. He couldn’t really relate his home to us other kids who would have pernile and arrozz con gandules at home for dinner. Instead he would eat baked potato and chicken. Some other Hispanics on the block were white too but we came to realize they were just white babies, we really understood our differences because his house didn’t smell like there was food being cooked all the time and his parents were really nice quiet kind of people around us. The recollection of finding out about race through Greg or (Rico) helped me find out about my own race. Even though I grew in a more Hispanic background from time to time I would get thrown in the mix with my Filipino cousins and just wonder why they were so quiet. At the age of 9 I determined the difference of the two sides of my family and realized my race as a Hispanic Asian. This gave me an idea of what ethnicity was when we would talk about it during geography, a class part of third grade. My family that had an Asian ethnicity was much more quiet people who prided school work and money. Although growing up more around my Hispanic ethnicity I was open to hanging out in the streets, experimenting at an early age, speaking Spanish and just more loud and carefree people. When it comes down to ethnicity my mother always told me I was more Asian than Hispanic because I came from her. As far as that idea goes for me after reading this chapter I don’t think she was completely correct.
Race or ethnicity in the United States is used more or less to separate people or bring them together. Race and ethnicity in majority situations I think people have witnessed is in the eyes of prejudice. People have seen the use of race or ethnicity from certain people to separate themselves from other races or ethnic groups. Some white parents will take their kids out from the park if an African American woman comes with their child. Or some people tend to feel uncomfortable being on planes around Middle Eastern people. Although like in college where people are more educated on prejudice and understanding of costumes, races, and ethnicities they use these ideas in ways of making their own race or ethnicity stronger. In universities they try to pull together their own races and ethnicities to become more social within each other because they can relate to each other backgrounds or feel comfortable speaking the same language and feel more at home. Also we relate race and ethnicity with money in this country. People tend to make big assumptions if you see a darker man with money in a more urban city, although the view of a white man with a lot of money or Asian is not looked upon more questionable. The knowledge I have based upon in this course gives me more of an interactionist perspective about race and ethnicity. My views have changed although not changed much. My understandings of my race when I was a little boy happen to be correct just by noticing the different ways of living from me, my other friend, and the white boy. Now I see race as more of a whole while ethnicity is just one more dividing factor behind that whole.
