Nathan Keith

Professor Maenhardt

Engl 1050

July 28, 2017

Diversity Issues Reflection

Class has an extremely important effect on the way that ethnic and cultural

groups treat each other and is a major factor in how they interact, including in how they

accept each other and how they view the foreign culture.

Immigrants have been most affected by discrimination by class (in particular,

immigrants to America throughout history), since they are often very poor and are

coming to America to escape the poverty and despair of their mother country, which

means they are of a very low class. In More Than Just a Shrine, by Mary Gordon, the

author describes the brutal conditions that immigrants endured in order to have only a

chance at entering the country, being tested and inspected and whisked around like

cattle being handpicked for a show. Much of the inspection process was biased in ways

that were biased against the lower class, including being required to have financial

solvency, the ability to read, and good health, all things that the poor immigrants may

not currently possess but are coming to America in hope of obtaining (Gordon). Much of

this is also true for Chinese immigrants who came to America for work, desperate for

any pay to help them make it by in a world that was unforgiving to the helpless and

weak. Though Angel Island took in only a fraction of the number of immigrants that went

through Ellis Island, the stories of the immigrants are not any less significant. Written all
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over the walls and floors of the buildings in Chinese calligraphy, the story is forever

etched into the heart of the island, with one immigrant writing, The barbarians' abuse is

really difficult to take. When my family's circumstances stir my emotions, a double

stream of tears flow (First Poem).

European and Asian immigrants during the early twentieth century were not the

only ones to be discriminated against by their class. Mexican immigrants have endured

a lot of hardships because of their class, many of whom just want to have a job to

provide for their family. Passport Photos also gave some insights into how class

affects how we are treated. It tells of a sign along the US-Mexican border cautioning

Americans to beware of people crossing the road while prohibiting Mexicans and

warning them to leave (Kumar). Very blatantly, it is discriminating against the

lower-class Mexicans, forced by their situation to try to flee to America, only to be

rejected and unwanted. In response to this in our week 6 classroom discussion, Ridg

Ogao rightly pointed out how much Mexicans are victims to a bias towards Americans

that many people are not even aware of, since many Americans would not be able to

read the Spanish version of the sign and see the difference. We all need to be more

aware of how what we do has an effect on those we are around because we are often

unaware of those we are hurting through our unintentional discrimination.

Another way we can unintentionally hurt those of a lower class is through slum

tourism. Slumdog Tourism spoke of those who visit the slums just to see how the

poverty-stricken live, often with no regard for how that makes the people in the slums

feel (Odede). Being constantly seen as inferior by others has extremely negative effects
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on their self-perception and beings to lock them into the situation they are in, making

them feel helpless. People are willing to go around photographing everything they see

while the people they are photographing sit frozen in fear and shame.

How people are treated is extremely important because we are affected by

everything that we experience, even something as simple as food. What Americans

can learn from other food cultures, by Amy Choi, speaks of how ones class affects

what one eats. For example, the upper class in China was able to display their status by

eating expensive dishes, such as birds nest soup, while the poor ate rice and other

cheap and bland food (Choi). Their class has a huge effect on what experiences they

have and the quality of life that they experience.

Im not trying to argue that class is the base factor for all discrimination, or even

for any of it, only that it is a significant contributing factor. Had the Irish, and the

Chinese, and the Mexican immigrants been wealthy and well-read, perhaps Americans

would have looked past their cultural differences and more easily learned how to accept

them and others, even if they are different in the most significant ways. Perhaps if we

were to change our attitude of class from seeing it as an indication of ones abilities to

seeing it as an indication of ones situation, then maybe we would better understand our

responsibility and duty to accept those around us and to welcome them, to not shame

the poverty-stricken, and to do our best to lift those around us so that all of us can be

raised higher.

This class has helped me to better understand diversity in many ways. This class

has helped me develop a better understanding of diversity by rhetorically analyzing How

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to Tame a Wild Tongue, as well as by analyzing the diversity issue of class in essay 2

through various texts and images and by connecting the two together. Essay 2 also

helped me to develop my ability to synthesize texts and images to develop arguments.

In the presentation portion of essay 2, I connected a half-dozen pictures regarding

immigration, culture, and relationships between classes to my argument that class has a

major influence in how ethnic and cultural groups are treated by others, which will

forever influence how I view the motives behind interaction between cultures. Perhaps

the most important way that this class has influenced me is how what I have learned in

this class relates to the rest of my college education at SLCC. In my Introduction to

Writing class, we also had a major writing assignment about rhetorical analysis, which

gave me a basis for my understanding of rhetorical analysis as it relates to diversity. My

Introduction to Writing class allowed me to learn how to better express myself in my

writing and to more critically analyze how what I am learning about has an effect on me.

For example, the independent explore project that we did in that class helped me to

apply what I learned about motivation to my life, which has helped me to better apply all

that I learn about diversity to my life.

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Works Cited

Choi, Amy S. "What Americans can learn from other food cultures." Ted Ideas. N.p., 03

Jan. 2016. Web. July 2017.

<http://ideas.ted.com/what-americans-can-learn-from-other-food-cultures/>.

"First Poem." Pacific Link: The KQED Asian Education Initiative. KQED, n.d. Web. July

2017. <http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/history/angelisland/poetry/one.html>.

Gordon, Mary. "More Than Just a Shrine." The New York Times. The New York Times,

02 Nov. 1985. Web. July 2017.

<http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/03/magazine/more-than-just-a-shrine.html>.

Kumar, Amitava. Passport Photos. Reading Culture. Print. July 2017.

Odede, Kennedy. "Slumdog Tourism." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09

Aug. 2010. Web. July 2017.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.html>.