Welcome to Fredonia

Welcome To Fredonia

Rebecca Shulman

 

            Here I am. I’ve finally made it. I have been working so hard for this! My entire life has been filled with so much time spent studying, analyzing, crafting, and working just to get to these next four years, where I will put all that I have ever learned into my work here, at SUNY Fredonia.

“Honey, are you excited?” My mom asked, turning around to meet my gaze with this nervous grin that seemed to be plastered on her face for the entire week.

“Yeah!” There is no way she is as nervous as me right now, right?

As I stared at the buildings that passed by my window, everything seemed so different from the last time I was here to visit for the campus tour during spring semester. I remember I was nervous then, too, but I knew that at that point I was going back home with my family. This time there was a very unsettling kind of feeling that just sat and festered inside my stomach. A sense of self-doubt, questioning whether this was really okay for me and if this was the right place stayed in the back of my mind. As the car made a right into the entrance, we passed a sign that read “WELCOME TO FREDONIA”, and I began to think about what got me to where I am.

I was in my room, flipping through the numerous college pamphlets I had picked up the night before at our annual college fair that was held in our main auditorium. Colors of every shade popped out as I walked in with my friends, and all of the sounds reverberated off of the walls as people were joyously talking back and forth. I obviously had no idea what I was thinking when I entered that room, because I ended up coming home with every single piece of paper that I could find. People handed me things left and right, whether it was a pen with the school logo on it, or a piece of gum. I filled my bag to the brim of what seemed to be pointless information. I spent forever trying to talk to as many school representatives as I could, but reading through all of the information I had collected, I couldn’t decide what I wanted.

What were my parents thinking? Is college really the right choice for me? As I tossed Mount Saint Mary’s portfolio towards the wall, I threw my hands in the air. How am I going to decide which school is right for me when I don’t even know what I want to do with myself? How does anyone expect me to understand what I want to do with my life when I’m only seventeen? Sure, some people know that they want to be a teacher, or a doctor, or a veterinarian. That’s not me! Was this seriously going to be my fate? Graduate high school and have nowhere to go? Maybe I’d work at the local grocery store as the stores clerk, or become a janitor mopping the floors all day long. I’ll watch everyone else succeed as I sweep the garbage, praying that this minimum wage job would get me by with Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner and water for the rest of my life.

When I was younger I always had everything handed to me, as if I didn’t have to do anything to deserve it. I lived on a schedule during my days in elementary school, where I would walk to school with my paper bag lunch, go home at the sound of the last bell to do my homework, and dinner was always on the table at 6:30. I never felt as though I was expected to do anything. I mostly expected others to do everything for me. I expected teachers to teach me, I expected my mom to fill my stomach with good food, I expected my brothers to play with me, and I expected my dad to tuck me into bed. Thinking back on it now, did they expect me to just understand what this drastic change was going to be like?

Then there was high school. Everyone I had talked to about high school before I entered the ninth grade always told me that these four years were going to be the best years of my life. As a freshman you were looked down on as the “freshies” or “fresh meat,” and the seniors you knew growing up would pick on you. I enjoyed my time being in high school because I always kept myself involved. I obviously hadn’t put a lot of thought into the fact that my leaving home and going to college was going to be a pretty big step. In fact, thinking about it now, it is probably one of the biggest turns that I will ever take. What would the seniors do there? Were they going to pick on me all over again, even though I wouldn’t know a single one of them?

            WELCOME TO FREDONIA. I snapped back to the reality of my situation instantly, as we passed by yet another sign, along with one next to it that read “Welcome back students!” My dad pulled up behind a blue Toyota Rav4 that I noticed was waiting patiently to be directed to their dorm building by what seemed to be a group of students. I saw the girl in the passenger seat ahead give a smile and wave kindly, as she rolled up her window as they carried onto their journey ahead, slowly moving forward down the road. My dad pulled up to the stop sign as my mom pushed down on the window key letting the fresh air blast through the crack. As my mom asked for directions, I pulled my Ipod out of my pocket and hit PAUSE, taking my ear buds out one at a time so I could listen.

            “Hemingway? You make a right here and you can follow this road till you get to the second stop sign. Make a right, then a left, and it’ll be just a little ways down the road on your left.” One of the girls in the group handed my mom a pamphlet that had a picture of the clock tower on the front. My mom opened it, and looked at the map for a brief second. “You’ll see cars parked on the lawn, and we have campus police to escort you where you’ll be able to park. Good luck!”

            As my dad let go of the break pedal, we inched forward; turning right and following those few simple directions that helped us finally reach our destination. What if people, like teachers or world leaders, gave us the wrong information? If all of the time put into our studies weren’t worth it, how would we know? It’s as simple as giving someone the wrong directions to a certain destination. If when we arrived to Fredonia, and that girl had told us the directions to another building, we would instantly know she was wrong because we would have ended up at the wrong place. But how would we know the information that others are giving us could be misleading?

“Hi there. What can I help you with?” The woman gave us a welcoming smile, as my dad sat down on one of the chairs while my mom and I stood by the counter of the office.

“Yes. We have to pay for a meal plan, and we were wondering how much it would cost to have a debit plan as well.”

As I let my mom handle the money situation, I surveyed both the Debit and Meal Plan brochures that they had sprawled along the counter in front of us. I never realized how expensive college was going to be until I started to plan where it was that I wanted to go.

“Okay. So, Becca, have you decided on what schools you are thinking you want to apply to?” I was sitting in my advisors office during my fourth period lunch. I thought it would be a good idea to talk to him about my ideas and see if he had any that I didn’t while I still had some time.

“I didn’t think about the fact of whether or not I could afford it.” I looked up only to see his facial expression. It was something between shock mixed with confusion, because while his eyebrows were pinching together and creating this indent just above the bridge of his nose, his head was tilted slightly to the side and his eye began to twitch. This guy must think I’m an idiot. “But so far I’ve applied to Quinnipiac, Mount Saint Mary, New Paltz, and Sienna.” The relief on his face was unbelievable, but at least it showed I had stepped in some sort of positive direction.

“Why don’t you try applying to more SUNY schools? You can easily apply to multiple through the common app online.” It was that simple. I had already filled out the common app online. All I had to do was send it to a specific school. The only main problem about doing that was that for each school I applied to we were required to pay a processing fee of $50.00.  They made it so easy for us to send the money to each school through the application, but it was the fact that I was giving my money away just to be told if I was going to be accepted or not.

When I got home later that day, I went on my desktop that my parents set up in our kitchen. I pulled up a chair from the dining room table, and booted it up. As I pressed the ON button, I heard the door open and my mom walked in.

“Hi honey. What did the counselor say?”

“He said I should apply to more SUNY schools. If it’s a money issue, he told me they are more affordable and with the scholarships I’ll receive, it could probably be the best choice for me.” Even though it may be the right choice, I still felt bad because in the end it’s her money. I feel that all I was doing was wasting it all since I was, in the end, only going to attend one school.

“It’s not a waste if it’s for school.” She always said that. I’m not wasting my time, I’m not wasting my money, I’m not wasting my effort. I’m not wasting a single thing if it has to do with furthering my education. She is still saying this today. She is a firm believer in that if you put the effort into hard work, in the end it all pays off. I feel that we always hope that someday we will get the money back. Depending on what you go to school for, we are all hoping to leave with a better understanding in our specific field, hoping that it will all somehow make us wealthy and able to take care of ourselves and one day possibly a family or loved ones.

My mom and dad left. They are gone and I’m here in this room with a girl I’ve never met until today, a room I just finished setting up, and my laptop. My laptop can be my friend. And I thought that changing schools in the same district was a tough thing to do.

“I’m thinking of going to get some things to decorate the room with. Want to come?” I thought about how I’ve never been this far from home before. She’s the only one that I know here, but that wasn’t why I decided to go. I chose to do what I felt best because of the situation.

Being at college is definitely different from living at home. There are different expectations now, but the tables have turned so I’m the one who is expected to do what needs to be done. I am expected to get myself to class and do what it takes to receive good grades. I am expected to exercise and stay healthy by eating well and getting my own food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is also expected of me to join groups and activities around campus so that way I can do what needs to be done while still having the chance to enjoy my time here. That’s not even a problem.

Looking at how my life is now, the way I view American Identity is sort of in an open book aspect. I see that life here to me is as wide as I want it to be. Personally, I’m not sure where I’m going to be a few years from now. Being at college is an experience like no other. Yeah, I’m given a lot of freedom, and yes, I’m given the time to do whatever I may want to. I grew up learning that I have responsibilities to do what I have to in order to have a successful life. I came here with a sure idea of what I wanted and I’m leaving this semester feeling lost in this large world. My identity is my name, who people in college see that I am, where I am from, and where I’m going. It’s something personal, it’s a decision we make faster than we blink our eyes. It’s what we do each and every day, it’s every single step we take.

“Hey, what are you doing today?” Molly asked, as I put on my jacket, grabbing my keys and getting ready to head out the door.

“I have some homework I need to get done. I’m heading to the library if you want to join me.” I told her.

“No, that’s okay. I don’t have that much to do.”

“Okay. See you later.” I headed out of the room, easing the door shut.

Booting up the computer was easy. It was actually forcing myself to work that made me struggle to finally start. But that day, even though I told my roommate I was doing homework, I was actually looking at our home page trying to decide what major I wanted to focus on. What path do I want to take? What road am I willing to travel? I feel that I can create my identity, because in this moment, I am

American Identities Web Projects, 2012

I'm going to start posting Identification Projects from my last two semesters of American Identities a little later this week, but here's the work of my students who chose the web authoring option for their Final Projects in spring and fall 2012!

• The 9/11 Conspiracy Theory http://brut9685fredoniact.blogspot.com/
• A Look at Documentaries http://kristaguy.weebly.com/
• American Dream, Changed http://americandreamchanged.tumblr.com/
• American Identity Amongst Friends http://amidentshelty.tumblr.com
• American Identity of Sport http://americanidentityofsport.blogspot.com/ and http://americanidentityofsport.tumblr.com/
• Immigration from Mexico http://www.ostr4363.blog.com/
• Multiethnic Americans http://multiethnic.tumblr.com/
• The Paranoid American Identity http://theparanoidamericanidentity.com/
• The Plight of Men Raised by Women http://engl296finalproject.wordpress.com/
• Positive Identities http://positiveidentities.blogspot.com/
• Video Games and American Culture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iWcTBxcR28&feature=youtu.be 
• Working on My Fatness http://workingonfatness.wordpress.com/ 

American Identity: From the Philippines to Fredonia

American Identity:  From the Philippines to Fredonia

Mikiharu Holst

Long flights are never fun and those flights around 20 hours long are especially bad. I was living in the Philippines before I came to Fredonia and my family had been travelling around the world for a long time. My father and siblings have American citizenship like me, but my mom is a Japanese citizen and has a green card to live in the States. Since we travel a lot on government orders for my father's work, she gets a somewhat free pass with issues of refreshing it and having to deal with some problems with moving in and out of the country. If the government didn’t give some leeway to families that had to travel, that would be terrible.

            Anyway, at the immigration counter in Detroit where they check your passports and what-not, the guy who was manning that desk was telling my mother she couldn’t go on. He said her card was expired and she couldn’t go on. My mother tried to explain that because of her husband’s orders… And he cut her off. He kept saying that it didn’t matter about him and his citizenship, because she wasn’t a citizen and needed to update her card. She knows how this works, I mean she’s been doing this for years, but the jerk wouldn’t listen and was just being rude. It was incredibly frustrating to say the least. We had a flight in about an hour and a half, which is not much time in airports, and this was a hassle we really didn’t need to deal with. Eventually he sent us over to another desk, I can’t remember what it was called, but they dealt with these problems more in-depth so the rest of the people could get through. The new guy understood what the problem was and knew that she didn’t have to jump through hoops to travel in the US. So luckily we managed to go on without much hassle after that. He talked a little bit about maybe refreshing it soon, but that it cost money that would be unnecessary to spend while she didn’t need to. We made our flight and now I’m here in Fredonia attending college. This experience made me really think about what it means to be American.

            Just looking at how the two different immigration workers in the airport treated my mother gave me a sharp contrast in how Americans can act. One was incredibly rude and dismissive of someone who wasn’t American. The other helped as best he could and offered advice on how to best deal with the situation we found ourselves in. Immigration is the first thing that people see when they enter a country and as I’m effectively new to the US, this was my first glimpse at America. It wasn’t a great introduction to American society, but the help of the other worker helped to make it better. In Beyond Citizenship, Peter Spiro talks about American citizenship and the devaluing of American citizenship. This probably applied in my situation with immigration as the first man obviously feels strongly about American citizenship and how my mother didn’t want to become an American citizen. This is because Japan only lets you have one citizenship; you can have dual citizenship if you're born with both, but you have to pick Japan or whichever other country you’re tied to before you turn 22. Her parents, my grandparents, are Japanese and live in Japan so she is not going to give up her citizenship when she can just get a green card to live in the States. Spiro says the value of American citizenship has gone down, and while it may have gone down a bit, I believe that being American is still valuable.

My name is Mikiharu Holst and I’m half American and half Japanese. I’ve lived in many places around the world and have in turn experienced a lot. I was born in the States but I’ve spent more time overseas than I have in the US. In total I’ve only lived in the US for four years. My time in Japan and Israel has been more memorable than the few years I’ve had in the states. Moving around so much has made it that I don’t, or can’t, say “back home” in reference to the States. “Back home” happens to be wherever my family happens to be at the moment. The location of “home” shifts every few years and that’s normal for me. As moving to a new country is a more drastic change than moving to a new house in the neighborhood or to the next state, I’d say that my life has been different than many Americans. This has also lead me to less American interaction overall, as living in other countries has limited it to people in similar circumstances to me. Japan is the place I’ve lived the longest and could possibly be called home, but I don’t think there is any country I can really dub “home.”

While I don’t have a home, I’ve developed as a person throughout my life. I can say what kind of person that I am. I’m a nice guy, not outgoing, attempt to be funny but often fail miserably (sometimes in a way that ends up being amusing), pretty lazy, and a bunch of other descriptors that I could spout. Figuring out what kind of person I am isn’t something that just clicked one day. I’ve learned and relearned what kind of person I am throughout the years. It’s a bit harder to define what I am in regards to national identity, even after my 19 years on this planet.

Race is often used to guess roughly where someone is from. You take that, compare it to their clothes and what they have and you start forming opinions. Even if it’s not conscious, we all stereotype in one way or another and we apply that to how we look at the person. This could lead to a guess to them being from Kenya, China, or England. It’s terribly inefficient though. People from all races can be found all over the world. The US is also pretty diverse so that can throw a wrench into some guesswork. Drawing a conclusion of nationality from race doesn’t work. Matthew Frye Jacobson has a part in Whiteness of a Different Color where he quotes Smith and his students. One student was saying how anyone could tell that he was Greek just by looking at him. The student he asked said she didn’t know that the other student was Greek before he told the class he was. If you stand in front of a stranger and study them for a minute, will you be able to see what nationality they are? No. I can’t look in a mirror and see what my nationality is and I can’t look at someone else and instantly know theirs. So while we are legally born with a nationality, that doesn’t really mean anything. People aren’t born patriotic to a nation. You don’t even know what a nation is yet. Identity has to be found.

            I could just look at my race and then turn to my passports and stop there. If someone asks me what my nationality is I can just whip out my passports. “Look at these and it’ll tell you what I am. Ignore any preconceptions and doubts you may have, reader of my passport; you can now see that I am American and Japanese.” But wait, this doesn’t always work for people. It doesn’t work for me. While I do identify as American and Japanese, it’s not because my passports tell me that. There are people who don’t feel like they’re a part of the country they are officially a part of. Other people feel like they have a certain nationality even when they don’t have it officially. Having that little book is very useful if you want to travel and various other things requiring identification. I get to visit my family after this semester ends because my passport will let me fly over and visit them for winter break. People couldn’t travel around the world and see new places and experience different things without passports, but they don’t make your identity.

            Still, passports can help you figure out your identity. Typically this would happen by letting you travel and the experience would help you out. I’ve travelled all over the world because of it and I’ve dealt with many kinds of people. Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and the Philippines all act differently. Being in these places gave me experience with the rest of the world and how it acts. Many things are different overseas and many things can end up similar. Obvious things like language matter little and a lot. People are people regardless of what language they speak, but not speaking the same language can cause barriers to appear. In the Philippines they speak English but Tagalog is mixed in liberally to make a unique blend of Tagalog and English. It can vary depending on who you speak to and where you are in how much languages are mixed or used. This fusion of two languages is vastly different than in the US where speaking multiple languages is promoted, and bashed, at the same time.

Language also influenced my views on my identity, albeit indirectly. I can only speak English, even though I learned Spanish as a young child and Japanese in school while I lived in Japan. I forgot basically all the Spanish I knew within a couple weeks of leaving Mexico. Japanese went away slower, but I’d also not learned it as well as I had Spanish as a young child. I probably forgot the bulk of my Japanese knowledge more slowly than I did Spanish because we use a small amount of Japanese around the house; we occasionally talked with our grandparents on the phone(who only speak Japanese) and watched anime. I know a few words and how to count but I can’t really communicate with anyone in Japanese beyond rudimentary statements. While I still love my Japanese side, my inability to understand and speak Japanese effectively locks me out of truly identifying as Japanese. I like to say I’m half Japanese and its definitely a part of me, but my American side is more prominent because of this.

Cultures of other nations can give a stark contrast, or eerie similarity, to the one you’re used to. While I didn’t really live in America long enough to really grasp American society, I’ve lived around Americans overseas and have been in American International Schools. I think one of my most interesting experiences with culture was my trip to Qatar. Qatar was only going to take a few days as I was only there for an MUN (Model United Nations) conference. I flew in from Israel, so we had to do a somewhat roundabout flight to avoid problems with that. Right away my trip to Qatar made me think about what being an American meant. Just flying from Israel is enough to make it so the flight has to be in a somewhat roundabout way that avoids nations that aren’t really on friendly terms with Israel. While not everyone loves America, we don’t have to deal with as many people outright hating our guts. Landing then leads to customs and immigrations where having an Israeli passport lead to more scrutiny. A couple people were pulled aside for a more thorough check, being hassled for things on their passport, although overall the treatment was less severe than the year before. This is the main part where I saw what being Israeli meant to other people and I compared it to my treatment then and now. After the airport, most of my experiences and comparisons that I draw from Qatar stems from comparing the culture there to American culture. In a way it was very similar, but again very different. Many women wore traditional garb yet fashion stores could be found in malls. The mall I went to is an incredible mall that is fancy. It had a canal that ran through much of the mall, complete with gondolas. It had an ice rink, IMAX 3D, and of course McDonalds. A mall as massive and filled as this is something that many people consider “American” with consumerism and burgers, also had strong Islamic ties. It was a unique experience to me and was very interesting to say the least. The US has, relative to some countries in the Middle East, pretty strong ties to Qatar so it might not be too much of a surprise to see “American” things, but the contrast was still fascinating.

            When I think of my identity in the sense of being American, I look at my life experiences and who I am to try and determine that. I’ve only lived in the US for four years in total and this freshman year in college will be my fifth. I’ve lived in Bolivia, Mexico, Japan, Israel, and the Philippines. I’ve also visited Qatar, Rome, Vienna, Paris, and other airports around the world. Seeing the world is a rare opportunity and I grew up with it. I’ve dealt with people in other nations having to deal with me, an American, which puts some more perspective onto my life. When I compare how the people are in most of these nations to how many Americans I’ve met and know, I start to think that I am pretty American. While it’s not a universal template, many Americans are pretty nice and go out of their way to help a stranger. At least, this is an aspect of Americans that I think I have. And that is how it ended up becoming for me. Travel forces perspective onto you as you see the rest of the world. Japan is a good place for this to happen. At least for me. The American environment through the housing and schools gave me a more grounded and familiar place to live. But I’d step outside and be in a whole new world and could see the differences right away. Home wasn’t a copy of American life, but it had many aspects and the bases were pretty similar. I could just look at the movie theaters and see differences between Japan and America. Simple things like movie seats being something you just picked in the American theaters while you were assigned them in Japanese ones. I could find food that is usually only readily available in America and was “rare” in Japan. Caprisun was surprisingly popular among my friends and I’d trade with them during lunches. The, in a way, easy access to America through the bases enabled me to stay grounded and explore the country easily.

            Sum up everything that’s happened to me during my life and all the things I’ve done and experienced and you build up my identity. I view myself as an American, with Japanese parts, a nice guy, atheist, person who’s seen much of the world, a gamer, and human. My life has seen a host of experiences in my travels, mistakes, and adventures. If I had to I might be able to narrow down how I exactly define what my identity is, but I feel like my identity is malleable and can easily get modified. Some of the basics stay the same, which would be the things I listed before this, but overall my identity is not something I can really define yet. But the things I listed at the start of this paragraph are some of the most important parts of my identity. Family influenced me but they’re not my identity. Being American is an important part of me as I love my country. My Japanese side as well is something that I appreciate a lot and enjoy. Experience and having been in a good amount of the world has a lot of sway for me. I’m human with all my mistakes and achievements. My gamer part isn’t just saying that playing games is an important part of who I am but it is also how I can describe the kind of things I like among other things. But simply being a nice guy is the most important thing to me. I can be a dick sometimes and am not always cheerful or nice, but I try. Being nice is something I want to be, so I try and be it.

             America is a great country and I believe it’s the best in the world, even with all of our faults and imperfections. We try to be the best, not just in raw power, but in how we act and view the world. Some politicians and citizens might not follow that same train of thought, but the country as a whole tries. Aspiring to be what America stands for is what I believe is a core feature of what being American really is. You have to really want to be and try to be American. That doesn’t mean you have to attend rallies or do other crazy things to prove it. Simply wanting and trying to follow some of the ideals of the American dream or the principles that we stand for is enough in my book. Taking it too far still makes you an American, just a bad or stupid person. The ideals that America stands for probably differ person to person, but I think some of my thoughts on it might ring true for others. Tolerance and acceptance towards others of all kinds is something that I think America stands for. There of course is still racism and hatred towards certain groups in the US, but it is not supported. As America was built to greatness by a large assortment of people and groups, none can claim to be the real American way. The best and brightest Americans have roots from all over the world.  So with that in mind, I like to think America is the melting pot, as its been called, and that we are open to all and accepting of others.

            Beyond simply accepting others for their differences and looking at who they are as a person, I think Americans’ acting when needed is another important attribute. America acts when we think we’re needed to help out. While we have had misguided acts and aren’t always doing things for the right reasons, we still act where others don’t. If there is a problem we go out and try and fix it. This is something that should apply to smaller things than the acting of the country as a whole. I would hope that I would be able to follow my own directions if it ever came up for me to try and help stop a robber or other criminal. It’s a terrifying notion, but if people can’t even go out of their way to help someone who is literally right there in front of them, then we have no right to call ourselves a true American. Americans have pulled together in times of crisis, but there are also people who loot in those times and ignore crimes in front of them. Putting aside the examples of those who don’t follow the law or turn a blind eye to those who do, it is still an ideal that I think many people would like to follow. It’s difficult to judge how people would work with it, but it something that I could hope that more Americans would try and do.

            In addition to stepping up when it’s called for and being open and accepting to others, I think to be American you have to also try and achieve the American Dream. It’s something that has been a part of America for a long time. It comes in different phrases and can be described differently, symbolizing many American values and something we can aspire to no matter our social class. It isn’t an absolute idea and it isn’t perfect, but it extols great ideals and can encourage people to rise high above what they normally would think possible. Dreaming for greatness isn’t what is required, but getting to happiness via hard work or through your own means. Promoting that you can achieve what you want in life and the freedom of each person to do so. Pushing for individual freedoms is something that America has been doing for a while and the American Dream promotes freedom to succeed.

            Being American is important to many and it is important to me. It doesn’t rule my life, but I’d like to hold onto it if I can. When I look at the rest of my life and look it over it helps me reaffirm my American side, while I still embrace my Japanese side. I’ve gone from seeing American-like things overseas to being in America again. Returning to the States for college and reading non-fictional and fictional stories on what being an American means to people and what it means to be American, I’ve supplemented my experiences with these points of views and ideas. While I think that overall my ideas of what it means to be American hasn’t really changed too much over the course of the semester in American Identities, I’ve gotten more perspectives and could develop it some more. Being American is an important part of my identity, but to really reach that point I had to experience other things to figure out what being American means.

Sushi, Hair Metal, and My American Identity

Sushi, Hair Metal, and My American Identity

Anonymous

I.  How I Identify Myself

            No one is ever raised the exact same way as their friends, cousins, co-workers, classmates, etc., and I’ve always tried remembering that when certain things about others seem weird to me or don’t make sense.  Even in the apartment I live in now during school, the two other girls I live with have been raised very differently and have very different family backgrounds than me.  I sometimes forget now, since I’m not living with or close with some of my family, that there is more to me than being just an “American.”  There’s more to all of us than just being “American” and America really is a big melting pot of different cultures, beliefs, and traditions.

            I grew up in a Japanese household with my grandmother, brother, and father.  My grandmother and father are from Okinawa, Japan, and came here in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  She was the main person who took care of me because of my father’s work schedule and a lot of her traditions and customs, which she raised my father on, were also taught to my brother and I.  We were only allowed to speak Japanese at home and if we asked for something in English or said something in English, she wouldn’t acknowledge it because it was important to her for us to learn the language.  She also made a lot of Japanese food, which I still like to this day.  A lot of the cartoons, toys, etc., that I liked and remember playing with, too, were also originally Japanese and I think that’s because, besides her raising us that way, it’s what I knew and what interested me at the time.  I even met my family from Japan and really enjoyed meeting them and learning from them.

            When I started getting older, I started being interested in my own things, like most teenagers, and was allowed to hang out with friends more.  My grandmother moved into assisted living eventually and I stopped really paying attention to a lot of her and my father’s stories, somewhat ignoring that part of me more because I didn’t really care at the time.  I even lost the language once she moved out because I was barely using it.  Once I moved out of that house and into my mother’s house, I wasn’t surrounded by those things at all and pretty much let go of all of what I grew up on altogether.

            Now, being 20 years old and a senior in college, I’ve realized what is important to me and that a lot of my personality traits, what I like to do, and what I know have come from my childhood.  I’m really disappointed I can’t speak the language anymore and have wanted to begin learning again because it is important for me to hold onto some of those things for the future, to carry down when I have a family of my own.  My grandmother has even began losing the language because she doesn’t get to use it a lot, except on the phone with relatives, and it really upsets her because even though, at this point, she’s accepted the American culture, she still wants to hold onto part of where she came from.  I still know how to make sushi and cook some of the food, which I am proud of knowing, but that’s the only thing I can truly say I’ve still totally held onto and know.

            Besides where my grandmother and father came from, there’s a lot about me that makes me “me.”  My father rode a Harley and listened to Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Motley Crue, Poison, Kiss, etc., and those things have definitely been passed down on me.  Motley Crue is still one of my favorite bands, and I have to see them live at least a couple times a year, and that’s probably one of the first things people that know me would think of when saying what I’m interested in.

            At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my journalism major because I know I could never come right out of college being a clean-cut news anchor or something along those lines, but this far into it, I’ve found that it actually fits me very well.  My biggest interests to write about and explore are music, body art, and motocross and it’s possible to be a successful, professional, journalist in those areas while still being myself.  I’ve never cared about going into a field where I’m guaranteed to make a lot of money in the future, like some other students I’ve met.  It’s more important to me to hold onto who I am and enjoy the rest of my life than hate going to work everyday, as long as I make enough to get by and provide for my own family in the future.

II.  A Significant Experience With American Identities

            My father fought in the Vietnam War and has told me small stories of his time there, but for the most part doesn’t really want to explain them to me or explain how scary it really was being there.  As a little girl, I never knew exactly what the war was or how bad of a war it really was, but once I got older and started learning about it in school, I started realizing a lot more of what my father went through and why it affected him so much to this day.

            I can’t imagine what he saw with his own eyes and it took me up until recently to start fully understanding his PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and how to not be bothered by it.  It used to embarrass me sometimes how awkwardly social he was and how a lot of the time, he keeps to himself and doesn’t know how to act in certain situations, but I’ve really learned, especially this past summer, how to not let other people’s reactions to the “weird” things he does affect me.

            This story about America, to me, is the one I feel has most affected me because a part of it is still with my father to this day, and throughout my life, I’ve had to experience and live with that part he carries with him.  I don’t think many people truly understand the effects war has on people until they see it first hand and while we learn about the different wars throughout our school years, and while we live through one now, it’s hard for me to imagine all of the people going through similar things my father, as well as my grandfather in WWII, went through and are going through.  The number of soldiers written out in textbooks is more than just a number and many people forget to think of it as an actual group of people like us.

            All the students my age and older can probably recall where they were when the World Trade Centers were hit and right now we’re all living through something, some more than others, that will be a few chapters in a high school history textbook in the future.  I was getting ready for school when I walked in my living room and saw my father watching it on TV.  I had no idea what was actually going on because I was only ten at the time, but I started gradually understanding what was going on as people explained it to me.  I didn’t think or understand at the time, though, that the after-effects would still be going on now.

            Now, at this point, I’ve met many people my age back home in Buffalo that have been in the war, as well as students and friends in Fredonia.  My roommate’s boyfriend was in Iraq for 8 months and came to Fredonia for school afterwards.  It’s strange to think of how much he went through there and now he’s here just doing everyday things with us, once again, but still carries that with him.  Many people I went to high school with have also gone over there and it’s changed my perspective a lot on my dad’s experience because I’m living through seeing them leave, not just hearing about it after it’s all over, and what they’re going through is somewhat similar to what my dad had to do.

III.  My Beliefs/Principles On How We Ought To Define And Understand American Identities

            America is full of many different people and I’ve met people from many different places and backgrounds, as I’m sure many others have also.  Coming to Fredonia, some of my best friends here are from Africa and Jamaica.  They still fit right in being here and I don’t see them as being any more different than anyone else, they’re just used to some different things than us.  The “melting-pot” idea of our country is very true.  We’re all a mixture of different ethnicities, religions, etc., mixing together and living together.

            I feel like there’s a place in America for people of every color, race, religion, belief, sexual orientation, etc., and think the first thing any American should be is accepting or open-minded.  We all know that this isn’t really a trait everyone in our country possesses, but to me, it’s what every American should aim for.  I couldn’t imagine living in places like Jamaica, where my friend is from, where being a gay male is wrong and having a relationship with another man is against the law.  Cops there even turn the other way when it comes to hate crimes against homosexuals, while here there are parades all over the country here and gay marriage is being legalized in many states, giving some of my friends the right to be who they are and have that equal opportunity.

            I also feel like living here gives us the opportunity to make a lot out of ourselves.  We can pretty much dream of doing anything with our lives and there’s a way to achieve it.  There are so many different majors to choose from when going into tech school or college and we have the ability to change our minds at any time as long as we can finance it in some way.  Everything in our country doesn’t always run smoothly and isn’t always the fairest, and many people don’t always agree with the governments policies or ways and some abuse government assistance, but we have a lot a more opportunities and rights than other places.

            In Margaret Regan’s The Death of Josseline, the Mexican immigrants see America as an opportunity to make more money than they can back home so they can support their families, and it’s true that we are able to make more money than them, but being an American citizen, we have to pay taxes/pay our dues for being a citizen.  Living here and making a life for ourselves here is expensive, so it’s not like everything here is just given to all of us and our country has its problems.  While we are lucky to live in this country, the stereotypes others have about the “American dream” and us aren’t true altogether to that degree.

IV.  What Makes My American Identity

            After taking this American Identities class, it’s led me to really think about what all of those factors say about my American identity.  They all seem to just work together and fit into being “American.”  Growing up listening to hair metal and music along those lines and also facing a Japanese upbringing has made me the person I am today.

            I believe the Japanese upbringing has made me more of the person I am today than I ever realized before this class.  Like I mentioned in section I, I went through a rebelling stage of my upbringing, but I still hold onto some of it today and part of my personality comes from it.  Even when I was trying to let it go and be my teenage self, I never realized that my self included some of the Japanese traits that my grandmother passed down to me and I can’t erase something that makes me.

            I related to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother because of her daughter’s struggles with her unusual, strict parenting.  In the memoir, Chua doesn’t see that her way of parenting is too strict, which in my opinion it is, and I think my grandmother was a lot like her, just not as extreme.  I couldn’t hang out with friends a lot because she felt like homework was more important and I always had the pressure on me to not disappoint them.  I played the flute and only practiced because it pleased her and my father.  I felt like an outcast in school because I didn’t wear the cool clothes or do the cool things my other classmates did because she didn’t feel like that was important.  I also studied a lot in school and did very well, and to add onto my embarrassment at the time, I was the biggest teacher’s pet.  I eventually applied for City Honors School (CHS), which is one of the best schools in the Buffalo area, and began going there in 7^th grade.  They were so happy for me to go to that school because it kept me out of the rest of the Buffalo Public Schools that weren’t good.

            Once I got into CHS, that’s when I began to rebel against my grandmother and father and met friends that were in similar situations.  As much as I tried to ignore my home life, I look back at it now and realize how I really never did.  The music I was listening to still related to the heavy-metal, hard-rock past my father passed onto me.  The rebelling stage fit into exactly that image, as well.  I may have worn more black, gotten more piercings, and acted less reserved than I used to, but it was nothing new.  It’s the same sort of rebelling we see in many American movies and hear countless teenage stories about.  I was still doing well in school, but didn’t care much and skipped a lot of classes.  I think that might have been the biggest way I know how of firing back at my father and being an angry teenager.

            I’ve gone through some other stages since then, but that was my most relevant one because it was at such a crucial time in life transitioning from middle school up to high school.  Now in college, I’ve realized how reserved, or shy, I am compared to a lot of people, including my roommate, and this may be because my grandmother was always raised to be this way as well.  I’m very soft spoken, unlike my roommate, who is Italian and is loud and vocal with everything she’s thinking or feels.

            As far as the metal music goes, I can pretty much say that it is something I will never get over and in a way, I feel like some of it makes America.  When I think of the perfect American spokesperson, I think of Bret Michaels running around on stage wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a ripped up t-shirt and singing to the troops, then riding his Harley around.  My father’s love for Ozzy Osbourne could have been his rebelling stage that he went through against my grandmother’s upbringing, so I think we have that in common.  He held onto that and somewhat Americanized himself, while growing up and realizing that he couldn’t let go of the Japanese part of himself either.  My children will probably grow up getting rocked to sleep by me with Motley Crue, Black Sabbath, Poison, and Kiss on in the background and maybe they’ll hang onto it the way I do.

            Thinking back to friends’ stories about growing up and their identity, as well as other classmates’, I don’t think there is one certain trait that everybody in America possesses that makes us who we are as a country.  What we all do have in common is that our ancestors and/or ourselves have all come from different places and have faced different cultural issues.  America is just a big melting pot of every culture, religion, race, and issue.

V.  American Stereotypes

            My boyfriend is from Nigeria and he considers himself very American.  He’s interested in arts and music, which disappoints his parents because they came to America to make a better life for themselves and their children and they feel like he’s setting himself up for failure.  His family back in Nigeria doesn’t have all that they do here and they feel like he doesn’t take advantage of that or appreciate it.  He always mentions to me how proud they are of his sister for going through medical school and becoming a doctor.  I’ve noticed many doctors I meet are from other countries and maybe part of the lazy stereotype of Americans is because we all don’t take advantage of education the way they do, or we don’t have the same goals that they do.  As I mentioned earlier, money isn’t a huge deal to me and I’m happy pursuing a job in writing.  I’ve never wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.  My parents are a little worried about my future because journalism is a tough field to find a job in, but compared to his parents, it’s nothing and they’re still supportive.  His parents are constantly on him about finding a good job or going back to school for something other than marketing and music business, but that’s all he wants to do and feels like he disappoints them sometimes.

            When it comes to religion, I’m far from religious and am technically Jewish, but I’ve never followed it.  My boyfriend’s family is very Christian and they think it’s a shame that our country is more lenient on religion.  We’re free to believe whatever we want and in my opinion that’s the way it should be, but I can see where they’re coming from because religion has caused many issues between different regions in Africa and their culture is based on religion.  America is more accepting of different people’s beliefs, including theirs so, I feel like we’re fortunate in the way that we can all live side by side with far less conflict.  No country is perfect when it comes to different forms of hate, but at least here it’s not extreme.

            Some of the American stereotypes we talked about in class may apply to myself and/or others, but I’m not sure if they’re only American traits.  I’m going to London next semester to study abroad and I’m excited to be exposed to life there and want to see the way people act in their everyday lives compared to Americans.  I’m wondering if I’m just ignorant to some American stereotypes being true because I haven’t been exposed enough to other cultures, or if they really are just false stereotypes that could apply elsewhere.  I’ve taken vacations to other places and have met people from other countries that live in America, but I don’t think that has opened my eyes as much as that experience will.

Works Cited 

Chua, Amy.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  New York:  The Penguin Press, 2011.

Regan, Margaret.  The Death of Josseline.  Boston:  Beacon Press Books, 2010.

Breaking the Curse

Breaking the Curse

Daniela Rodriguez

As I came out from beneath the protective shadows that shielded me for so long, I stood alone in the light, naked as I did from my mother’s womb. At that moment came my departure from the childhood I merely remembered, the mystery behind whom I was and the emergence on whom I was to become. It was then that I understood where I was going and where I truly identified myself. I was a young Latin American woman going after an education. However, it wasn’t my ethnicity that was important but the person I created from every circumstance and label. It was something I didn’t stress and what it meant to me, I would soon uncover.

As a Latina in my hometown, people always put me in the category of the stereotypical Hispanic household: plays soccer and handball, there are 20 people living in the house, every day they eat eggs, beans, rice and tortillas, they’re loud and short tempered and, lastly, they have a stay-at-home mom who does everything for them. Of all those stereotypes we only lived up to three. My mom was a house mom, we did eat tortillas often, well at least my father did, and my father loved soccer. However, these weren’t determining factors to who we wanted to be and where we wanted to go. My parents worked hard for my sister and I to get us out of that category, still maintaining the culture. In a way, we began to Americanize ourselves, adjusting to the lifestyle we wanted, all at the same time creating our own dream and identity. But I always knew the importance of my background and how I would keep it alive without allowing it to consume my identity, while having the confidence that it would never fade through my actions.

To me, being an American meant that you had privileges amongst the nation, simply by being physically born in the United States of America. Some people had to earn that right of being called a citizen with a test that was far from easy. It didn't seem fair to just be deemed a citizen without proving it. This influenced me to look deeper into what it meant to be identified as an American. The interest and importance was there, but it wasn’t something that I was going to praise. Often times when I fill out applications, if not all, they ask if you are Hispanic. It's separated from all the other categories as if it's in its own section. Why? Because of the one epidemic most Hispanics suffer with: immigration. It was an epidemic from which the majority of my entire family came from, which brought me to the land of opportunity.

Being a Latin American to me means more than just speaking Spanish and having ancestors of Hispanic descent. It is a culture that I will always appreciate and it’s a part of me that I can never and don't ever want to change. It is where my outlook in life came from, the roots that grew deeper and deeper into my being. But I didn’t allow that to stop me from becoming versatile and diverse, because I knew I would have to do so eventually in order to get where I wanted. Plus, I liked it better that way. Life felt and looked so much better in that perspective. I always disliked the idea of labeling things and categorizing people into a “race” or “stereotype,” even though it’s inevitable and often true. But my “race” didn’t determine who I was, rather where I came from and only that. I wanted to break the curse that being a Latina brought upon me. That is the question this brings: what was this terrible curse that I couldn’t live with? It was being forced to live in the never-ending cycle of an isolated culture. It was living up to the expectation of getting pregnant at a young age and becoming a housewife. It was allowing my cultural background and ethnicity to grow so strong and scream so loud into my mind, forcing me to believe there was no other way but that way. It was allowing me to be so cultured that I wouldn’t want to accept anything else. Nonetheless I was the complete opposite who was determined to break that curse and rebel into my own beliefs.

My parents came to this country looking for something better, and luckily they found it. With more than two decades here now, they have been successful in fulfilling what is the “American Dream” as far as they can. Seeing where they came from, poverty and empty dreams, it feels good to know that from nothing came something great. It is what continues to add to the identity I have decided to create for myself. It is not just as an American but a Latin American that I will always name myself. However, I do not define myself solely by that.

The personal experiences that I have encountered are plenty; however there are two that stand out like sore thumbs: traveling to Italy and Prague for a week 's period of time. When I traveled to Italy for a choral competition I experienced living in a completely different environment which had a range of diversity and a predominant liberal spirit amongst the whole country. The televisions did not censor nudity nor did they take shame in it. Prague on the other hand, was more hostile. It felt like the environment wasn't at all accepting of Americans and their identity. Just by walking the streets and being tourists, citizens acted as if we were some sort of commodity they had never seen before. There was even a bit of racism when we became customers. At a grocery store the cashiers didn't bag our groceries and left them there as if we were animals. That just showed the big contrast between America and other countries. The American identity is so strong that a lot of other countries, cultures and individuals do not appreciate nor respect it one bit. Either they pursue it or they hate it. Even though these nations are more mature or open about certain things, they still have a closed mentality and attitude towards America. America can be immature in some aspects of explicitly open things or nudity, but there is openness to ethnicity and race, which is where we get the whole “Melting Pot” concept. There is an opportunity to open up the mind to the broad choices that can be endless in this nation.

But of course in this kind of environment there is no such thing as perfection. Even with the freedom that is given in America, especially when compared to other nations, it isn’t always freedom. There can be controversies and other matters within the government that make it just that much easier to dislike, especially in other countries and regions. The United States of America is known stereotypically for interfering in problems that pertain in no way to them, which causes the conflict of interest to grow deeper. For example, cases such as the wars we have had to deal with often times have nothing to do with us; simply our interest to help is what brought it upon us. It is a great trait to want to help; however, it can also lead to tragedy and baggage often times difficult to handle. A perfect example of that is the war in Afghanistan that led to the tragedy America has experience to change us forever: September 11^th, 2001.

In the times of tragedy for America, it was that one day that changed the way things would function, both positively and negatively. Homeland security became the main priority in what Americans wanted to strengthen. A young, naïve and open nation was transformed into an informed and cautious nation all at the crashing of a plane, destroying the lives of many innocents. Negatively, America took no mercy upon any citizens who had a threat of terrorism in any way about them, which sort of brought into question the Constitution and Bill of Rights and how they were being violated. At the same time, since it was a matter of national security, it would be deemed acceptable. But if everything we stand for is suddenly contradicted, where does America stand liable?

Those questions rarely have an answer; however, one thing that can be said is the idea of America being one of the greatest places to be is one that is hard to deny. Regardless of the issues we have faced, the positives that America can offer outweigh all the other circumstances. It is no wonder so many people want to come here and find a life and a way better than what they originally had. It is a place of opportunity, and thankfully through the negativity, there is still the acceptance of those coming to join the citizenship so many of us Americans benefit from greatly.

But how can I apply this to myself? Am I still just a Latin American finding a way? Or have I found it yet? I can say that I have found a way here and I can be proud to say I am an American. Not only am I a Latina, but I am an American because I have found myself and allowed all of the cultures encountered to become my own person. I cannot say I live up to the stereotype of either an American or a Latin American as people expect; rather, I make my own type of person. The person I am proud to be, who doesn’t identify themselves through race, nor color, nor language, region or advancement. I identify myself through my experiences and what I have learned from them. That is where I can say that I truly know who I am. The only way to describe myself in race is Latin America, but the way I identify myself is through my experiences. I have broken the curse of generational curses both Latin American and American.

Identity is so important to people simply because it is the only way to truly say one is an individual. These experiences have taught me to understand the difference between culture and choice. America gives us the choice to be who we want:  no matter what race or background, we can become who we want. It is in our right to do so, our birth-given rights. Being forced into a category of some kind just sounds so ridiculous and even outrageous. Although in the end it is up to the individual to allow that to happen or to change it.

American Identities and American Education: Keeping the Melting Pot Simmering

Here's an Identification Project from Catherine Kilian!

American Identities and American Education:  Keeping the Melting Pot Simmering

A. Perception of My Identity:  “My Childhood Has Defined My Life”

            Intrinsic self-exploration for the sake of discovering personal identity has existed through all of time. Individuals and citizens from all types of societies with varying natures have long contemplated the question “who am I?” Throughout my life, I am convinced that I have a basic understanding of what defines me. I believe that within the timeframe of my lifetime, I have become familiar with some of the characteristics that distinguish me as who I am. These perceptions of my identity were most likely shaped by the same factors I am going to use in an attempt to explore who I am.

            I am part of a family. I am a daughter, an older sister, a cousin, a niece, a granddaughter, and a friend. I am part of a closely-knit family system. My entire family was born and raised in western New York. I have four younger siblings; two brothers and two sisters. My siblings and I have always been extremely close to one another, our parents and the rest of our extended family.

            My parents gave me a variety of experiences that provided me with ample opportunities to explore myself as a person and develop my own identity. There are various pieces of my life that I strongly value, that hold importance and guide my actions and decisions. First and foremost, my family, friends and boyfriend serve as the fence around the perimeters of my life. Like fence posts, they are grounded, stable and reliable. I depend on my family because they have never been undependable. These people are the most valuable part of my life and they have made the largest impact in it. They influenced the development of my values, morals, beliefs and principles.

            Since last summer when I adopted my dog, I have become more aware of what it requires to provide for and have complete responsibility of someone else (I say someone because I pretty much consider Tiko a person trapped in a chihuahua's body). He looks to me while trying to express his wants and needs because he knows I'll understand him best. He understands that I am the one who will get him water from the sink. He understands that his dog food is in the bottom drawer of my dresser and I need to get it out for him. He understands that when he barks near a door that I know he has to go outside. He understands that when I'm not home, he doesn't have the support necessary to fulfill some of his needs.

            I am a very important part of Tiko's life. Tiko's dependency provides some explanation of the excitement he experiences when I walk through my front door. Playing that crucial of a role in my little dog's life (the kind where when they see you they're so overwhelmed with good feelings they can't breathe), brought me to the realization that I strongly value compassion, understanding, dependability and providing for others. This instance was additional support of my choice to further my education and become an elementary school teacher.

            In today's world it is often easy to forget about your heritage and what it means to be who we are. We celebrate American unity claiming that our country's boundaries combine individuals from all walks of life into our “melting pot” society. Are we straying from our roots and leaning towards the belief that we're all simply just, American?

            I hope I never lose the interest I have towards my heritage and my family's history. I am German, Irish and Lebanese. My last name represents my family’s ties with Germany. As opposed to the likes of the Irish and their beer, “Killian's Red,” Kilian, with one L, is the German spelling of our name. My mother has curly red hair and I'm sure I've inherited my own curly hair and freckles from our Irish ancestors. My grandmother was one hundred percent Lebanese. She was a very important part of my life.

            Through her passing during recent years, I came to the harsh realization that she would no longer be here to help carry on some of the traditions and customs that she had shared and passed down to us. She left a bit of our heritage in our family and my father, which he passed on to me. I see her in myself through my dark eyes, my olive-colored skin and my inexplicable interest towards the customs and cultures of the Middle East.

            I intend to celebrate all of my ethnic roots through the constant exploration of my family, their predecessors and our history. Another ambition of mine, to celebrate my grandmother and our Lebanese heritage, is to further my ethnic cooking abilities. I am going to pass down the tradition of my favorite Lebanese foods. I will become more familiar with traditional Lebanese foods like seasoned rice pilaf, which is given texture and flavor from pine nuts, and stuffed grape leaves, which are filled with a rice-ground beef mixture. I also have high hopes and ambitions to travel to these three countries, to explore the places and people that have defined my heritage and sculpted my identity, as a person and an American.

            It is important to note that being an American citizen has played a role in my identity. The acquisition of American citizenship is sought after by many individuals. The government gently steers my actions towards our country's main interests and priorities. Regardless, I am appreciative of the many rights and freedoms my citizenship entitles me to. Many other nations and individuals are forced to abide by restrictions and government-mandated limitations, situations that strongly effected by the forces of various governing bodies. I believe that their ability to endure these often unfavorable circumstances, makes these people ideal candidates for American citizenship.

B. Experience with American Identities:  “The Influence of Diversity on My Past, Present and Future”

            Throughout my childhood, my parents have always modeled for me and given examples of ways to be--for lack of better words--a “good” person, based on the morals, values and beliefs they had already formed. They stressed acceptance and selflessness, treating others how I'd like to be treated. I've learned not to form my views of individuals off of other people's opinions, to give people an opportunity to reveal themselves before forming any criticisms. My parents were able to impress into my malleable, developing brain the concepts and perspective I hold today. I think genuine care and kindness are important aspects of my identity and my understanding of other's identities.

            When I was younger, I was given the tools and devices necessary to develop creativity and imagination. My parents had created an environment that was crucial to this development. Not having this background would have changed the way I perceive the world around me. I had baby dolls and stuffed animals, a kitchen set, a work bench and a construction hat, barbies, matchbox cars, blocks. All of these provided hours of entertainment, but more importantly, gave me various options to explore all kinds of play, instead of restricting my toys to “girly” ones. I played on the work bench. I'd wear the construction hat and talk about how I'll help my father at work in the future. I'd dress my stuffed animals up in doll clothes and push them around in strollers. I'd play “house” with my siblings, playing different roles. I truly believe that the vivid imagination I've held onto until today comes from the methods used by my parents to supplement my development at such an impressionable age.

            There should be a nationwide agreement made between our country's citizens in concern of our future, our children's future, and our grandchildren's future. The importance and overwhelming influence that parenting has on a child's developmental growth and their definitions of personal identity needs to be discussed with all individuals in all situations that are raising children. Stressing the importance of parenting, either through more thoroughly detailed explanations or more expansively, and making this knowledge and awareness available to parents and guardians from all backgrounds and circumstances, will likely cause an increase in conscious and informed child-rearing actions and decisions. Having the knowledge that you as an individual are a crucial element, a necessary requirement, in the development of a young child's identity is not only honorable but a humbling realization as well.

            I might have made the decision to enter the field of education during my childhood. My siblings and cousins would play more realistically as we grew older. We moved onto games like “court,” where we'd develop ridiculous scenarios for a case. My cousin received an overhead projector one year for Christmas. Paired with the desk I had, we made an excellent classroom set-up to play school in. We would take turns, reversing roles from teacher to learner. Creating tests and worksheets, correcting in red pen, raising our hands or shouting out obnoxious answers, we modeled strategies used by our real teachers and experimented acting out the behaviors we observed in our peers.

            My enrollment in the school district I lived in exposed me to an increasing amount of diversity. Once I had reached middle and high school, I was accustomed to the nature of diversity. I already had a good understanding of treating everyone equally, respecting all individuals; if this wasn't common sense at this point, my parents had already taught me. I also understood that while we treat everyone equally, it is not the case that we all live equivalent lives. The schools I attended encompassed a variety of students from many different ethnicities, cultures, economic backgrounds and family histories.

            My freshman year of college I had already defined my major as early childhood education, with a concentration in art. Ideally I would like to have an art classroom at the elementary level. However, I believe that to get the most value out of my education at Fredonia, I should strive to become a classroom teacher at the elementary level and incorporate all of the skills, strategies and methods I have learned thus far into a resourceful, stimulating classroom environment. The fact that I chose elementary education as a career path, driven by my morals and values to have a positive impact and influence in young children's lives, reflects my identity.

            The totality of my field placements here have presented me with the opportunities necessary to observe, experience and better understand what it's like to teach a group of largely diverse learners in a multitude of teaching styles. I have worked with students from Pre-K to 2^nd grade. These students have come from all walks of life, and are all a part of something bigger. Despite all of their cultural and ethnic differences, I saw beneficial relationships form between these children. Collectively, these groups of diverse American students belong together as part of American society and a classroom community.

             My participation in this American studies course has made me aware of the fact that one increasingly more existent aspect of our national identity is “American competitiveness.” Over time, American citizens began to shift from not only challenging their “mother country” and comparing one another's differences, to competing globally with, for and against members of other worldly countries. With the state of today's society and global economy, it only makes sense for parents, guardians and educators to raise and prepare our nation's youth for the competitive challenges tomorrow and in the future. By learning from experienced and devoted, educated adults, in a supportive, comfortable and culturally sensitive environment, young children will begin to recognize the existence of similarities and differences, equality and inequality, fair and unfair. Once students understand the inevitable nature of diversity and global expansion, they will be more readily able to appreciate strengths and understand weaknesses. Being enlightened by the environments that surround them, and becoming increasingly more accepting of others, gives young children the opportunity to become more exposed to and familiarized with, the diverse people, ideas and concepts of our world today. Multicultural education that provides a foundation for global awareness has been made possible in many areas of the world (some even in exist within our country's borders). These experiences have been made possible for students in today's society by the systematic provision of: a. equal educational opportunities that cause learners to become accustomed to varying cultures through diverse classroom composition, b. opportunities to learn and practice second (even third or fourth) languages in a world of multiple linguistics, and c. adequate opportunities to explore, discover, and make meaningful connections, in order to begin forming a level of individual understanding. In the future, those students that were able to experience valuable educational experiences, are most likely the individuals that will succeed. Our world is now populated by a global society that has (and will continue to) experience exposure to an ever-changing, constantly altered state of existence. The preservation of our world will be made most possible by the extent of which our future generations participate in global affairs and develop environmental and humanistic consciousness and are aware of the impact that is (or isn't) occurring.

            Knowing this, it was difficult for me to witness segregation by teachers of students in some districts. The segregation was not meant to divide students by race or socio-economic status. Rather it was meant to separate students of varying academic abilities. Ironically, this basically entailed that these American students who were speakers of different languages and less socio-economically advantaged were struggling learners. The backgrounds and circumstances children live in will affect the way students learn. With English being a second language and parents working too late to be available, these students have not experienced the enrichment necessary to succeed at the same level as their classmates. In my opinion, this type of labeling seems detrimental to the construction of confidence and self-esteem and therefore the students’ success. If students at this age continue being identified in this manner, it will undoubtedly influence the way they form their identity.

            In addition to being criticized or treated unfairly by someone in person, even the history textbooks used in some classrooms are used to delude the youngest generations of American citizens from truth of our prior experiences as a nation. These textbook 'stories' are often fabrications of historically true events and real accounts, that have been intentionally designed and very specifically chosen to effectively create the standard “American Identity” one may see today, designed in respect of our forefathers' ideals (regardless of the circumstances that influenced them over a hundred years ago). Not only do I worry from my standpoint as a future educator, I also play the role of an adult, concerned with humanistic values, like honesty and the well-being of children. I have now become aware of the fact that many classroom social studies textbooks contain misleading text that makes them unreliable sources. For this reason, I have become unsettled by the notion that records of American history could be equally unreliable and untrustworthy.

            My teaching methods are going to reflect the manner in which I was raised and the information that I have gained through my past experiences and observations in the classroom. Using American identity as a common ground, a group all students are a part of, I intend to teach acceptance and celebration of culture. I want to use this as a basis to form lessons addressing all levels of learners. In theory, I hope that this practice helps eliminate, or at least lessen, the existence of discrimination and stereotyping that is so prevalent in society today.

C. What Can We Define American Identity As? “Our American Identity as the Melting Pot Is Soupy”

            American identities can be interpreted in a variety of ways. In being citizens of this country, one would assume these individuals might classify themselves as American. However, I made the surprising realization that, despite having been born and raised a citizen of this country, when asked how I would define my identity; “American” would never be my first response in describing myself. I oppose the view that as United States citizens we should mask or blend our heritage into the generality of being an American. When asked to define myself, I would have first listed the people that have defined my family's heritage, giving my culture and family history more credit to the creation of my “American identity.” This view should easily be accepted, even by those individuals who truly classify themselves first and foremost as American.

            Publicizing our country for generations as “the Melting Pot,” the juxtaposition of cultures, race, ethnicities, it should come as no surprise that we, as a society hold so many different perspectives and outlooks. I believe that the existence of “the American Dream” seems like an illusion to so many of our citizens as they make their way into our American society. Our country's definition of “well-being” and “success” do not meet the expectations of those individuals who have left their homes and families to come to American in hope of searching for, finding, and experiencing a “better life.” Different cultures have different standards and definitions for these ideas. While reaching “the American Dream” might be an attainable goal for an individual who has lived in the country their whole life, it is often impossible for immigrants or migrants to succeed this far into American society.

            With the increasing amount of diversity that exists within the United States, is it really possible to create a definition that reveals the identities of all Americans? The amount of discussion, debate and inequality that still exists today, gives me the impression that we are currently involved in the process of defining what it really means to identify ourselves as American. Although I am American, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride and nationalism for our country rarely occurs.

Defining what American Identities is on a universal level would not be supportive of the United States. Other countries seem to use degrading stereotypes to express the negative connotations they hold in association to our American identity. Since this is the case, it must also be plausible that American citizens define our identity in more than a multitude of ways. Definitions of what it means to be American would most definitely reflect an individual perspective. We would define American identity individually, based on personal life experiences, history, etc. So is it even possible for our nation to develop an American identity that encompasses all of our citizens? I am convinced that continually over extended periods of time, individual perceptions (as well as generalized opinions), are influenced by the most current status of general societal perspective and the most widely publicly-supported beliefs during that time. I am led to believe that visible trends and patterns have been documented by our nation's history, but are often ignored or manipulated in meaning.

What really defines us as “American” besides the fact that we live in America? America was established hundreds of years ago. However, with the misconstrued, altered stories of our country’s history, we shouldn’t use any one specific defining action taken by our American predecessors to define our identity. Maybe our identity could be linked to the fact that the people of our country are free. For example, the freedom of speech is not something traditional to the rest of the world. The fact that America is a young, growing, changing country might define us. But I think as long as we’re still learning what works best for our country and our people, that we’re still constructing our American identity.

            At this point in my life, I believe American identities can be most accurately defined as follows: the existence of American identity is composed of our diverse citizens. American identities reflect the vastness of our people’s culture, race, ethnicity, customs, faiths, beliefs, principles, morals, lifestyles and backgrounds. We are “the melting pot.” Not only does the society we exist within today still exemplify our country’s diversity, it is constantly growing, adapting and changing our identity, as well. American society and identity are continuously in progressive, adapted movement, like the motion of simmering contents inside of a melting pot. I think that American identities are a conglomerate representation of our diverse nation. As an educator, in hopes of furthering young children’s development as “Americans,” I will not only aim to provide the most accurate American history possible, I am driven to teach tomorrow's generation of children to live compassionately and to accept, celebrate and understand differences in one another.