Ethnic History. Journal Assignment #2 asks that we write about our experiences of race, class, gender and other features of difference and inequality in our lives

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JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT #1                                                        

Journal Assignment #1

SWK 850 Dynamics of Oppression & Discrimination

Wheelock College

        


        On the first day of this class I did what I believe is typical for new graduate students--I immediately turned to the syllabus to see how I would be graded, and on what assignments.  I have to be honest with you, when I read the first Journal Assignment, I laughed. What was my story of my ethnic group given to me and by whom and what context?  That’s simple, I thought, I have none and was given none.  What ethnic group do I belong to and who gave me this information?  Again, that’s simple. I am a white, American woman. Who told me?  Well that was a little more complicated because a whole host of sources relayed this information to me:  my family, educators, neighbors, institutions and friends along with the mass media, and the mirror.  I also scoffed at the notion that my story would include ways in which my “group” was in any way ethnically dominant.  This would be an easy assignment, I thought to myself.  My only concern was how I was going to be able fill three to four pages with information that really didn’t apply to me!  Today, sitting down to write this assignment I have a whole new perspective--this assignment is in no way simple!

        Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines ethnic as “…2a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves>; b : being a member of a specified ethnic group <an ethnic German>”  (Ethnic, 2012).

        I have been staring at this definition for over an hour.  I have reread the material we have covered in class to date, and yet, I am stymied.  My initial instinct is to write about my racial makeup.  The readings, however, shed more light on ethnicity. Harlon Dalton said it succinctly in his article, Failing to See:

…[d]espite surface similarities, race and ethnicity are very different creatures.  Ethnicity is the bearer of culture. It describes that aspect of our heritage that provides us with a mother tongue and shapes our values, our worldview, our family structure, our rituals, the foods we eat, our mating behavior – in short, much of our daily lives…In contrast race exists only in relation to one another….[sic] race would be meaningless if it were not a fault line along which power, prestige, and respect are distributed….Whiteness is meaningless in the absence of Blackness…White ethnicity determines culture, race determines social position.  (as cited in Ferber, Jimenez, O’Reilly Herrera, & Samuels, 2009, p. 59).

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        It is clear then that to get to any true self-identity, a broader and more than superficial investigation of self-reflection and of micro- and macro-societal influences are required (Jimenez, 2010).  Who am I?  I have no real ethnic history. My mother was adopted and we have no information pertaining to her biological background.  Furthermore, my fraternal grandmother was adopted and my fraternal grandfather abandoned my father when he was very young. There are no records to trace their bloodlines.  Both my father’s and my mother’s parents had very similar ideologies.  Both were children of first generation immigrants, my mother’s ...

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