Late Entries (4/18 and 4/20)

Vergara

I am from Oakland, not too far away from Daly City. I have also done various programs in which I go to the city continuously. I am going to be honest, I do not like San Francisco. It is confusing at first and the price to live there is ridiculous. I also hate how much money companies are making but there are homeless people on every corner, it is unjust. Even though I have been to the city so many times, I never knew about the high number of Filipinos. I am guessing I never paid much attention to it because I always had this idea that only rich people can afford San Francisco and barrios were mainly Chicanos but very rare. This article reminded me of when I asked my dad why he came to Oakland after he left Mexico; he could have stayed in Southern California, closer to the border or gone elsewhere. He told me that he just knew of a lot of friends that lived in Oakland and that he wanted a place where he felt comfortable. Just like the Filipinos wanted to reconnect to their motherland, so did my dad. My dad is the most courageous man I have ever met and this goes to show how much fear people have of starting over and being out of their comfort zone.

Kelley and Scott

James Scott and Robin Kelley speak of the concept of cultural resistance and liberation of the working class. A way to liberate yourself from the social hierarchy is to be stubborn and fight it, don’t just conform to it. This reminded me of when I was in my ethnic studies class in high school and we began speaking about institutional, interpersonal, and self-oppression. All of a sudden my life made sense and I started asking myself if I was being forced to become someone I am not because of a societal hierarchy. I asked myself questions like: why am I in this very underfunded school? How do I get treated different because I am low income? All these people here look like me and it is not a bad thing, but why are we all in this school? Is society expecting us to fail because we are people of color? Why is there shootings and drugs all around me and not in the suburbs?  I was seriously questioning everything and I wanted to do something about it. We then spoke about ways to liberation from different forms of oppression and I finally paid attention to the subconscious ways I was resisting. I didn’t know it was liberation, I just thought I did not want to do it. I was going to be stubborn and do everything the way I want to and not pay attention. For example, I thought I was in school because I was a goody too shoes like I had always been labeled. I realized it was because determined to stay in school to prove people wrong. To this day, I am still here trying to graduate to help other people break the societal hierarchy.

**This is not an excuse: just informing the reason they were late were because of my dad's surgery and I just caught up. I do deserve the points taken off for being late, I just felt like I needed to explain why they were late.