The Great American Melting Pot, Part 1

While I usually like to open up my blogs with a personal story or explanation, in this case I just want to start with a quote:

"Minority students wait until they know me better before they ask my race.  But it's usually the second question white students ask, and I don't understand why." (402)

The American melting pot has many ingredients.
http://livesimplechicago.wordpress.com/

I want to bring your attention to this point because when I read it, I immediately realized that I am the proto-typical white student.  Whenever I meet a student of racial color, I'm immediately curious to know where they're from.  I don't necessarily indulge in that curiosity but it's always sitting in the back of my mind.  So what is it about us white students that makes us so automatically curious?  There are plenty of caucasian immigrants from interesting, foreign nations but we don't go around asking each other "where are you from?"  Why is it implied that white students are natives while colored skin indicates a foreignness?  I know that it could relate to the fact that recent history has seen an influx of Oriental and Indian immigrants but in Texas, there have been latino/(a)s fir as long as we've been a state.  So I find it really strange that this latino student is constantly asked where he's from when it shouldn't be all that unusual.  Then again, he was attending a northern school according to the text and I suppose there's a different blend of ethnicities up there.

"Although my cousins wanted to get darker, I know that they didn't want to be as dark as I was." (406)

Here are some statistics you might not have known.
http://spanish-translation-blog.spanishtranslation.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Hispanic-Origin.gif

And I just had to say, this is the exact same point we made only weeks earlier in class.  Are they tanning to become as dark as a different ethnic group?  Apparently the answer is no.  So why do they tan?  I've seen people look like a crispy french fry and consider themselves beautiful.  I know that there's an aspect of tan skin giving off a "healthy glow" but that only applies to some extent.  At some point you just look burned.

And lastly, I'd like to point out that racial markers aren't the only thing that can stigmatize students.  Financial situations can cause barriers as well.  I know for a fact that my dad can identify with the quote, "As financial aid students, Ben and I shared a completely different experience from all the boarding students and the wealthy day students." (416)  He was in the exact same position in high school in regards to monetary standing.  My grandpa really wanted my dad and his sister to get the best possible education so he worked as a manual laborer around Ft.Lauderdale and put every penny towards keeping his kids in a rather expensive prepatory high school.  And though my grandpa was just trying to do what he thought was best for his kids, my dad absolutely hated it.  Over spring break we went back to Florida to visit my grandparents and every day that we drove to their house, we passed Dad's old school.  All he really had to say about it was how he never fit in because all the rich kids participated in expensive activities and got new things like cars and boats for their birthdays.  My dad just couldn't keep up with that kind of stuff, and honestly had no desire to do so.  But it still created a social paradigm that bothers him to this day.  It used to be that whenever I tried to talk about high school with him, he just couldn't relate.  I had a completely different experience all because I fell into the same financial bracket as most of my fellow classmates.  And while I might've had a more bland high school experience (with few ethnic groups represented and everyone at about the same financial level), I'm thankful to now be experiencing the huge diversity of UT with an open mind.