Cultural Formation In Yen Le Espirtu

In the beginning of this course we learned about society and how individuals feel where they belong in a society as a whole. We also learned how individuals are perceived through different dimensions. I am a white female that comes from a an upper middle class family living in long island, New York that comes from a middle eastern background. My culture I feel has affected me personally in society and it contributes to my morals and beliefs that make me who I am today.
Race is one of the main reasons I am where I am today, and how I am perceived to people. The biological term for race is that races “are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small genetic differences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(biology).” Another definition to explain race is “ a category of people widely perceived as sharing socially significant physical characteristics such as skin color” (Professor Watkins Feb. 13). Everyone sees my race, which is, Caucasian to be a privilege to our society. In the article, Racial
Formations by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, it is said, “ In the United States, the black/white color line has historically been rigidly defined and enforced. White is seen as pure.” I’ve found throughout my years that being “white” has played a huge difference in my life. What most people don’t know is that even though I am considered to be Caucasian, I grew up in a family that was one hundred percent Middle Eastern. My father always taught me to follow my Egyptian culture. Throughout my pre-adolescent years the rules that were made for my sister and I, I started to despise these rules. My father had banned certain things that I wasn’t allowed to do such as, no going out on the weekdays, sleepovers with girlfriends weren’t allowed, adult supervision for every “hangout”. I would constantly wonder why I wasn’t allowed to do these things and would ask my parents how come all my other girl friends were allowed. My parents would always tell me that I am not like everyone else mainly because of my background and religion. One of the reasons I feel growing up was difficult for me than other people was because of my culture and the fact that my father is an Egyptian man that was born and raised in another country. He wanted his teachings, morals, and beliefs to follow through with his children.
In Yen Le Espirtu’s article, Cultural Resistance, Espirtu talks about many different points that I find I can relate to being Middle Eastern.
There is one point that she makes when talking about Asian Americans she says “portraying Asian Americans in all our contradictions and complexities- as exiled, assimilated, rebellious, noble... Asian American cultural projects destabilize the dominant racist discourse that constructs Asians as a homogenous group who are all alike.” The media is what is making all these generalizations about Asian Americans, which come off to be racist. I can relate to this statement because I feel when I turn on the news and something terrible happens in the United State there are always generalizations being made about Middle Easterns. The media makes it out to the public that we are “all alike”. Espiritu goes on to discuss Asian Women and Men living in America and the oppression that they are faced
with.
Being in a Middle Eastern family with a father who came from another country who looks a certain way, has been hard on my family sometimes. In the article, Becoming Suspects by, Tram Nguyen Pakistani men were taken by the FBI and questioned for no reason at all except for the way that they look and because they are from the middle east. For people from other countries to come here it is a privilege for them to be living in America. When families are broken up, or they are looked at a certain way for how they are dressing or called Terrorists it is very hurtful. In this article, Nguyen makes it a point to prove that from “September 11th through February 2002, hate crimes and incidents of discrimination towards Muslims soared to 1,717 according to the council on American Islamic relations.” There were so many hate crimes toward Muslim Americans during this time and the detainees in jail rose significally. Personally, I sometimes feel victimized by the media because of what has happened in the past such as 9/11. I identify as a Muslim American and I couldn’t fathom what would happen to my family if my father were taken in and questioned because of the way he looks. University of Massachusetts is a very diverse school and is filled with many different people that come from different areas with different backgrounds. I was talking to someone about where I was living on campus, which is in a high-rise tower, and the person responded “your Muslim. Why would you be living in a tower? “I couldn’t believe that this person would make a so-called joke like that. I thought to myself, just because I am one Muslim girl he can think this about me? I sometimes wonder why the media or different people victimize us “middle eastern Muslims” just because of traumatic events that had happened. There are many different kinds of people in this world who do crazy things and I don’t think that race, should matter or play a part in why or what happened.
When I was growing up my mother always wanted me to be enrolled in different activities. I was involved in dance, gymnastics, and ice-skating and through my later years growing up I played field hockey and track. My parents always thought that me, identifying as a young lady should be enrolled in such “girly activities”. Growing up, my parents always taught me that being successful and having a good education was an important element and factor that needed to be obtained. My father always motivated me to strive for a really good education because of the fact he came from another country and had to work very hard to be where he is today, a successful CEO of an insurance corporation. My mother however never went to college and unfortunately never had a successful career because she was a stay at home mother. Seeing her struggle along the way with raising my sister and I, and never holding a steady job gave me motivation to strive for more. My dream now, is to be a successful lawyer, which is predomitaley a male figure job which people are always telling me “it is going to be very hard”. I often wonder why is it going to be so hard? Are they telling me this because I am female or is it because it is equally as hard for males?
In the article, The Mommy Tax by, Ann Crittenden her main point is how being a mother is very costly in the United States. After reading this article is was very apparent to me how gender discrimination is actually true. Crittenden says, “To find the real difference between men 's and women 's earnings, one would have to compare the earnings of all male and female workers, both full- and part-time. And guess what one discovers? The average earnings of all female workers in 1999 were 59 percent of men 's earnings”(Crittenden, page four). This truly shows how gender discrimination is alive in the United States. I can relate to this article because, in the summer of 2012 I had a legal internship at a law firm. I was making ten dollars an hour and I started in May 2012. At the time another male, the same age as me was doing the same exact work I was doing at the internship. Instead of being paid ten dollars an hour like I was, he was being paid eleven dollars. I didn’t know this until the internship was almost over and we became friends and the conversation was brought up. I never said anything to my employers because I was afraid of getting let go and I thought that having a job was better than not having a job.

In the article, On Becoming Female: lessons learned in school, written by, Donna Eder she discusses how females feel about themselves during high school. One of the main points Eder is trying to convey is girls feeling the need to feel attractive. Eder talks about girls being in a “high class status” by participating in cheerleading. Throughout my years of high school, I saw that there was so many girls always trying out for cheerleading every year. I always felt that cheerleading wasn’t for me because I was never portrayed as a “girly girl” I always liked the sports that involved contact and interaction. Another point that Eder makes is how boys portray the girl’s appearance in cheerleading. “Girls and women continue to be viewed as sexual objects within the media as well as other arenas from cheerleading and pompon teams to swim- suit competitions. Increasingly, adult female models are portrayed as inno- cent and childlike in their sexual allure, while young girls are depicted as erotic and seductive (Donna Eder, page 4).” I agree with this statement that Eder makes because I saw this everyday throughout high school. There was always this saying that “every girl wants to be a cheerleader.” During high school I always saw the boys, or any type of jock always wanting to date the cheerleaders and there were always girls who wanted to be cheerleaders.
In conclusion I feel that my race and gender has affected my life in many different ways. It wasn’t always positive affects, and it wasn’t always negative. The way I was raised defiantly plays into affect on where I am in society today and I how others portray me.

Bibliography
1. Omi and Winant “Racial Formation” (ORE 19-29)
2. Le Espiritu “Cultural Resistance” (ORE 775-­785)
3. Crittenden "The Mommy Tax"
4. Eder "On Becoming Female"
5. Nguyen “Becoming Suspects” (ORE 42-55)