The United States is known as the largest melting pot, bringing in numerous ethnicities into one diverse country. Walking across campus I can hear various languages of different origins. When the question is asked if immigrants should have to speak English, I think the answer is both yes and no. I believe on one hand that if an immigrant comes to the United States to become a full citizen, then yes they should learn English. I also believe that in the citizenship test immigrant take they must be taken fully in English; so therefore, they must learn English in order to become a full citizen. However, on the other hand if the immigrants don’t want to learn English or become an American citizen, that is their own personal choice and I would respect that. It is their own personal decision and it may be a disadvantage to an extent, but that is what they want. We have no right to force someone to speak a language if they are not going to be a citizen. There are many immigrants who have their children who fluently speak English come with them to the Doctor’s office or to a meeting to help them translate. If they want to do that, it is totally up to them. Their life may be harder, but they want to preserve their native language and their culture. Also, I think over time just being exposed to English they will pick up on some words and phrases just living around it. The complaint that many people have is that businesses now have products listed in English and Spanish. Well that is a business decision not some type of government mandate or anything. Businesses have taken notice of all of the native Spanish speakers in the country and have put Spanish on the products in order to make more money. It all comes down to money and it is not about not trying to have Spanish take over the English language. Furthermore, the Spanish language is projected to overtake the English language so maybe we should stop complaining and start adjusting ourselves to other languages. We are the melting pot country and there is nothing wrong with immigrants who want to preserve their culture and part of their culture is their native language. When I hear another language I think it is beautiful and exotic. I would love to be fluent in another language other than English. We do not need to force someone to speak English; they will pick up some English without us forcing it on them. If they want to become citizens they will have to learn English, so they will understand what they are sacrificing. All in all, we should respect their decision whether or not they decide to learn English.

(Part 3) I attended the event and was happy that we could show the world that we are compassionate and reasonable human beings and we do care about more than just football. As we are moving on from all of this I think it is important to remember that these events don’t define us. We are not Sundusky we are not the ones that caused this and we should still be proud to be a Penn Stater. There is so much good that comes out of our University and that is what we need to continue to show the world.

(Part two) I have heard that students are upset that the media reported us in a negative light on the riot, but it was all true and it was happening in front of the media so it is their job to report on what is happening in front of them. Now it wasn’t all of Penn State that was at the riots and this must be reminded to the general public. After the riots I saw a story on the Daily Show showing Penn State students in a negative light because of the riots. He compared our football to religion and was very critical of us as students for caring more for a football coach than the sexual assault victims. I believe we need that criticism to show the world that we are not that. Then on Friday of last week there was a candle light vigil held on Old Main Lawn.

After all that has happened last week, there definitely has been a change in the way that the rest of the world views Penn State. In light of the Sundusky scandal attention was first on Jerry Sundusky himself and how the University failed to report the charges to law enforcement. As a journalism student, I believe the media plays a very important role in the government and is almost like the fourth branch of government to check the powers of everyone. The media need to look at the University and its chain of command to see why it failed, to see why no one said anything to the police and why these innocent boys have not been protected. However, this attention shifted with the unexpected events on last Wednesday night, when the board of trustee decided to fire out President Graham Spainer and head football coach and legion Joe Paterno. Student reacted out of angry and took to Old Main and the streets to show their outrage with the board’s decision to fire JoePa. This then put Penn State students in a view to the world that we only care about football and not about the real victims in all of this, the young boys who were alleged sexual assaulted. (Continued)

I believe that Americans are seeing only the cost of immigration rather than the benefits because we need a scapegoat to explain the downfall of our current economic state. The economy has hit a low and unemployment is everywhere. It is in times like these that people often are looking for an answer to the problems in the economy; this is where the immigrant comes into the picture. In fact, this blame onto a group of people is just like in Germany during the Holocaust. The Jews were what Hitler used as a scapegoat to blame for Germany’s failing economy. Now the immigration hate is on a smaller scale of course, but still is a biased view that perpetrates negative stereotypes that must not exist. The number one argument that I hear people around me say is that immigrates don’t pay taxes and are using up all the resources that us as American only have the right to. First off, this statement is contradictory because just years ago we were the immigrants coming to this country and the Native didn’t push us out and we took all the resources. Secondly, from what Sam told us in class immigrants in fact have taxes taken out of their tiny paychecks but don’t reap any of benefits. They pay into federal, state, and local taxes out of their paychecks that are normally just minimum wage and don’t get social security or worker compensation. They are not reaping the benefits of the federal programs like so many American are everyday, but we don’t seem to have such and issue with that because they were born here. Since when does where someone is born bear so much on a person that we dehumanize a portion of people and deny them human rights like the right to healthcare? Now people would argue back to these, “What about the immigrants who are working under the table.” Well yes they don’t pay taxes so they tricking the system. However, compared to the immigrants that work legally the number of under the table immigrates is very minimal according to Sam in class. If I had not learned any of this in class I would have never been exposed to the truth and would be just as ignorant as the people who use immigrants as a scapegoats. It is a shame that a narrow group of immigrants that work under the table get pushed forward as the main stereotype and classify what all immigrants must be like. I think facts like these need to be given to the public. Furthermore, people need to be taught things like this to be more educated open minded people to be able to see the truth in all the myths that surround immigration.

Last class did leave the interesting question of if we should give our land that we took by force to the rightful owners, the Native Americans? Personally, I think that we have become so disconnected with the origins of the United States that we should not have to give back the land because that would displace millions of us who came as immigrants to this land. However, I believe it is our responsibility to education future generations of the truth about the horrific acts we as colonists did to gain that land that truly isn’t our own. The whole Thanksgiving Day celebration of the coming together of the Natives and the settlers overshadows the true genocide that we committed on these people out of pure greed. By paining Indians as the bad guys and savages like we see in old cowboy western movies we fail to see the true nature of the situation. We were the bad guys… us the cowboys ran in a stole the land that did not belong to us and now claim that it is only ours to keep. Another responsibility I believe we have to the Natives of this land is to help them out of the extreme poverty they face everyday. I was shocked to see Sam compared the life expectancy of Native Americans living on reservations (which are modern day prison camps) to the life expectancy of a third world country like Haiti. I never would have thought that in American we had masses of one culture living in such extreme poverty and distress, yet no attention if any is given to their struggles. We need to help them overcome the high suicide rates, the high school drop out rates, and the overwhelming number of Native Americans living well below the poverty line. I am wondering now why is this the first time I am learning about all of this? Why has their struggle been pushed aside and into the shadows? Are we embarrassed that this is what we caused? If we are embarrassed, then we need to use that embarrassment to motivate ourselves to step up and help the descents of those that didn’t ask for us to come and destroy their homes and displace their lives. With over five hundred tribes just in the United States, Indian reservations are not completely disappeared. We need to offer our aid to those that we first harmed. Maybe we could set up education programs in the area to motivate the young Native Americans to reach success and take them out of the cycle of alcohol, stress, suicide, death, and of poverty. If we don’t help them now we are no better than generations before us that destroyed their lives in the first place. By letting them suffer in the silence and ignoring them we will have to live with our conscience knowing we let them die without a chance to survive.

(last part) This is contradictory to the cause they are trying to symbolize. Friendships should be based on the personalities of the person and not the external factors like race. Someone who is of a different background and race may in fact have the same exact interests as you do. The friend, who is friends with people of the opposite race of them to fit in, may have no other choice. If I lived in a mostly black community chances are that a few of my friends would be black. In this case they are not a poser they are just befriending the people that are in their environment.

(part two) . On the other hand, there can be people that are like posers to be classified as cool, a rebel, or on the opposite just to fit in. The cool friend just wants to be looked at as a person that everyone wants to be. They go and find friends of the opposite race to appear to be cool and not based on the basic things friendships should be formed from. However, the cool kid friend may end up making true friendships with the other races, but his/her intention for befriending the opposite race was not correct. The rebel kid who befriends the opposite race does it to be a symbol against the norm and to be considered an individual. This can be both helpful and hurtful to friendship in society. By breaking away some of society’s chains that only allow us to be friends with people that look like us, is good. However, when the rebel friend looks to befriend people just because they are of a different race, they are looking past personalities and only on skin color.

When someone hangs out with a group of people that is not of their own race it only makes them a poser if they are doing it for the wrong reasons. I believe that true friendship in mixed groups of races does not label someone who is a poser. In fact, many people in stage one that don’t see race at all can’t be a poser because they are not doing it to be cool because they see no difference in a black or brown person versus a white person. For example, I remember when I was fully in stage one as a young child. In kindergarten my best friend was black and I wasn’t friends with her because I thought she was cooler because she was black, I was friends with her because we both loved ponies and the color pink. I wasn’t aware that her race was different than mine; I didn’t even know what race was. All I knew is that we liked the same things and that is what made us friends. That was true friendship for good reasons. (Part one)

The choices people are not the only thing that can land them in welfare, but it is also the outside factors that society puts on everyone. However, if I would have never come to college to learn about this I would be shaped by my white culture and think that only lazy black people are on welfare. This shows how easy racism and native thoughts about other races can be passed down through generation. That is why education about other races is so important. (Last part, 3 parts total)