For Privacy purposes, I have omitted names and locations
from this blog post.
As previously stated I would be interviewing
certain local individuals in Arcata and talking them about their ethnicity and
race. Strolling through campus earlier in the year I met an individual. He was
a very good man and became a very good friend of mine. His parents are native
Pacific Islanders and he is the first generation to be born in America. He has lived in Arcata for a couple of years
and says he likes it. As I dive into the details, he maintains cultural traditions
based from the culture of the Philippines but not the culture in its entirety. For
instance, he eats cultural dishes but, he only does this because his parents
make the dinner for him. I asked him if his ethnicity defines him as a person.
He sat for a moment and then burst out laughing. He looked at me as we were
sitting and he said, “Not at all! I define myself!” He laughed for a moment
longer and then gained his composure back. After talking about it a bit longer
he decided that his ethnicity helped shape him as a person but was not a prominent
factor in his character. “It helps describe my heritage and background. It
doesn’t define me.”
My
interviewee and I parted ways. I told him I would be doing this for an
anthropology assignment and he laughed again (He is quite the happy guy) and
said, “Nah man, I’ll keep my name out of it.”
I had a great time with the interview and I think he did too! To talk
about such a rather taboo but interesting subject openly was new and fresh to
me.
After I
had talked to my first interviewee I proceeded to search for a Veteran to talk
to about ethnicity. The reason for this is that the amount of veterans in
Arcata is rather large and I thought having their opinion could bring out
interesting views. Through a bit of searching in Arcata, I stumbled upon one.
He had fought in Vietnam and described race and ethnicity as basically the same
thing. He was Caucasian and didn’t have any particular background aside from
his mother growing up in New York. Through a couple questions I had understood
that this man had really been interested in race and ethnicity.
I asked
how he defined it and he replied, “It’s usually thought of as the color of
someone’s skin or their upbringing but I believe it is the place we live in that
defines our ‘Ethnicity.’” I pondered on this and then asked if it was the same
thing as upbringing/culture and what the difference was. He basically said that
the difference was that there are certain factors in a place that define your
ethnicity. For instance, he talked about governments, the job market, and
various other federal establishments. This actually baffled me and I had no
idea what to think.
My
initial opinion hasn’t necessarily changed; it is still that race and ethnicity
are totally different. Even with this insight of others, I believe that race is
fabricated by society. This is due to all these factors that the world is able
to generate with media, word of mouth, and other forms of communication.
