When I
first arrived in Arcata, I was actually quite frightened. I had come from a
small Orange County town. I looked around and saw only vagrants and vagabonds
roaming the streets. The sky itself was dark that day and it was raining ever
so slightly. The next day it was sunny and I could finally appreciate the
beauty and diversity of the small college town. Instead of my first impression
of the roaming vagrants and vagabonds, I instead saw diversity and an array of
interesting and cool people.
Through
changing my viewpoint of the town itself I came to appreciate the town’s
interesting diversity and ended up enrolling in the school. What I went into
this blog questioning was the difference between race and ethnicity, how they
differed, and how they factored into Arcata and Humboldt as a county. Did
people see race and ethnicity as the same thing? The answer I came to see and
concluded was no. Not really. People here came here or live here with an open
mind and there is not a great deal of discrimination. Apart from a cultural
anthropology course, I am taking an Ethical Studies course. Probably the first
week of the class we discussed if race and ethnicity were the same. Everyone
said race was socially constructed and ethnicity was your ancestor’s culture.
This is what I believe because race is socially constructed just to
discriminate and use someone to alienate and ruin. I am actually rather happy
that the people I have talked to about race and ethnicity have went into it
with an open mind.
This is not to say that everyone is perfect
and doesn’t even see ethnicity or race. There will always be socially
constructed prejudices against certain ethnicities due to past differences and
histories. When I interviewed a friend of mine from Humboldt County, I found
out he was a second generation Filipino and he didn’t care about race or
ethnicity but said we are all humans. This was my favorite view I received
while talking to people and it really hit home with me. We are all humans and
we shouldn’t categorize people as better or lesser because we are all basically
made the same way and do the same things.
To an extent, ethnicity is
important. Ethnicity makes it so you are able to trace family origins and have
a cultural identity. With this cultural identity you are able to feel welcome
with other members of the same ethnicity and it makes it so you are welcome and
feel loved by a group of people. It is almost like a second larger family.
Ethnicity might not seem like a big
deal but it really is because it gives you an identity. This does not mean you
should be judged in any way for your identity or for your skin color or just
who you are! People are people and should always be thought of humans first.
