Blog Post 7

Throughout this semester, the thing that has resonated with me the most is the first CRT tenet we learned: racism is ordinary. Everybody is racist. I don't think I'm racist, and I know plenty of other people don't think they are racist, but they are–we all are. It's not just things we say aloud, but things we think: "Oh. He only did well on the test because he's Asian"; "She has bad teeth because she's British"; "He's just fat because he's American". So many subtle digs are taken at different races without people really batting an eye at the fact that it's rude and undermeaning, nor the fact that each cultural group has their own unique story (tenet #6).

I think the piece of literature that has stuck in my brain this entire January is the poem "Recipe" by Janice Mirikitani (Bold Words 85). It's just shocking to me that someone created an actual recipe to try to fit to white Americans standards of appearance. The poem made me feel depressed and opened my eyes (no pun intended) to the lives of the Asian immigrants; they just wanted to fit in to society, but were constantly rejected based on looks, culture, religion, and dozens of other reasons that weren't right. The Asian immigrants had their own story, but tried to continuously bury their past to try and assimilate for their future.

One historical piece that I've connected strongly with is the Vietnam War. Although it was mentioned somewhat briefly in the Takaki reading from 1/23, it was difficult for me to read what happened to the citizens and what caused them to become refugees in our country. One of my grandfather's was in the Vietnam War, and reading more about what happened, makes it so much harder on me. I knew it was rough for my grandpa; when he came home from the war, people would spit on him and call him horrible names for fighting in a war that America should not have been involved with, but to hear what happened to the refugees once they escaped was probably worse. They did not want to leave their country, but they were forced out and had to go elsewhere in order to survive. I can't even imagine what it would be like to not being able to return to my home. In all my years of history classes, I never actually learned much about the Vietnam War; I just learned little tidbits here and there, but to get first person recounts of what happened is just mindblowing.