Blog Day 5

1. In my opinion, Sofia is the character that stands out to me the most when it comes to the person who has been shaped the most in the story based on the events she has experienced. I think that Sofia does not know who she is anymore. So many things have happened that got her in trouble, like the numerous sexual experiences which she has encountered. These get her in an immense amount of trouble with Carlos because he is strictly basing his life off of Dominacan culture and not taking the American culture aspect of life into account, when Sofia is. Carlos does not understand how Sofia is reacting with the whole "American experience." She is constantly doing "bad things" and getting in trouble for them which therefore is responsible for Sofia now knowing what she wants. If she makes a decision based off of what she wants, then she gets in trouble with her dad and if she does what her dad wants then she is not satisfying herself. This is a major self conflict. She is not moving forward nor backward. She is simply staying in the same position because this identity conflict is not letting her get anywhere in life. These numerous sexual experiences have encapsulated Sofia's identity.

2. Something positive that has happened in the story thus far is in the chapter "Snow" when Yolanda's teacher, Sister Zoe, said that Yolanda has a beautiful name and then she insisted for the rest of the class to learn how to pronounce her name. This is definitely a person to society connection because it is now society that is respecting Yolanda's name and thus respecting her culture. This is a great change from all of the negative things that have been happening in this story. Society is filled with people who are ethnocentric and do not expect other peoples' culture all together. The fact that a teacher is not ethnocentric is greatly positive. Then, Sister Zoe tells the whole class to learn how to pronounce Yolanda's name which shows how Sister Zoe does not only repsect different cultures herself, she wants the people around her to do the same. This is positive because it could be something that other people see as "weird." It is nice to see other people respecting others because a lot of people cannot do this. This really is a significant part of the plot. Yolanda must have felt really good that someone is repsecting her name and her culture.

3. I feel like the subject of race and culture has a tremendous amount to do with the Jeremy Lin story. It was very interesting to read about how the author (of this article) sees the whole Linsanity story unfolding and it was also interesting to see how race played a role in his childhood. I think that the national media is giving so much attention to Jeremy Lin just because he is excelling at the game of basketball as an Asian. Nobody ever really heard of Jeremy Lin when he played for Golden State but now that he is on the Knicks (a more popular city in my opinion) and is exceeding his expectations as an NBA player considering the fact that he is Asian which contributes to the fact why his story is so popular. There are great NBA players that do exactly what he does, and at a more intense level in my opinion. Some of these players are LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Derrick Rose. Why is Jeremy Lin's story of his journey about how he got here more popular then these other players? The answer is because he is Asian. Society needs to realize that this does not matter. Although, there are not too many Asians in the NBA, they are capable of doing the exact same things that other NBA stars can do.