October 7, 2007

German writing response for GEL

1. My ethnicity is Filipino and my parents immigrated here from the Philippines and my siblings and were born here in America. My dad joined the navy when he was young so that he could come here and when he got here he petitioned to bring his mom, dad, and siblings here too. My mother went to school in the Philippines for nursing and came to America as a nurse. My parents wanted to come here to have a better life and after having moved around the US, they decided to raise my siblings and I here in SoCal. I am very happy that I live in Socal because it’s beautiful and always something new to do or try. I like that everybody here is so different but share many things in common with out. It is nice to meet people that are from a different background and have all types of different stories to tell but at the same time have so much in common with them because you both may enjoy hobbies like surfing, dancing, art, or golfing. Although the majority of people are accepting of people, there times of racism and segregation. I know that personally I have been stereotyped a lot because I am Asian. People say assume that I'm smart, dance, and make jokes about me eating dogs because I'm Asian or call me F.O.B if I had an accent. I think its the same for everybody though. There is always some kind of stereotype for every race and sometimes people just get too comfortable about saying them and don't realize that some of them are really offending. I have head stories from my brother and some friends however about how they were refused service before or followed after school while being called names and maybe even starting a physical fight because of being Filipino or any other race.

2. What I see when I look at the picture is everybody working their way to America. The flag with the sun and the shadow of the city just represents to me, freedom. The flag is the biggest part to show American and the sun just makes me thing or a brighter time and place with the city as the center of the sun. In front of all that are people carrying suitcases because they are on the way to the free America with their families. To the side of it is another sun with two people and a donkey as silhouettes walking which is a biblical reference. I think that the whole picture in general just represents the American dream. People want freedom, success, and happiness and they are all looking for a better place to find all of that.