Author Archives: wenlin

Felipe Baeza, 24, is an undocumented Mexican young man who left his country with his parents when he was 7 year-old. When they first came to the United States they lived in a crowed basement in Chicago. Felipe Baeza’s dream was to become an artist. He was overjoyed to receive a full tuition scholarship for his art school because he knew that his parents did not have money to send him to college.

Mr. Felipe worked in an East Village restaurant. The restaurant was a stepping stone into his dream art career before he graduated with a degree in art from The Cooper Union.  He found a job, but when the employer asked him about his legal status, he was reluctant to tell them he was undocumented. He was frustrated and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t be the person he wanted to be. He noticed that he had very limited opportunities in the United States. He couldn’t work in any art work, not even to assist an artist. He also was arrested once in Georgia because he was undocumented but later he was released. Many years of study and his art dream became empty and he had to abundant his career. He joined a group of people who are also undocumented to find ways to survive in the United States.

This article is related to the movie “Maid in America” and presents many people who came here to pursue their American dreams, but couldn’t get what they really wanted.  These people do not have equal opportunities because they don’t have a legal status.

Children become addicted to junk food today.  They are controlled by advertising and unhealthy products because they are not able to distinguish between good and bad. According the movie that we watched yesterday today children have developed many kind of diseases in their early age such as bi-polar, diabetes, ADHD, hypertension and more. These were unheard of in my childhood. The effects of the fast food on the children are permanently harmful. The excess sugar in the food leads to diabetes, while the saturated fat content throws the child in the clutches of obesity.

According to the New York time, food and beverage advertisers found a way to make their own guidelines and provide more junk food to children without worrying. These companies want to “self-regulate” and set up their own standards and therefore unhealthy food becomes “healthy” today.  For example, last week that McDonald’s invented its “Happy Meal” by adding a few apple slices and removing a few French fries.  The article mentions: “overpriced junk food sold not by its value but by its marketing scheme.”

The most evil offender is soft drinks, which account for a great amount of product placement appearances. Coca-Cola alone accounted for a very high percentage of product placement occurrences viewed by children. When children watch these advertisements, it increased their consumption of junk foods including soft drink.

The article that we discussed in class was about mass-production. Throughout different eras, marketers have aimed at different class of consumers. With the shift to market segmentation in the 1960s, marketers turned class differentiation from a criteria based on income towards one that emphasized lifestyle. During the 1950s and 1960s, Americans’ standard of living increased steadily; and marketers started to focus on the working class that had the potential to become a profitable market. By the 1980s, marketers had shifted their attention to upper-class consumers who earned more money and had a greater spending power.

I found this article quite interesting. I was curious to learn which county in the world is leading in consumer spending today. I read an article in the New York Times that a professor Gerth from Oxford University, who pointed out that a large volume of Chinese consumers adopt all or some aspects of middle-class lifestyles – from owning bigger homes stocked with the latest electronic appliances to private cars to modest vacations. These Chinese have begun to lead consumer lifestyles similar to Western countries. Mr. Gerth also mentioned that China’s advertising market has grown by 40 percent every year over the last two decades. Almost all Chinese, whether they are rich or poor, have access to TV programming and the advertising that comes with it.  The rich and poor alike are exposed, and tempted to buy new products every time they watch TV. Currently, China is the largest growing consumer market in the world. Mr. Gerth pointed that fifteen years ago, very few people owned cars. By 2009, China surpassed the U.S as the world’s largest car market, which grew an additional 40% in 2010.

There are many forms of family. In the decades since adoption practices have changed significantly, and adoption has become a way for increasingly various populations to form families. In a New York Time article, talks about lesbians choose to have their own babies mostly by artificial insemination. Also, lawyers are involved to make custody agreements to insure legal rights of lesbian mothers.

Some lesbians have previous marriage histories before they have become homosexuals.  The article indicates that there is not enough evidence to show whether children rise by homosexuals parents could lead to other problems. However, some clinicians predict that some children who are raised by homosexuals may have difficulty in intimate relationships with opposite sex.

Dr. Callahan, a psychologist pinpoints the concern of many lesbian parents that their children will be victims of prejudice against homosexual people. Yet, this concern did not prevent many lesbian women from having their own children.

This article is related to this class because it shows homosexual families’ parent-child relationship and kin connection. Also, it reveals the construction of implied (racial and cultural) bio-genetic links between donor-conceived children and co-mothers, and to co-mothers’ extended families. In the class we also discuss about the new reproductive technologies has raised important questions about the psychological consequences for children as well as family relationships and the social and emotional development of children. In addition, questions about whether not to share the circumstances of the child’s conception with their child.  If it is necessary for the child to know the truth about how he/she came to be part of his/her family.