Section AKM5A

1. The Changing Nature of Race, Power and Ethnicity in the Era of Obama and Sotomayor

2. Community/Global Awareness

3. Wed. Oct 14 4-5:30PM

4. In the workshop, presentations were made about how race and ethnicity constantly affect the world around us. The goal of the speakers was to inform students about the progress being made in crossing racial and gender barriers. Despite the advances, tensions still exist and not everyone is as open to people from different races.

5. I chose this workshop because it sounded interesting. I enjoy politics and thought that it would be great to learn more about Sotomayor. The workshop did not take me out of my comfort zone because the presentations were engaging and educational.

6. I expected to like this workshop and I did. They did not talk about Sotomayor and Obama the entire time but instead interlinked various topics. I would recommend it to other students because it is good to know about current events and how the country is changing rapidly.

7. I learned that even though it seems that racial and gender equality is increasing because of Obama and Sotomayor’s positions in government, there are still disparities that exist. It didn’t really surprise me because a lot of people are very racist and sexist. It is a good thing that advances are being made but I doubt there will be full equality, anytime soon.

                   On Friday, October 16, I attended a movie workshop called “My Beautiful Launderettes” that satisfied the Community Awareness workshop. It was the longest and the shortest workshop I attended. It was the longest because I had to wait 4 hours for the workshop. Since I did not have Freshmen Seminar, my day ended at 10:20 AM and the workshop started at 2:50PM. It was also the shortest workshop because we only stayed for about thirty minutes. When it was 2:50PM, people started entering the room. I expected there to be a lot of people since it’s the last global awareness workshop. But instead, only about thirty people showed up.  After about fifteen minutes of waiting, people started wondering why the movie didn’t start yet. A few minutes later, one of the peer mentors went onto the stage and everyone thought the movie was about to start. But instead, she said the teacher that was in charge couldn’t come. Therefore, no one knew how to set up the movie projector. The students started yelling and complaining. After a while, she agreed to sign our books and give us credit because she said we were good and everyone came on time. Basically, I waited about 5 hours just so I can get to stare at a blank screen and get my book signed.

On Sunday October 18, in order to fulfill my community awareness
workshop I volunteered for the Make Strides to Find a Cure for Breast
Cancer Walk in Central Park. I signed up to be a route marshall which
meant I had to stand along the route and point people in the right
direction. The 5 mile walk began at 9 o clock. Although it was freezing
cold outside and it was raining throughout the day, the walk still
proceeded and many people showed up. My friends and I were dropped of at
our location at eight. We decided that in order to cheer people up and
keep them enthused to keep walking we will cheer for them and shout
motivational phrases such as: “Walk that walk!” and “You wear that
pink!”. For the most part, the walkers were very nice and joined in on
our cheering and gave us high fives. However, there were some people
that made rude comments saying that what we were doing didn’t count for
anything. Despite that, I can say that I enjoyed being somehow involved
in the walk. Meeting so many people, especially the cancer survivors
made me happy to know that there are a lot of caring people in the
world. Since last year my aunt died from breast cancer, it made me feel
better. Although it was too late to save her life, I helped contribute
to the possibility of saving another life.