Social Sciences Essay: Cultural Diversity in the United States
Part A. Answer each of the following:
1. Imagine that you are a lifelong resident of Eastwood, the setting of Renegade Dreams. This is your opportunity to tell your story to an anthropologist. What do you want him to know about you and about life in Eastwood? (You need to describe who you are, what your about, the challenges you face, who you hang with, how you view life in the neighborhood, etc.) [The goal of this part of the essay is to give you an opportunity to think try to think your way into the experiences of Eastwood residents.]
2.Now you are a cultural anthropologist extraordinaire—one of Laurence Ralph’s best students. Your job is to analyze and explain the narrative in part a. What is going on culturally? What do you want readers to get out of what was said? What insights does the narrative provide into the cultural dynamics and experiences of Eastwood? What does it suggest and what does it not suggest about larger issues in Chicago?
3. Now, you’re you again, a thoughtful, engaged students in ATH 185. What have you learned from parts “a” and “b” and from Renegade Dreams more broadly? What has this book taught you about gangland Chicago? In other words, what’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned from the book. Support your discussion with examples.
Part B. Answer each of the following
1. Review Mark Nathan Cohen’s key argument in “Transforming the Culture of Intolerance”? Please explain this clearly with supporting examples. Be sure to site your sources (Cohen, p. 13). Further, identify and explain two of Cohen’s concepts or approaches that you will use in part b as tools to analyze Spatial Diversity and Borderlands, Sex and Gender, Language and Culture, or religion as discussed in course readings.
2. Using the two concepts you have identified and explained in the first essay, analyze and interpret the assigned readings for one of the following themes we have explored in the second half of the semester: Spatial Diversity and Borderlands (Goebel, Low and McGuire), Sex and Gender (Sterk, Hall, Martin), and articles on Stonewall and Gay Marriage), Language and Culture (Hill, Basso, and Myers), or Religion (Bielo, Weiner).
3. Upon reflection, what are the two of the most important lessons you've learned about cultural diversity in ATH 185 (excluding ethnocentrism and cultural relativism)? Please explain these lessons and how you can use them to think more insightfully about cultural diversity in the United States. Support your discussion with specific examples.
Please number your responses. These should be double-spaced
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Cultural Diversity in the United States
Part A
1 Experience of Eastwood Residents
The experience of living in Eastwood is not a rosy one in the eyes of a normal human or an average American. To live in Eastwood, one has to adapt on how to leave with several problems from accessing education to, accessing a stable employment and a continuous fear of being evicted from your homes, especially when they are in dilapidated conditions. Accessing proper education as a child is difficult since one has to persevere and pray that the fate of luck be on their side since death is more of a normal thing in Eastwood. Considering that children have to pass through the deadliest neighbourhoods in Eastwood on their way to school makes it even harder for them to complete education. Getting a stable job is also an elusive dream for more than half of Eastwood residents. Finally, should the local authority declare an individual’s house unliveable, the individual is likely to be rendered homeless as the house is taken by the authority in the name of developing it. All these miseries leave most people in the hood with no option other than joining the gangs through which they see hope.
2 Analysis of the Experiences in Eastwood
One key point that comes out from individuals’ experiences in Eastwood is that most of the residents there do not choose to live that life. Also, a fraction of the residents is not proud with the violent and dilapidated state of their neighbourhood. Tamara Anderson, who wants to build a museum in the hood to keep peace and Justin, a transformed gang member who requested his boss not to avenge his injury are some of Eastwood residents who are not proud of the violence in their neighbourhood (Ralph, 22). Most of the people in the gangs, also seem to have joined the groups not because they admire the lifestyle but because their experience in life has leave them with no alternative option. The narrative of the Eastwood suggests that violence has become a norm in Chicago. On the contrary the narrative does not suggest that the people of Chicago are violence. Instead, the violence culture seems be invoked by the hardships they go through their lives.
3 Lessons from Renegade Dreams about Gangland Chicago
The biggest lesson that comes out of the Renegade Dream about Gangland Chicago is that the violent nature that is experienced in the neighbourhood is not an inbuilt natural culture of the people of Chicago. Instead, the different gangs in Chicago, which have existed for more than five decades appear to resolve to violence as a way of safeguarding their rights. This aspect is alluded to by the author of the book in a scenario where the Divine Knights and the Neighborhood Coalition team up outside Chicago City Hall on February 19, 2009 to oppose Delivery Development Corporation Idea of redeveloping the city. In their argument, Divine Knights and Neighborhood Coalition claim that they are okay with the redevelopment but are opposing the loss of property ownership that might result from the redevelopment. Such antagonisms are some of the factors that are likely to end up in violence.
Part B
1 Cohen’s Argument in Transforming the Cu...