Reflections

First off, I'd like to say that this class was one of the most educational and inspiring class I've taken thus far at Stanford. Looking over the course of this class, I'd have to say that I've learned so much from not only the materials we've read, but from each of the students in this class. Also, it has tied so many former classes I've taken together in a way that I've never experienced before - which affirms the fact that race and identity is either the crux or extremely tangential to anything one studies.

My favorite post would probably be the one I wrote about Mexican American identity. I am currently taking a class on Mexican American history, and the themes that we've learned in this class tied very well together with the ones I'm learning in the other class. I think the most interesting thing I've learned in this class however was how race and identity were perceived in postbellum United States. Seeing the "one-drop rule" concretely in various materials we read was fascinating. It still is strange to me that race is so central to the American psyche and has been engrained indelibly onto each and every one of our minds, even today, however in various manifestations. I hope that one day the American populace will reduce the importance of race in the legal realm, and shift over to affirmative action on the grounds of socioeconomic status instead of racial makeup. We have all learned, through the course of this class, that race is arbitrary - but what we identify with, what we glean important from our ethnic make-up, is the most valuable way to explore race.