February 24, 2012 Adams reading, LaDonn Mathyss, and culture boxes

I found that the Adams reading about class made my wheels start turning in my mind. I started to think about stuff that I never really gave much thought about until now. When I was little, my family was pretty poor. My dad worked for the city in the street department and my mom was always a stay at home mom. My dad's income was the only support for my mom, sister, brother, and me. No one else ever helped us financially because now that I think about it, everyone else in our family was poor too. I still remember getting so excited when my grandpa would bring my mom boxes of clothes that he found in the dumpster near his neighborhood. He would go out for a walk every moring and stop by the dumpster to see what he could find. He would find everything... like clothes, toys, and household appliances. Mom would take the stuff back home and we would all go through it and find what we wanted. Some of my favorite clothes came from the dumpster. And it's not like I was ashamed of them or anything either because I didn't know any better at that time. I thought it was something normal that everyone did, and I actually got really excited to get "new" stuff. The first time I ever thought something was "wrong" with wearing stuff from the dumpster was in elementary school. I was talking to a classmate and mentioned how my grandpa found my pants that I was wearing and she said, "Eeeeeew! You wear stuff from the garbage? That's gross!" After that I started feeling ashamed and embarrassed and neve told anyone that again. I was no longer eager to take stuff from those boxes because I thought it was something bad that people shouldn't do. It makes me wonder how we are socialized to know what "class" is. As a child, you don't know what "class" you're in because it really doesn't exist to you. However you are raised is how you view life. "Class" doesn't become apparent until you are faced with someone who was raised different than you. America is supposed to be a place free of class, but that is certainly not the case. There is alot of discrimination on people that come from lower income families. I feel like class also brings up the issue of racism as well. Americans generally stereotype African Americans and Hispanics to be the poor people, but situations like mine prove otherwise. In fact, whites are the ones who are the majority on welfare, right?

I thought it was nice to have the guest speaker LaDonn come to class on Monday. I appreciate that she took her time to come and speak with us and tell us her story, but I felt like she wasn't comfortable, which made me uncomfortable. I could tell that she was nervous and hesistant to say certain things, and it also seemed as if people's questions weren't really answered. I think that maybe she still has issues that need to be resolved about her situation. I could definitely feel tension in the air.

Culture boxes are a great assignment. I enjoyed making mine and thinking of ways to describe myself. Even though it was an assignment, it was fun because it was a craft. I also enjoy learning new stuff about classmates. Some things are very interesting to find out. It also lets us see a new side to people.