The School of General Studies is one of the most diverse schools at Columbia University. GS has more great number of the student population who identify themselves as students of color. This paper will explore how the students from the Caribbean diaspora stay connected on campus while being away from their families. Our exploration of this subject will include empirical data that will show how the communities from the Caribbean archipelago stay connected to their culture with both music and food. We will also prove the importance of groups that provide a safe space to speak about issues that are important to who they identify with culturally. One of the questions that we asked of our focus group was “How do you stay connected to …show more content…
your culture while on campus?”. A young woman whose was born to the parents of Dominican Immigrants stated that her connection to her country and heritage heavily relies on music and food. I preceded to ask if she had a favorite artist that she identifies with and she mentioned the artist Alex&Fido and Romeo Santos. She added that she can remember when Romeo Santos was the lead singer at Aventura and she went to their concert “In that moment singing Aventura songs with my fellow Latinos created a connection that I can’t describe. I’ve always had the sense that I was Dominican but I’ve never been to D.R and I sometimes had the feeling that I didn’t fully belong ”.I preceded to ask her what type of food makes her feel like home even when she’s not. She responded that “Home for me starts with a dish we call los tres golpes, it consist of fried eggs, fried salami, mangu (boiled planatains) and queso frito. That along with a drink we call morir sonando (which is a combination of milk and orange juice), that is mi cultura". We met with another student in their early thirties of Dominican heritage on a Sunday in Washington Heights, he invited me for dinner at his abuela’s (grandmothers) house. I rang the bell and was buzzed in the 5 story walk up, upon entering the apartment I was instantly met by all of the smells that signified home to me, I was greeted at the door by his abuela with the familiar voice of Hector Lavoe singing in the background. Dinner was already done and she made a pernil(pork) arroz con gondules and platanos (plantains).As we ate I asked him how often does the family get together and have dinner. He replied "It's something that I hold dear because it's a tradition we have so there is time for us to talk and be a family even with our hectic schedules”. His grandmother stated “Voy a cambia mi bata”, as she opened the door to her bedroom I caught the glimpse of what I was a small object that I thought looked like Yemaya on her dresser. When she came back into the room I asked her about the statue on her dresser, and she smiled at me and said “You’re Latino you should know”, and with that she confirmed my belief. We proceeded to finish dinner and we spoke to our interviewee about what he felt made him Dominican besides his genealogy. He stated that being Dominican wasn’t just about being from the island but a state of mind “I feel Dominicans when I’m around other Dominicans, or hear bachata or merengue when I get off the train at 181 St., or I get a churro at two in the morning after a long Friday night of hanging out with friends. My third interview was with a native of Haiti in her mid-twenties, who wanted to meet in one of the biggest Haitian neighborhood in New York City. Our appointment was for the following Saturday in the early afternoon, we agreed that we would meet her in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Flatbush has a large Hattian community and has a strong connection. I arrived at our designated meeting point ten minutes early at Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. We walked around the neighborhood and we heard the symphonic harmony of creole being spoken and compas. She took us to a small mom and pop restaurant called Kreyol further down the street on Flatbush Avenue. As we entered the establishment there were Haitian flags all over the restaurant and the smells were sublime. She ordered in creole a sampling of a few items on the menu and explained later to us that it was better for her to order because we would get better treatment. Our dishes were brought to us after 25 minutes and each dish was presented with an explanation. We had griot (fried pork), fried plantain, oxtails, and rice and peas with three Cola Lacaye sodas (a soft drink from Haiti founded by Rigobert Richardson in 1977). As we ate the amazing food in front of us, we posed our first question “How do you connect with your heritage and what role does it play for you on campus?” There was a two minute pause before she answered and proceeded thoughtfully and stated “It’s hard for me on campus outside of clubs to truly connect with my heritage in a seminal way, which is why when I get the chance I take the 2 hour train ride into Flatbush to stay connected”. The next question we asked was “What is your favorite genre in Hattian music, and what’s favorite artist, and song?” She quickly responded “That’s easy, I love is Haitian house music called Raboday, to me that sounds like the future of Hattian music for younger people. As a young Haitian woman of color it speaks to my struggles in this country similar to the struggles my family is facing in post- earthquake Haiti. My favorite artist is Wylcef Jean not only as an artist but what he does for the people of Haiti as a philanthropist if you asked my mother I’m sure she would say she loved compas”. Based on the responses that we received from our interviews we decided to search from groups on campus that serviced both Hattians and Dominicans on campus. The relationship between the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola have ties that are catenated and complex. All of our interviewees were part of Grupo Quisueyano and the Haitian Student association respectively. The three of them met us together so we could ask them the follow up questions. The interview took place at Joe’s coffee l ocated in the northwest corner building on the Columbia University campus. The first question we posed was “How does your ability to take part in cultural groups on campus and the injection of other cultures besides western cultures into the CORE, help or hinder your experience on campus? “All three responded that is has not only been beneficial but vital to their existence on campus. They stated that often on campus they have been made to feel “othered” by their fellow students .The young woman of Haitian descent stated “I am actually a part of both HAS, and Grupo Quisueyano because my grandmother on my father side is Dominican.
I loved her and through her I had a connection to both sides of the island” After speaking for an extended amount of time about the current politics between the countries, it inspired our next question “Do you feel that these two countries coming from the same context of colonialism ever find a middle ground?. The young man from the Dominican Republic answered first “I hope so, It’s my hope that we can truly move forward and realize our difference and similarities and embrace them” his countrywoman nodded her head in agreement. The Haitian interviewee spoke up that she disagreed “I personally don’t think well ever be able to reconcile our differences. We are so damaged by the history of colonization and the racial constructs that were set up and we continue to perpetrate them against each other. I believe that the disease that was left on our island might not be cured because one side of the island embraces their African heritage while the other runs away from it” With that we ended the interview and thanked them for their time and we were invited to come to both groups for celebrations before the thanksgiving holiday, which we did and found a new circle of
friends.
and exits after stating he didn’t want any part of the interview if it was about refuting the word of his
Because of geographic isolation, human societies develop either genetic or cultural defenses against certain types of disease, an adaptation that keeps them free from major endemic devastation (Patterson 3). K. David Patterson, Associate Professor of History, describes the African environment as “extremely dangerous for outsiders” and goes on to say that Europeans “generally found Africa’s ‘fevers’ and ‘fluxes’ deadly until the beginning of tropical medicine in the late nineteenth century” (7). Similarly, once the geographic and cultural barriers between West and East Africa were broken down, they became extremely vulnerable to the other’s infectious diseases (Azevedo 121).
we could move on as a nation, seeing that we are equal and we are one created by
...common ground is not enough, though. Both groups have to be willing to change in order to accommodate the ongoing relationship. Ignorance is part of any race relation and will almost always exist no matter what precautions are taken to prevent it. If a bridge is to be built between the races, people must recognize the importance of differences. They should realize that differences are not something that will hurt or destroy race relations but the very thing that allows the races to exist. A dialogue between the races doesn't imply a need to merge cultures; instead, people ought to see the beauty in differences, allowing the other race to do what it has always done, to live with the differences. These differences inevitably cause some degree of ignorance. Ignorance may serve to hurt race relations in the short run, but it is an inevitable part of race relations.
sense of place and belonging. This shows to those who still may be ignorant, that the
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different ci...
allow us to have a glimpse of social orders and the daily life of how
First off, both societies conform to the principle of the ruling figure without question – despite the presence
Up until this year, before taking the class intermediate composition, I thought I was a terrible writer. I was right. Writing isn’t something that I enjoy doing, nor am I good at. Writing is difficult for me because I’m not very good at explaining things in a professional manner, that can be easily well written. While writing you are expected to make little to no mistakes, which is not something I’m great at. I am so much better at explaining things with verbal words rather than written words. I had not taken any extra writing classes before this year rather than the mandatory ones. Like I had stated before, I hate writing, with a passion. I dread writing anything, especially an essay for school, like this one. I’m
She felt that I maintained eye contact and reiterated her responses in a way to made her feel heard. The open-ended questions that I had integrated into the interview allowed her to realize the inconsistencies between her current behavior and her future goals. I big point from her was that I allowed her to do majority of the talking which she believed put her in control and that I wasn’t forcing her into a particular direction of change. She could tell that I wasn’t completely confident in the way that I asked my questions, using a lot of “um’s” and “so’s “. We also discussed how she felt about the amount of pauses I took in order to respond and how this made for a awkward silence, taking away the comfort of the setting. It was also brought up that I could have used more empathy when responding to her as it would of let her knew that I am taking into account the difficulty of the change for
Initial Reflective Essay When I first thought of what I wanted to do with my life after college, the first thing I thought of was helping people. The next step in deciding what I wanted to do with my life was to examine how I could accomplish this goal. I started pondering and I was thinking about how much I love to take care of my body. Health care and personal hygiene has always been an important factor in my life. So I decided to major in Health Sciences.
This semester entering English 102 I thought of myself as a bad writer with a lot to say and no idea how to coordinate it or express it. A big reason why I took English stretch composition was to strengthen my writing skills. I feel like I have a better idea of where to put my ideas but I really need help with the technical writing and how to do research papers correctly. My concerns over the semester are not the same as they were at the beginning, they have changed. One of my concerns was that I wouldn’t know how to organize a college essay, but that concern is gone now. A new concern I have this semester is my run on sentences and the punctuation and the lack thereof.
The first four weeks of CR510 have prompted this student to reflect on her years of teaching in the public school setting. Having experienced many similar complexities to the ones in the text, this student is sympathetic to the challenges facing those in the education system and is eager to find opportunities to offer a better solution for all involved. CR510 has strengthened this student's belief that a third party neutral can provide valuable benefits to educational systems at all levels.
Commensality can be defined as the notion of eating with others. It is the act of two or more people consuming a meal together (Pearsall J 1999). The purpose of commensality is much more than that of allowing survival. It pushes beyond this and becomes a practice of socialisation. Anthropologist Martin Sahlins suggested that not only does it provide opportunities for people to integrate socially, but that it can be the starting factor and maintaining factor in which enables relationships to form and develop. For example, he found that at the beginning of relationship formation commensality tends to involve the sharing of drinks and snacks. As relationships develop the meals become more complex. He claimed that the traditional cooked dinner of meats and vegetables is one mainly shared among families and rarely with friends (Lupton 1996). This suggests that commensality is often used as an expression of closeness and the extent of such closeness can be discovered by looking at ...
community, the beauty and strength of it should be revealed and raised on it with every coming