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Anna Ou-yang


Contents

About Me

      Name  Anna Ou-yang    Date of Birth  14 November 1990   Birthplace New York, NY   Location Brooklyn, NY   Education  Mark Twain JHS  Brooklyn Technical High School  Baruch College   Major  Accounting/Actuarial Science   Minor  Finance
Name Anna Ou-yang
Date of Birth 14 November 1990
Birthplace New York, NY
Location Brooklyn, NY
Education

Mark Twain JHS
Brooklyn Technical High School
Baruch College
Major
Accounting/Actuarial Science
Minor
Finance

I am an undergraduate student attending Macaulay Honors College at Baruch and plan on majoring in accounting. I was born, raised, and currently live in the friendly neighborhood of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, NY. I attended Brooklyn Technical High School and graduated under the Bio-Medical Science major. I often volunteered at hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and soup kitchens because I am a true believer of the golden rule and like helping others.

I love swimming during my free time. To me, swimming lifts burdens and makes me feel refreshed. It is as if under the surface, the water is another world that is separated from reality’s troubles. I had swimming lessons at a young age and actively participated in competitive swimming.

I enjoy spending time with friends, listening to pop music, learning about culture, and love sleeping and eating sweets. With my passion for learning about the many different types of cultures that the world offers, I hope to learn different languages to communicate with others and travel around the world. I believe that language is not only the tool for communication but is also the key to understanding the values and customs of a culture. Along with my passion for linguistics, I am also passionate about math because it challenges and stimulates the brain. I feel that although life is not simple, math is; there is often one solution to mathematical problems and although the process in finding this solution may be tedious and time-consuming, in the end, it is gratifying, like life itself.

Ideal Community

As I walk along the road, the wind quietly brushes the red and orange leaves and the lined multitude of trees sway from side to side. I take a seat on the porch and despite the summer's loudness, I hear the subtle rustling of dried leaves and smell the faint scent of flowers and grass. In this idyllic neighborhood, the government provides the houses, and the people are culturally diverse, peaceful, kind and respectful. Although the people are selfless, they work for their survival and also for the betterment of society as a whole to maintain a close-knit community. Water, electric, and gas supply are unlimited and each home gains free access to them. The children attend school while the parents are working and the grandparents enjoy the company of other grandparents in the community. Every summer, there would be a fiesta held on the streets, a place where one can dance to loud music, win small live creatures, buy handmade crafts, or eat anything from sausage and zeppole to sushi. The goal of the social gatherings is to interact with others and develop a social life. Each family can contribute to the table something sumptuous of their culture's specialty.

Immigration Film Clip

This film is about a former Pakistani pop star who immigrates to America and struggles to make a living. Every day Ahmad, the protagonist, follows a monotonous pattern of pulling his cart to a street corner every morning and selling coffee and doughnuts to busy passerbys in Manhattan. The film's overall atmosphere is solemn and sad, portraying the sentiments of disappointment and confinement that many immigrants feel when trying to adapt to a new environment.

From There to Here

My ancestors come from the Guangdong province of China, also known as Canton province. My maternal family comes from the Sun Woi village whereas my paternal family comes from Taishan. Located on the southern coast, Guangdong is a multicultural province populated by predominantly Cantonese speakers. My father, however, speaks a different dialect of Cantonese called Taishanese. My parents and grandparents however, can also speak Mandarin. (I cannot.)

The first person to immigrate to America was my paternal grandmother. After immigrating in 1984 and becoming a US citizen, she decided to bring my father a year later. My mom then immigrated to New York in 1987 when my father brought her over after becoming a US citizen too. Even though they arrived without knowing any English, today, everyone in my family are US citizens and can speak basic English although with an accent. The English language, they say, can kill a student in China.

My parents lived in the basement of a small house in Bay Ridge but because of sanitary conditions and the addition of me, my mother wanted to find a home big enough to house the entire family. In 1990, while my mother was pregnant with me, she decided to move to Bensonhurst, 18th Avenue in Brooklyn. Only recently, my family finished paying the mortgage. I still live here to this day, along with my maternal grandparents, my aunt and two uncles, two cousins, my parents, and my two siblings. Although my address hadn’t changed for 19 years, the house did; the house was renovated just last year. The neighborhood is a mix of Italian and Chinese culture although it is increasingly becoming a Chinese neighborhood. My grandparents and parents always tell me about their life in China – how they lived in poverty and had very little to eat. However, they think positively of immigrating although it was hard because of the language barrier and lack of skills; they had no choice but to work in clothing factories, like most Chinese women immigrants who could not speak English. They see how my sisters and I have a better life here, however, and therefore have no regrets immigrating because their immigration gave their children a better life. As a first generation Chinese-American, I am glad to experience the best of both worlds.

Class Notes

13 Feb
Peopling of NYC
- migratory
- reasons: resources, social (pow-wows), ethnicity, race, religion, economic, finance, education
- pull factors
- followed migratory deer trails and bison/buffalo
- natural factors: ocean currents, wind patterns

Aspect of place
- weather, animals, landscape, people, social

Pull factors of NYC
- museums, arts, theater, entertainment
- education, shopping mecca, lifestyle, food (culinary arts in NYC)

Push factors of NYC
- economic (poverty), religion discrimination, political persecution, war

Salvo
- Compared to the United States, NYC has more percentage of foreign-born population in 2000 (more than 1/3)

How are they represented? Is my group represented here? If it is, how? Is it accurate?

20 Feb
General theme
How are im/migrants to NYC (American in general) visually (and otherwise) represented in history, sociology, journalism, art, movies, television, museums, etc?

Crossing national borders/within borders of US
Term: Foreign-stock – children of immigrants
Native-born
DP – displaced persons after WWII ended

Migrants
- Cubans
- Tourists, athletes, for work purposes(short-term)

Immigrants
- Hispanics
- Irish
- Asian

There to Here Essays
Term: traces – changes (stores, symbols, houses, colors, lettering)

US Census Data and Reports

Viewing im/migration films: What image/feelings do they portray about immigrants?
Group work - 5 commonalities that the films show about immigrants
1. push factors
2. social status changes
3. high expectations → disappointment
4. connection to family
5. tedious process

13 Mar
What and how do the museums and landmarks depict immigrants? Do they cover your people?

By people studying differences, they start to see the similarities.

Is my neighborhood historic in a sense? In movies? Update wiki.

Central theme/question How are immigrants groups/ migrants represented into the different museums, landmarks, etc. - National Park Service – how are the immigrant groups represented in relation to the city?
o Ellis Island
o African Burial Ground
o Tenement museum
- Research
o Census tracts
o Books/readings
- Media
o Film clips/ movies
o Student videos
o News
o Music
- Our class
o Overall description of the wiki project, goals, course description
o Bios

Sections
NPS – Rolanda, Alice, Yura, Margot
Research – Alisa, Andrew, Duke
Media – Jasper, Daniel, Audrey
Our Class – Emily, Anna, Christian, Vincent

Methods
Design, Visual (video, photography), Text/Editing, Audio

20 Mar
Assimilation – culture absorbing American society; dissolving into a solution (solution is American society)
- American society is a melting pot of all the different ingredients that have gone into it
- Anglo-conformity

Assimilation → ideology – they ought to do this, do that, negative connotation to their unwillingness to become like everybody else, learn to be like Americans, drop your language (acculturation)

Stew pot – adjust to American society but don’t lose everything; “cultural pluralism” – people ought to become like Americans in some aspects but should retain some of their own to stand out in some way, emphasize the differences between cultures

Salad bowl – “multiculturalism” people retain their own culture; one ought not to change like the rest of America, emphasize the commonality between cultures

Statistics show that the stew pot is more realistic.

Foner – culture, emphasize multicultural point of view
Berger – assimilation as model
Glazer and Moynihan – politics, divide book up in terms of different groups
-Irish, Italians, Jews, Negro, Puerto Ricans

27 Mar
Pots → Theories, Ideologies
Ethnic Succession
Mass Media - Journalism
Social Sciences: History, Sociology, Political Science
- simulation (from class trips, videos, books (historically, Melting Pot, Foner book, Berger)), accessibility (audience), accuracy, reliability, validity

Science → is
Ideology → ought to be

Glazer, Moynihan – US Senator for NY, professor at Harvard University → Beyond the Melting Pot → assimilation model Glazer is Jewish, Moynihan is Irish

Foner – justifies talking more about women because she’s a woman and because immigration stream has changed, women are more involved

Neighborhood Census Tract

Image:Neighborhood_pic.png Image:Picture_1.png Image:Neighborhood_2.png‎ Image:Neighborhood_3.png‎

In Bensonhurst 18th Ave, there is a total population of 4,654 as compared to the entire population in Brooklyn, which is 2,465,326. It is not densely crowded or overpopulated. Bensonhurst is predominantly split between two races demographically, between Whites and Asians. Of the 4,654 people in my census tract 252, 60.3% are white (non-hispanic). I would assume that most of them are of Italian heritage. 23.7% are Asian while 11.3% are Hispanic. 85% of the people living here are in family households. Most people are married-couple families (891), followed by 620 households with persons 65 years and over. Many senior people live in the area. In the future I suspect that the percentage of Asians in my neighborhood would have increased as I am realizing there are more Asians now than ever before.

Image:Home3.jpg

Field Trip Notes

Trip to Ellis Island

Ellis Island is the universal icon for immigration to America. During the 1900's, immigrants came to the United States for opportunities, freedom, and a chance for prosperity and success. On their travel to become legal immigrants, they boarded the steamships and saw the towering 150ft tall statue of a woman holding a torch to represent liberty, hence it's name the Statue of Liberty. Although today people immigrate through air flight, Ellis Island still proves monumental as it welcomes and reminds visitors and immigrants of the past and the long journey it took to come here. It was restored and opened as a museum in 1990.

This is a picture of the main hall in Ellis Island where the entire immigration process took place.
www.top2bottom.net/scenery.html

www.tourismjunction.com

Trip to African Burial Ground

The African Burial Ground project was brought into light when workers were doing excavation work for a new federal building. There they discovered the remains of free and enslaved African Americans who were buried in the area, which became covered by landfill over the years. The burial ground is located in lower Manhattan around the corner of Duane Street. It serves to commemorate New York slaves who helped to build modern-day New York wand the hardships they went through. The site was declared a national monument in 2006.

This is the Wall of Remembrance which has an inscription of the symbol Sankora, meaning "learn from the past".

Trip to Lower East Side Tenement Museum

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum serves as a glimpse into the lives of immigrant tenants and the conditions of tenement life. Without much money, many immigrants, mostly Irish, lived in these tenements and settled with deplorable living conditions. The tenements were crowded, several families often lived together, and health and sanitary conditions were hazardous. Located on 97 Orchard Street, this museum brings the present back into the past.


http://www.nyu.edu/ticketcentral/steals.deals/sdshows/tenement.gif

Midterm

1.Describe, discuss, and give examples from the assigned readings and class notes of the theories and ideologies of im/migrant adjustments to American society.

When people enter an unfamiliar place, they are bound to face obstacles and must adapt to the new surroundings and customs to survive. Throughout history, immigrants have established their marks in areas all around the United States and have created what is called “American” culture. But establishing a home, creating a family, and surviving was no easy feat. Whether it was immigrants then or now, they still had similar reasons and still face similar problems. Foner accurately compares how the waves of immigration and how they adapt to New York City. While old immigrant groups like the Italians, Irish, and Jews were generally unskilled, poor, and illiterate, today’s immigrants also include illiterate peasants, although one difference is that many have attained college degrees and know how to speak English. Old immigrant groups had to settle for low-paying jobs with long hours and tedious work but today, more immigrants are finding better-paying jobs. From the class notes, it was mentioned that “push factors” push immigrants to come to New York City. It is evident that from the examples mentioned earlier in Foner’s book, the main push factor for both waves of immigration was the poor economic status they held back home. While trying to survive in America, however, what happens then to their culture and customs that are tied to their homeland? There are three theories that have developed over time to describe their process of adjustment: assimilation, cultural pluralism, and multiculturalism.

Assimilation is interchangeable with acculturation and is analogous to the melting pot ideology. The process of assimilation suggests that immigrants are dissolved into a solution and for immigrants, this solution is the American mainstream. Glazer and Moynihan stressed this theory in their book, “Beyond the Melting Pot.” The immigrant groups did not shed their ethnic identities but were still assimilating nonetheless. He treated Puerto Ricans and blacks as assimilating more slowly than other ethnic groups in New York like the Irish, Italians, and Jews. In all the immigrant groups, they were transformed by influences in American society. One evident example is the increasing usage of the national language as the first language, English. Glazer and Moynihan argue that “language and culture are largely lost in first and second generations” and are being replaced by the dominant language and customs. On the center of the spectrum, there is cultural pluralism, which is analogous to the stew pot ideology. This theory suggests that immigrants adjust to American society but still retain some aspects of their own culture. In this stew pot, the immigrants do not completely dissolve into the mainstream of American society, unlike assimilation. A dominant culture exists but within it, other minority cultural groups maintain their distinct aspects and characteristics. Glazer and Moynihan wrote “the ethnic groups in New York are also interest groups.” Similar interests bind the ethnic groups and therefore people with the same interests stick together. There is a sense satisfaction in being with those who are like oneself. By staying together, they are somewhat preserving their culture.

To the other extreme, there is multiculturalism where immigrants retain their own culture and the emphasis lies on the commonality between cultures. This process is most analogous to the salad bowl ideology. The ingredients in a salad do not dissolve into one solution, but instead retain its own components. The cultures are not blended but coexist without a dominant ethnic group. A society that exhibits multiculturalism is enriched with the contributions of various cultures with each immigrant group retaining their own cultures. Throughout Berger’s book, he describes the cultural enclaves that have formed in various neighborhoods in New York. In a majority of them, multiple cultures coexist and contribute to the composition of the neighborhood. For example, in Berger’s study of Ditmas Park, cultures seem to melt into each other and mingling occurs. The area is occupied by whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos and across the spectrum, the different people in the area establish cross-cultural friends. Similarly, in other areas like Bedford Park in the Bronx, there is a motley of cultures: Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, Jamaicans, which cover three broader groups, Hispanics, black, and Asian. All the cultures in the area coexist and work together to survive.


2.What theory or ideology is happening today? Theories and ideologies.

Since the beginning of the 18th century, immigrants have flooded the United States and today the stream of immigrants continues. Along with the second and third generations following the footsteps of their immigrants ancestors, new immigrants still come to America to establish their own life. The old wave of immigrants may have arrived through Ellis Island, but the new immigrants today arrive through the airports of JFK. Throughout history and the assigned readings, all the immigrant groups encountered problems and have learned to overcome them by adjusting in some way to the new and unfamiliar customs of America. New York City is commonly referred to as a melting pot, with each immigrant group shedding their cultures and absorbing the American culture. Cultural groups are fused together to form one single culture that contains elements of the individual ones. However, while some immigrant cultures are absorbed by the dominant American culture and have been stripped of their own culture via assimilation, not all immigrant groups are assimilated to the same extent. I feel that cultural pluralism most accurately describes New York today. Each immigrant group maintains some of its culture while embracing the overall culture of America. The different ethnic groups share with others and contribute to each other. One of the most evident examples is adopting the official language of the United States – English. In Berger’s analysis of Douglaston-Little Neck, for example, Korean immigrants retain certain aspects of their own culture yet envelope American culture as well. In this area in Eastern Queens, the streets are lined with shops that have signs in Korean ideograms. In this way, they are defying the notion to blend in but are still standing out by holding onto their language. Moreover, Koreans are strongly unified because of their religious faith in Christian churches. Another example in Berger’s book of ethnic neighborhoods is the Russian immigrant group in Brighton Beach. On every street, there are newspaper stands with Russian papers and Russian food shops. They bring aspects of their culture in New York, such as their passion for ballroom dancing. Here, immigrants open ballroom dancing studios and schools where children immerse themselves in traditions that their parents hold onto.

I know that in my family, there are American and Chinese customs that my family and I follow. For instance, when my parents came to America, they had to settle for low-paying jobs because they could not speak English and were not highly skilled. To survive, they relied on the help from other Chinese immigrants who were living in the neighborhood. At the time, they still celebrated holidays like Chinese New Year and practiced traditional religious customs. After my sisters and I were born, we began developing new customs that my parents eventually came to adapt. We taught them and eventually integrated American holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving into our calendars. In this way, my family has assimilated through America through my sisters and I, the second-generation. However, my family suggests cultural pluralism because we do not lose out Chinese roots. Occasionally, my mother makes phone calls to relatives and friends in China to maintain the connection to her homeland. If there was one thing that my mother would want to have drilled into me, it would be to preserve Chinese culture. At home, my parents stress the importance of speaking my native tongue and prohibit the usage of English in my sisters and my conversation. They fear that as generation follows generation, the Chinese culture in my family will have disappeared into American mainstream. Similarly, Foner wonders if transnationalism is a one-generation phenomenon. But as of now, I am only the second generation and while my family has assimilated somewhat into American society, they steadily hold onto traditional Chinese customs that define Chinese culture.

Final