Asian-American Culture

Harris 1

Ryan C Harris

Asian-American Culture

Sandra Kikuchi

Reflective Writing

I was in group c and our project and final paper was on the topic of substance abuse. There are six of us in the group and everyone is responsible and caring about the assignment and helping each other get it all finished. Group projects can be really tough and I always am very nervous when they are assigned because it’s a lot to coordinate with six people and have success in the assignment. I was very pleased with my group and everyone’s efforts.

I was very pleased with this course throughout the semester. It has been very informative and helped me to grow as a person. I feel like in this world we are all so busy and highly consumed with ourselves, we often forget how alike we all are. People in today’s world are judgmental and mean. Especially when it comes to someone else and their race, to often skin color, or food tradition, or ancestral belief get in the way of people associating with one another and becoming united as friends and units. I really enjoyed the final project because my portion of the paper was researching the cost of our strategy for helping Asian/Americans in substance abuse. I spent along time researching specifically for Asian/Americans and I was really narrow minded about it all being specific for each race.

After some time I realized through research and common sense finally donning on me that it doesn’t matter if you are white, black, brown, or whatever race you are, if your dealing with something like substance abuse then it’s the same for those around you dealing with it. The truth is we all fall from the same type of tree I believe, and it shouldn’t cost more for someone to receive help on something just because they are a different color or their eyes might be shaped different. The only main thing I found is sometimes the care isn’t as good if there is a language barrier. Sometimes if we cannot communicate with someone then we do not full understand or we cannot help in a way they may need.

I am a little more open minded now compared to the start of this semester and especially through this assignment I realized that we need to help each other because our ancestors all fought for something so that our lives can be united and free of the racism and hate that the world has witnessed before. I feel more progress in my knowledge of the people and cultures around me. It really did help me even in other classes I am taking. I also have an anthropology class this semester and we have talked about different types of people and cultures. I was more into it the farther we got in this class.

As we learned about the ways people migrated and how communities, and states or countries even were started I realize I am more appreciative now then I was before, and I would say that is simply because of the things I have learned that I just didn’t know before. I feel I will progress even better in the future with everyday things, working in the group and doing the paper together I feel will help me in social aspects of life. We had some different ethnicities in our class and as we talked and learned from each other it made it more of a real sense. We are surrounded by difference and I think that is, or can be if we allow it, our biggest strength.

The world can be a cruel and depressing place, but it is where we live and we have each other so it is important for our society to be united and help those around us progress. I think it’s important to respect the foundation of each other.