Group 4 (week 5)- Poverty

Lead Me Home Documentary- Netflix

    In the Netflix documentary, "Lead Me Home", we follow different homeless people's situations in Los Angeles and San Francisco. We get to look at their lives from a different perspective because we get to personally know about how they live their lives, their struggles, and how they became homeless. Now living in San Francisco which has one of the highest homeless populations, it makes me wonder if are there enough community resources for them to take care of themselves physically and mentally. Because in the documentary it showed how some were not given the proper rehab that they needed in order to change their lives around and live a better life. I know that the Tenderloin, in San Francisco, is usually the place where the majority of homeless live on the streets and I don't know where they would get their food or any resources they need to survive the cold nights. Also in the film, we learn about how some of them became homeless and what would happen if they got enough money to rent a place to live/provide for their family. A few reasons why they became homeless were because of domestic violence, mental illness, bad home situations, addiction, and a number of reasons. When some do get enough money to provide they have to choose whether to pay for a house to live in or to get food to feed themselves and/or their kids and of course, they would choose to get food in order to live. I thought this documentary was really interesting to get an insider perspective and to learn how they try to live out in the streets and it does make me believe that there are homeless people genuinely trying to change their lives.

TED Talk: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash- Rutger Bregman

    In this TED talk, Rutger Bregman quoted the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, that said "poverty is a 'personality defect'. A lack of character." This quote kind of shocked me because I'm pretty sure a lot of people think this way of the homeless but it's not really said out loud like that because you're just being mean to someone who's already having a hard time in life. But I do understand what the quote is trying to get at, like if they're trying to get out of the streets then why do they keep repeating their mistakes by relapsing, spending all of their money, not working hard for it, or just making any poor decisions in general. Bregman then talks about how an experiment on sugarcane farmers showed that their IQ scores before the harvest were much lower than after the harvest, so it's thought that by just being poor, you're more likely to make more poor decisions. I could see why people would agree with this idea but I think that I would disagree because I think it just depends on the person's mind when it comes to money. It could depend on how determined you are/ how motivated you are to change your life in order to thrive with money.

Homelessness - Challenges and Progress

    So the article talks about how homelessness commonly occurs because of economic forces, and those dealing with mental health issues, and addiction problems. The economic issues are usually gentrification with the loss of affordable housing. Gentrification was a cause of the fall of the i-hotel (international hotel) in San Francisco, right near Chinatown. Basically, the i-hotel housed elderly Filipinos, especially veterans that served during World War II and they had to tear it down with a wrecking ball because a company bought the land to replace it with more corporate work and tall buildings to look presentable. But this really affected the elderly Filipinos and it disturbed their communities within/near it because they were close to Chinatown, so they had no other place to go for affordable housing. I think the only way to better the homeless' living is to put up more housing programs so they have a place to rest and eat, fund a clinic for them to go get treated, and to have the willingness of residential neighborhoods to allow construction of new facilities for access to necessary resources. 

SF Weekly- The Great Eliminator: How Ronald Regan Made Homelessness Permanent

    Around December of 1982, there were meetings to address the homeless situation in New York City and San Francisco because there were 36,000 homeless people on the streets combined with both places. After World War II, there were factory and office workers who lost their jobs in the global recession that not only included Vietnam War veterans but women, children, and families. The president, Ronald Reagan, at the time tried to fix this issue by saying "every church and synagogue would take in 10 welfare families." But this was a very controversial solution because it's like he put all the problems onto the church instead of him and the government personally solving the problem. So what the homeless people did was, "many of them war veterans, others unemployed workers struggling to adapt to a changing labor market that no longer needed their skills -- city leaders in Chicago decided to take action. They would keep a "large building heather through the night to house the homeless poor." This just shows that they can't wait for the government to do something, they need to make the change immediately in order to survive. 

Systems of Poverty: Understanding Structural Causes of Houselessness

    What stood out to me in this article is the 'Criminalization of Homeless People Perpetuatues the Crisis of Homelessness section'. It says, "The criminalization of homelessness is cyclical, meaning it is both a product and a producer of homelessness." This quote made me come to the realization that this is true because after some people are released from jail, they end up going back to the streets because they have no job to go back to or they don't have a home to go back to. How are they supposed to change their lives around when the housing prices have continued to rise when wages haven't. I think even minimum wage jobs should give them a chance.

KRTV- Chronic Homelessness in the US is often Generational

    Chronic homelessness is generational, which means that every 1 in 5 women in shelters had experienced homelessness as a child and about 2.5 million children experience homelessness every year. Situational homelessness is when it happens to you during your adult life due to economic forces, mental illness, or addiction. Now knowing about this data brings more awareness to families who are homeless and struggling to feed multiple people, find a good job to pay for food, and try to find an education so they don't end up homeless for the rest of their lives. The children that experience homelessness will likely struggle with housing instability as adults and this is why we need to provide more resources to help generational homelessness become less and less. 

The Dallas Morning News- The Problem with Pulling Yourself Up by your own Bootstraps is not Everyone has working Bootstraps 

    People that help you get to where you are should deserve some credit for your success because without them all the good things that happened to you wouldn't have happened. I feel like using as many resources you have surrounded yourself with to the best of your ability is how you'll change your life around. Having good connections is always good to have them in life. 

Week 5: Feminist Paradox and Male Identity Crisis

Feminist Paradox

    Feminism is the belief that men and women should be treated as equals to one another. For example, guys should be allowed to freely show/express their emotions just as much as girls do and girls who lift in the gym should be more than welcome to at the gym just as much as guys do. Feminism is a paradox because there are infinite possible paradoxes or outcomes/versions like anything you believe in. As mentioned in the video, the makeup industry is a good example of a paradox because even though makeup can empower women by making them look and feel better, there's also that aspect of not needing to wear makeup to look presentable because men don't have to. But feminism also brings the double standard into play, which by definition is a set of principles that applies differently (usually more rigorously) to some people rather than to others due to gender biases. There was this article that I found that basically said the Norwegian women's beach handball team was viewed as empowering and praiseworthy when they wore shorts like their male counterparts instead of bikini bottoms, but Muslim women aren't accepted when they wear their hijab. I just think that feminism has a lot of loopholes that you could agree and disagree on some aspects but not fully agree with it due to some exceptions. 

(Link to the article about modern double standards) https://www.thespillmag.com/articles/modern-feminism-has-dangerous-double-standards%2C-and-is-excluding-muslim-women-from-its-narrative 

    I think that how you choose to handle a choice is how you deal with these paradoxes. What decision you choose to go with is backed up by many factors; like what your upbringing was like, what are your values/morals, and ultimately what you believe in due to not having enough knowledge on something. What got my attention was that Thisari Randunu said, "The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think. What you think next defines who you are." I fully agree with this quote that she saw on Tumblr because we were born in a society that has outdated beliefs that haven't evolved with our own individual thinking, in other words, it's not normalized. Sure our thoughts might be intrusive or mean but how we choose to deal with the thought/how we act on it is what really determines our character. 

Male Identity Crisis

    When Fraser Smith said, "We as a society still view men through the lens of masculine norms we expect meant to be the protector, the fixer, the coper, the autonomous one, and men expect of themselves as well." This is why toxic masculinity develops because they try so hard to fit into the masculine norms that society views them as. This is why they view showing vulnerability or talking about their feelings as something weak. But in return, when they can't find an outlet or think that they can't talk about what they're dealing with, physically or mentally, males become the leading statistic of suicides. 

    I think that we need to normalize more that all men are different and we need to stop generalizing men as these aggressive abusers/predators, or all things negative about them because not all men are like this. I know it might be hard for men to talk about their feelings at first because it might be new to them but I think that telling all the men that you're close with like your friends, family members, or significant other that it's ok to talk about their feelings is what will let them know to be comfortable to talk about these things. I would want them to know it's ok to still identify with the normal masculine attributes but they're not alone with what they're dealing with.

Group 3 (week 4)- Prison Reform

 Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island Documentary

    The documentary, "Lock-Up: The Prisoner of Rikers Island", which we watched during class showcased different facilities that Rikers has to offer depending on the inmates housed there. As the movie shows inmates from the male, pregnant women, the mentally ill, and LGBTQ+ departments; we see how they live on a day-to-day basis and we see how some are mistreated. The prison system continues to fail us time and time again with its unjust treatments/punishments. For example in the movie, we learn about Jimmy Mirabel who unfortunately took heroin from his sister at 11 years old and also contracted AIDS due to unsterilized needle usage. He was forced to suffer on Rikers Island without any treatment for his AIDS and has been waiting for a trial to be released while trying to contact lawyers and judges 32 times. In the end, he died in prison due to no healthcare treatments for his AIDS and he never got to experience a regular life outside of Rikers Island. I feel really bad for how the prison never even considered getting him treatment while he waited for a trial for so long. Another thing that was really interesting to me was the pregnant woman facility where the inmates went through prison together pregnant and they got to bond closer together because they could all relate to their own personal problems

Prison Reform readings

    In the article "Rehabilitate or punish", I do notice that a lot of inmates suffer from some sort of mental illness. When you compare a prison to a rehabilitation center, you can see the similarities. The people in there are supposed to come out of there a better person and to change their bad habits. When we discussed this in class, we talked about how the police should be disbanded and that jail reform isn't necessary. I feel like since we have rehab for people with mental illness, for drug abuse, and for physical therapy; I think that's enough for people doing time. But people that deserve to serve time for like murder should stay in prison and shouldn't be given the option of a death sentence, I think the torture of living is enough. 

Week 4: Gender Identity

Videos about gender identity

    This week's topic is about gender identity and we were assigned to watch two YouTube videos. The first video that I watched was a short animated film based on a true story by Sugandha Bansal called "A Little More Blue" and it was about how the soul of a girl was born into a boy's body. From childhood, she knew she was different and was afraid to be her true self due to the fear of what society might think like being neglected or unaccepted.

    The second YouTube video I watched was Gender Identity: 'How colonialism killed my culture's gender fluidity' - BBC World Service. This video interviewed Francis Geronimo from the Native American Navajo community in New Mexico who identifies as a two-spirit individual, specifically called masculine feminine where the soul of a girl is in the body of a boy (similar to the animated short film). The video also interviewed Leher, a 23-year-old, from Delhi, India who was assigned a sex 'male' at birth, but changed her gender medically when India's Supreme Court recognized a 'third gender' or 'sacred gender'. 

    What I got from both of these videos is that it's not uncommon that people don't identify with the gender they are assigned at birth. I learned that for other cultures gender identity is a very fluid thing and not the westernized idea that gender is a binary thing of just male and female. For example, in Indian mythology, their scripture describes 20-28 different genders. So I agree that colonialism has changed the way we perceive gender identity/sexual orientation, it makes it seem like anything else besides male or female is frowned upon. Gender identity is important because it's how someone expresses their internal and individual experience of what they identify with in their soul. I think gender identity defines us by giving us another way to express what we feel, it can show our values and perceptions. The 'typical' characteristics of a male are they do all the hard work, are typically making all the money, and are known as more athletic/strong. The 'typical' characteristics of a female are they do the cooking, cleaning, and caring for the kids. 

Group 2 (week 3)- Psychology of Criminality

Crazy, Not Insane Documentary

    In this documentary, we follow Dr. Dorothy Lewis who is a psychiatrist that works in studying the minds of serial killers/criminals trying to find out if there are certain factors or traits that brings someone to make these decisions of murder. One of the main mental disorders that were really focused on was dissociative identity disorder (DID), which is where one person claims to have a range of multiple different personalities. One of the first cases that Dr. Lewis talks about in the documentary is where she's questioning this girl named Marie for killing another girl in the bathroom and Marie tells Dr. Lewis that people have told her that she sometimes talk to them in a deep gruffy voice. Just when Dr. Lewis was about to exit the questioning room, Marie switches to that deep manly voice and comes to the conclusion that Marie suffers from DID and she's talking to one of her personalities that protect Marie in a sense. From what I know about DID is that it usually develops within someone who has experienced trauma or abuse growing up, whether it be at home or at school; basically childhood trauma. These different personalities that could range from ages 5-70 years old, are a way to cope when they're triggered by something or they could come out into the light when they want to take control. The personalities take on different roles like protector, caretaker, and much more roles that they could take on in order to protect "the main host". That was Dr. Lewis' first encounter with DID and she went on more cases of studying the minds of more criminals with the same mental illness to see what are some common factors that contributed to how they act. I watched this documentary with my roommate, who actually wants to have the same occupation as Dr. Lewis and we loved how interesting it was. It posed so many questions like, "is the term evil a religious belief", "is someone born or made a murderer", or the one we talked about during class a lot was "nurture vs nature". 

Reading Reflections

    Many of the readings brought up really good factors of what makes a murderer/criminal. The first article mentioned this "warrior gene" that is found in 30% of the male population that increases aggressive behavior as a response when provoked, but it's not deemed as one of the main factors to make a murderer because even though this gene is found in many convicted violent criminals; it's also found in regular people in society. What the articles all have in common is the way they talk about something happening in the brain that sets people apart from being labeled as a violent criminal, insane/crazy, or normal. I say that yes, scientifically the brain plays a major part of determining if you're a criminal or not because it makes decisions on how to deal with a problem that makes them angry. But I also think the environment you're surrounded by or the experiences you've experienced plays a major role for how your brain is rewired to think. Not every crazy person is immediately deemed a violent criminal and not all abused children become serial killers. For example, people think Kanye is crazy because of what he says in the media or what he posts but he's not out here committing crimes like serial killers. I just think it comes down to the person's conscience and their decision making on how they react/deal with a situation that they're faced with that makes them angry, sad, or happy.

Week 3- Videos about Identity

What makes up your identity?

    I think your personality/characteristics make up your identity. Some of the most well known categories that people usually find identity/what they identify with is race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical attributes, personality, political affiliations, religious beliefs, professional identities, and the list goes on and on. Anybody could find what they identify with in each category and there will always be some people that relate or identify some of the same things as you. What that's called is intersectionality. By definition intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. But this does create an environment where people get treated differently/discrimination just because someone identifies as something different; the majority versus the minority. 

    In the identity short film, written and directed by KJ Adames, the film shows different high school students wearing masks, some are different, some are grouped up by having the same mask, but when we follow the main character around school we notice that her mask is unique from the rest. I think my favorite scene from that film is when the poster says that this is what real beauty looks like and it displays a yellow mask and the high school students surrounding the poster are all wearing that masks perfectly mimics real life. People want to follow the trend because they want to fit in because it's what's popular/cool at that moment and if you copy that you seem superior to others. But I just think that makes you seem fake because you're following a trend just because it will make you seem cooler, you're not being your true authentic self. 

What boxes are you put in and what boxes do you put yourself in? Are there any boxes that you feel don't really convey who you really are? Can you think of any other boxes that haven't been invented yet?

    The boxes that I'm put in is I fit in is that I am a straight cis Filipino American woman who grew up in the working middle class in a suburban neighborhood. I think that what society sees me as is what I identify with mostly. But then this creates preconceived notions or stereotypes before getting to know the person themself. For example, a really popular stereotype among the Asian American community is the model minority myth. The model minority myth is basically where Asian American students are assumed to be docile, obedient, always good in school/straight A's, and just intelligent in everything they do. But it's not true because not all Asian Americans are or were like that in school and if they weren't like the model minority they were seen as delinquents, which heavily affects their mental health.

    I don't feel as if there are any boxes that I feel that don't really convey who I really am because I proudly say what I identify with and I like being unique. If they ever come up with boxes of what to identify with, I think it would be like pronouns because I know that especially in San Francisco they make it a big deal of knowing what someone's pronouns are because that's the sexual orientation they identify with.

Week 2: "Why Isn't Learning Enjoyable Anymore?- How To Revive Your Curiosity" Video

Did the video say or present anything that clicked with you? Why?

    The video did say a bunch of relatable things that clicked with me because I feel like every student, it doesn't matter what grade they are, experiences not having joy in learning anymore. At the beginning of the video, the guy tells his personal experience about how in his elite science school there are many students that come into the school year excited to learn new things because of their curiosity, but then halfway through the school year, they become uninterested in the topic/what they were passionate about. I really related to this because in high school I was in the Medical Health Services Academy and I remember coming into my health classes excited to learn more about our body and its functions, but now I only focus on if I get a high enough grade or a passing grade on assignments like he mentioned in the video. I agree that the grading system is what takes the fun out of learning new things because that's the only thing you're worried about, you actually don't take the time to learn about things you were curious about, therefore losing your passion and what makes life interesting if you have no passions/interest to look forward to.

Do you consider yourself a curious person? What makes someone curious and another not?

    I believe I do consider myself a curious person because every other week I do try to look at some news network websites to see if there's any current news or articles that interest me that day. In high school, writing about current events was my favorite excitement because I could talk about and tell my opinion on something I was actually interested in. I think wanting to find more answers and being unsatisfied with one answer makes someone curious and if someone is just satisfied with one answer makes them not curious or they're not interested in other topics that overlap each other is what makes them not naturally curious. I also think focusing on a number/grade that dictates what you learn does not make you curious because you're kind of missing the point of learning something new.

What can you do to try to cultivate more curiosity in your life?

    I think what you can do to try to cultivate more curiosity in your life is like the video said, try to self-educate/ self-teach yourself as much as possible to try to revive that joy you get when you learn about something new that motivates you to learn about more stuff in our universe while focusing on the boring stuff that school gives you from their system by default. You act as if what you're learning in school is a stepping stone/ personal growth to becoming who you are as a unique person. So integrating self-education with regular school learning is beneficial for you in the long run because it incorporates curiosity, self-education, character building, social relationships, philosophical advice, self-health from psychology, etc. 

Group 1 (week 2)- Mental Health

 Anxiety Documentary

    My group is presenting today on mental health and the film that we chose was "What It Is Like Living With Anxiety and Panic Attacks Nadiya Hussain: Anxiety and Me." The documentary talked about how Nadiya Hussain has to live life with constant anxiety and panic attacks on a day-to-day basis. Her mentality basically always goes to thinking about how she's going to die and to distract her mind she likes to cook and bake in order to keep her mind busy. 

    I feel like this documentary was a big eye-opener or a reality check for me because it made me realize how much mental health can affect a person's everyday life. Fear and anxiety can stop a person from living life to its full potential. It also made me realize that experiences can play a big factor in how someone grows up to be, like how your parents raised you and that plays a big part in shaping who you are. For example in the documentary, Nadiya experienced extreme bullying in primary school where they would bully her for her skin color, they would pull her hair, flush her hair down the toilet, and slam doors on her fingers. 

    Nadiya was diagnosed with panic disorder but her therapist, Paul, told her that it's very possible for her to be treated or at least how to manage these anxiety/panic attacks. In the end, Nadiya was able to know what certain things trigger her attacks, she takes anti-anxiety medications, and attends these meetings where other people go through their life trying to face things that trigger their attacks but with the help of someone talking them through to calm them down. 

Reading Reflections

    The readings for my group consisted of one common thing; how the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine affected a person's mental health. According to an article from the World Health Organization they said, "In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%." This made me realize that a bunch of people worldwide was experiencing it because we were all deprived of our ability to go out anywhere and the ability to socialize and meet new people. It was really hard for people with mental illnesses already because it was poorly managed and the neglect they probably felt because the whole world was busy trying to get better. The whole world was in a recession because businesses weren't as busy prior to the pandemic, it was hard trying to find a job, and it was hard to get treated due to minimal hospital space to be treated. Our mental health was deteriorating with the whole world. In the article, "COVID-19 pandemic and mental health: The surgeon's role in re-engaging patients," it says, "While the cause is often multifactorial, increased mental distress may be, in part, due to measures taken to slow the spread of the virus, such as social distancing, business and school closures, and shelter-in-place order - all of which lead to greater isolation and emotional angst. Additionally, loss of employment and health insurance, as well as increased anxiety and uncertainty about the future will undoubtedly lead to a long-term upsurge in the number and severity of mental health problems." Personally, it was really hard trying to live day to day doing the same routine, not seeing my friends, not being able to go out, and having the constant fear of getting sick.