Sophie, Week #5 - On the Bright Side


In the last blog, I said that a new prompt would definitely rejuvenate my creativity, and this next blog would be super cool and good. Apparently, I lied. “America” is such a hot topic, and I feel like I have so many ideas on it that I’m not sure how to pick a single thing to talk about without it bleeding into other subjects and big things. So, although there are plenty of things wrong with America, I wanted to keep it simple for this first blog and talk about something I love about our country. 


Although this does not apply to all of America, and is probably a product of living in a place like the Bay Area, I love that I have been able to experience so many different cultures in just one place. I love how many different types of people live here, and I love that they’ve brought different traditions and ideas with them. I love that I can buy nearly any type of food you can imagine, and I can’t imagine living anywhere without this variety. If you told me I would have to live in a place with strictly “normal” American food forever I would probably cry right in front of you.


I’m a result of two cultures mixing myself, and I simply can’t understand how some people would feel that our country would be better off without what immigrants bring to us. America’s dual image is striking to me, and sometimes the country feels like one big oxymoron. We are the county of immigrants, the “land of opportunity,” and we are also viciously xenophobic and cruel to people with different customs and cultures of our own. I feel incredibly fortunate to live in the place that I do—a place that I feel encompasses what I love about America pretty well.



Image Credit : Cviic.org

Comments

  1. Pavan Sai SunkesulaOctober 28, 2026 at 9:45 PM

    Yea, I agree, there are so many topics you could do for America, and there would probably be over a million negative things you could say, no doubt about that. I like that you kept it simple to what you love about the U.S., though.
    The different cultures in America is one of the greatest factors in what makes it so appealing, in my opinion. You get to explore so many different cuisines, traditions, and events. Sharing knowledge of one’s own culture has led to so much change in America, with entire yearly celebrations happening that include people from all backgrounds. You are also able to find people who share tradition with you. I think this is very important, as it can be easy to feel isolated when nobody else participates in the same customs as you. Many traditions are best done with many people.
    I agree that America’s view on immigrants is a bit paradoxical. On one hand, the U.S. is hailed as being built by immigrants and containing people from all over the world, but at the same time, immigrants are attacked and told that they do not belong here. Immigrants add so much to the nation and it would be a shame if their contributions are nullified.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Riya PurumalaOctober 28, 2026 at 9:51 PM

    Hi Sophie! I certainly agree with you; one of my favorite parts of living in America, specifically the Bay Area, is the variety of the food! I also could not imagine living anywhere without culturally diverse food. Even just apart from food, the variety of people from all around the world is another wonderful part of America because it brings different cultures, traditions, and perspectives together. It is interesting to think about how America is known for its diversity and acceptance of different cultures but still holds so much prejudice against immigrants. Close-minded people who believe that America would be better off without immigrants do not recognize that the immigrants are what make America what it is. I really enjoyed reading about what you love about America, Sophie!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anirudh Week 1: An Analysis of the Modern Extension of Colonial Speech

Image
Image credit:  The Penn Review In his 1986 collection of essays Decolonising The Mind , Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o posits that the greatest weapon of colonialism wasn’t the rifle. It wasn’t the cannon nor the gunboat. It was the weaponization of language. He vividly describes the systemic tactics colonial powers used to strip down the native tongues of colonized children in favor of English, severing the children’s connections to their cultures, identities, and even self-worth. And even though these colonial empires have collapsed, the inherent framework of identity erasure has been fundamentally upgraded. Today, the maxim of colonial erasure has been repackaged by the algorithms of Artificial Intelligence. Throughout the history of AI—whether we see it as a tool of objectivity or question it with suspicion—we cannot ignore that these systems are at their core built on data. Specifically however, they are built with massive datasets scraped from the Western, English-speaking internet. It is...
Read more

Sophie, Week #1 - Why Leitmotifs are Super Cool: Building Identity Through the Language of Music

Image
When I first saw the theme for this quarter’s blog submissions, I was actually super happy! You may be thinking that I’m nuts for being excited about an assignment, but I was. I knew that I would have the chance to talk about one of my favorite things in the whole world—leitmotifs! You’ve heard the word “motif” before, a repeated idea or symbol throughout a work of literature that helps to develop a broader theme. Leitmotifs are sort of like that, but instead of a repeated written idea, they’re repeated musical phrases used to represent different things. Here, I'll discuss how they can be an invaluable technique for developing a character’s identity within a musical. I’ll give some examples from one of my favorite musicals, Sondheim’s Into the Woods. In my opinion, the easiest leitmotif to grasp is something I think of as “The Royal Fanfare.” Basically, every time the princes come on stage, you hear a trumpet fanfare. S ounds pretty simple right? The princes enter; the fanfare pla...
Read more

Arya, Week #2 - Misogyny Will Never Die: How Language Subtly Perceives Women as Less

Image
Image credit: Rusi , “ Misogyny .” I have strong opinions on my femininity. Sure, I dress as a boy sometimes, but I still have a firm identity and sense of pride around being a woman. But society does not. At practically every corner and every step, there is something inherently more difficult about being a woman. Basically, every modern society has some sort of underlying sexism. Some of it is pretty obvious like women not being able to have credit cards (essentially financial freedom) until 1974 with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, but other times it’s not.  There are small things like how the law of Coverture made women have no legal identity at all, even being called “legally dead”. The tradition of marriage creating one simply meant that the husband was the “one”, which isn’t nearly as romantic sounding as it is today. BBC adds that the male being the default gender–called generic masculine–creates a bias, which embeds itself into our psyche so much so that a gender neu...
Read more