America slowly stopped sharing the melting pot

When we talk about the "melting pot", you would think of a pot probably boiling with a mix of ingredients. That was America's plan from the start: to create a "pot" of many different "ingredients". So, America decided to gather these ingredients, and soon enough, the pot was starting to overfill with them. This was beyond America's expectations, and quite pride grew. However, the pot seemed to later not have "enough space" and America, seeing this began to put restrictions within what could be added to it. If you haven't gotten what I'm talking about, then let me clarify: the "pot" is America's land, and the "ingredients" are the different kinds of people. These restrictions are basically the problems that arose from this over-population, and in efforts to prevent these people from coming, the pot started to lose its value.


We have these restrictions because it was believed that America was a free country of opportunity and land. That promise was later broken because of the rejection to those today wishing to come here. Not only that, but it created a mass amount of problems among those living there because of the stereotypes made. Latinos being "lazy workers", African Americans portrayed as "ghetto", White Americans as "selfish pigs"; many of these discriminating stereotypes derived from cultural backgrounds which are usually negative.

Raquel Cepeda explained, for example, how the "N-word" is used in a Latino ethnicity and is usually considered a negative response to African Americans in her essay, "The N-Word is flourishing Among Generation Hip-Hop Latinos: Why Should We Care Now?" America even considers those white as the only "pure Americans" as shown in Hua Hsu's "The End of White America?" The only question to these problems is this: "How do you solve a melting pot problem and at the same time, keep the pot going?"

Movies are gateways to another reality 

Whenever we watch movies, the stories within them captivates us. Even a terrible movie can draw us into their story because we're eager at how the ending will be. Have we ever thought of movies though as visions that we could see if certain scenarios or things existed? Movies exist for us for our curiosity to be fulfilled. In other words, movies are like alternate imaginative realities that we get to witness.

 I believe that the most popular movies are those that portray very well of that imaginative reality realistically as possible. We see movies that are highly detailed in scenery, like the movie Avatar. It answered the question of how would life be if there were aliens that were "savages" on their planet. How about apocalypse movies with fantasy creatures like zombies? We have Shaun of the Dead to make us laugh at the expense of people getting eaten alive. Survival movies that seem a bit far fetched? Life of Pi brings out that hallucinating feel with animals on a life boat. Ever wondered what it's like being in a candy factory or a whole different world just beyond a closet? They've already made movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Narnia! All of these movies are creative possibilities that describe what would probably happen if we were in situations like this.

Susan Sontag's "The Imagination of Disaster" explains how we immerse ourselves in earthquake/tsunami movies because we know its a likely situation that could happen, so it's best to watch it safely than experience it first hand. "Creating the Myth" by Linda Seger says the protagonist is the hero/heroine of their story struggling though the toughest challenges enough to reach their goals. Rita Kempley's "Mystical Black Characters Play Complex Cinematic Role" even talks on how movies place black people as great prominent helpers with magical powers. Basically, an imaginative reality lies beyond inside the movies, and we are lucky to see them.

Television WAS a part of us

I am going to be completely honest: I think television has really become outdated so far and that hardly anyone watches TV anymore. We are moving it up in technology, and a television set has just become obsolete since we now have the internet and mobile phones. Don't get me wrong; I still watch TV shows...just not on an actual television. I do admit though that I watched TV when I was a child though.

As a child, I remember my days watching TV while waiting for the school bus. I watched PBS shows like Arthur or Dragon Tales, and in a big way has influenced my morals. As I got a little older, I began watching on Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon which mainly consisted of cartoons. Basically I only used the TV for watching cartoon shows, and to this day, I still watch them. The only difference was that I didn't use the television set anymore, and instead used the internet to. I now can watch cartoons like Rick and Morty and Steven Universe anytime I want. My parents only use the television set for watching TV dramas like Walking Dead and quite frankly, I think they only watch it for the suspense and excitement.

Even though TV has gone down lately, I think we can agree that TV does touches us in some ways. TV has different genres that can make us think as explained by Steven Johnson in Watching TV Makes You Smarter. I think the only reason though why we even watch TV shows is because we feel we're being apart of the fictional world of TV.  Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Do forgive me if I mispell that last name) does question in Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor if we use TV as a way to escape our dull lives. I think it would be cool to feel, even for just a moment, how it would be like traveling through parallel universes or fighting gems.

Minimum Wage - Fast food or Retail?

Young adults usually want to find in a first-time job something enjoyable or refreshing that they can use as their work experience. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy and most first work experiences end up being either working in fast-food or in retail. Most young adults even try to find decent ones and do their best to avoid going to fast food work. Why?

My brother was not the brightest in college, and my parents ordered him to go find a job since he literally owed them lots of money for wasting it on courses he failed at. A man with no experience was not an easy find, so the first job he went for was at Burger Kings. It was definitely not a pleasant experience as he had to go through obnoxious customers, unsanitary messes, and greasy cook ware. I even noticed my brother’s behavior changed into a grumpy person who would complain about every small detail. I could even vouche that looking for the retail parts of a job wasn’t easy either. I tried looking for a summer job in retail sending many applications but not a single one replied back to me personally. Others were computer-based ones that sent an assessment test that only looked for a perfect worker which I could say that the test was long and illogical.

Eric Schlosser’s “Behind the Counter” showed that the fast food place was much work that were supposed to teach essential skills for real work places, but I feel that education could teach exactly the same concept. The world of retail, as described by Barbara Ehrenreich in “Selling in Minnesota”, is like a slave-working state where if you standed against retail, there would be consequences. Frankly, I think there should be better minimum-wage jobs that were in different areas.

Consumption - Spend with less self-control

There should be no shame in how we consume, and it may shameful to think at how far we take to restrain ourselves from it.

For example, every week I would usually get a 20 dollar allowance for college. I admit the lunch prices are expensive but the food is quite delicious. Try resisting as you walk to your next class some savory California rolls, appetizing Sour Dough bread bowls, delicious Clam Chowder; even for a four-dollar Tuna sandwich would have some lingering spicy taste. It was really hard to have self-control on how much I spent and there would be days when I would starve myself. Sometimes, my stomach would grumble loudly and I would tell myself I wasn’t hungry. When I do give into these things though, I feel a lot better. My stomach gets filled with delicious food as I enjoy eating to my heart's content. So why should I restrain myself when I can spend enough to fulfill my consumption?

It's like the Christmas Scrooge example that Margaret Atwood used in her writing, "Debtor's Prism"; Scrooge, who was a selfish old man, only felt happy when he actually spent money. The same applies to how Sylvie Kim expressed in "The End of Spam Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat" how people of her culture restrain from eating one of her favorite luncheon meat of Spam because it was shamed upon. For the very least, we should give in a little more to our consumption desires.