One’s Identity

Being surrounded by larger social structures can really influnces one’s identity. Individuals might change their beliefs or behavior to adapt to a new society. This would be social influence and when there’s larger groups surrounding you, it’s almost easier to fall into their lifestyle because you might not know any better or have anything better around you. When thinking of social ideology and the injustice tied into it, I right away think about social class. This is something that is used to excused and exploit humans based on their economic position in this world. The community partner I’ve worked with this semester has been nothing but a humbling experience. Getting to hear about some of the students daily lives and hardships they’ve faced. It’s been interesting because once the students are in class, they’re so opinionated and passionate but some have said that they’re not like that outside of class because they’re scared of being judged. But this is just another reason on why it shouldn’t stop them from being apart of Census because everyone should be counted for. Communities can then be helped out and given more funds for schools, hospitals, and overall looked to be cared for.

People become harder to count based on a lot of different things. Citizenship status, older adults, children and people of color begin to wonder whether or not they’re suppose to be counted for. That’s the problem. That’s the social injustice right there. That we have people who live here who don’t kno wether or not they should be counted for or just forgotten about because society tends to focus on pushing these specific groups away. I think really advertising the importance of being counted towards the census no matter who or what you are, shouldn’t be looked past. Of course you can only do so much but we should at the end of this still be able to say that we tried our best in attempting to get everyone counted for.

I think being around my community partner has helped me see things a little differently especially the Marin area. I spend a lot of time thinking about my life and then comparing it to theirs and I become so interested on how similar or how completely different it can be. But by doing this, I’m placing their lives in front of me and growing with what knowledge I’ve gained from all of them.