Wednesday 1/4/23- Cece Gustavson

Today, we started with an exploration of the course content and the learning objectives. We learned that over the two-week period, we will be learning about Asian culture (specifically Singaporian culture for the M-term) and the Asian American experience, with the hopes of becoming more empathetic and internationally learned students. The intro presentation slides were a great way for the class to understand the purpose of the course and determine the deeper questions we should be asking ourselves as we explore these ideas. Before taking a short break, we reviewed the schedule of activities as well and assigned students for blog writing. When we returned, we went through a slideshow on the Asian American experience, focusing on both historical and cultural aspects. We talked a lot about immigration and the particularly impactful 1965 Nationality and Immigration Act, which drastically increased the Asian American population in the US. The next slides contained various charts and graphs showing further US racial makeup statistics, socioeconomic discrepancies, and harris county-specific information. Putting this data into historical context was my favorite part of this activity, and it was very interesting relating immigration statistics to WW2 and the California Gold Rush. I also really enjoyed our deeper look into common misconceptions about Asian Americans’ socioeconomic status, and the discussion we had on the figure comparing poverty rates in NYC among different racial groups was really interesting and helped deconstruct the stereotype that all Asian Americans are wealthy. After we finished these slides, we moved on to key terminology for the Asian-American experience and explored some of the harmful stereotypes and identity struggles this group endures. I found the short video explaining the model minority myth to be particularly interesting, and the historical links were super helpful in understanding the roots of these prejudiced assumptions.

    At 11:45, we left for a 1-hour lunch break, returning to class with a 45-minute documentary focusing on Singapore’s technological capacity and unconventional ways the small, resource-scarce country continues to develop. This video did a great job explaining the significance of certain technological advancements (each product worked to resolve specific problems Singapore will face in the coming years), and I really liked the discussion we had afterward about our thoughts on these kinds of rapid, revolutionary advancements. The rest of the day was dedicated to M-term planning, and we spent most of the time creating a map that logged the locations of all our activities. Everyone was assigned a day, and we used the trip itinerary to input all the shops, restaurants, and general places we planned on visiting, adding details on the estimated time of our visit, dress code, and other interesting facts. This was a more relaxed part of the day, and once their specific day was color-coded and finished, students were able to make a dent in their reading of the Lion City book for our seminar on Friday and work on blog writing. All in all, this was an incredibly productive on-campus day, and I feel the activities did a great job of touching on all three learning areas of this course. 


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