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People derive their identity from various aspects of their lives.
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Identity
People derive their identity from various aspects of their lives. This includes race, place of birth, the people they associate with, where they live, among others. Some people have faced discrimination because of their identity. Zora Neale Hurston talks of her identity as a black woman in her short story, ‘How It Feels to Be Colored Me.’ Race is a major identity issue in the United States, therefore it comes as no surprise that Zora feels that people judge her based on race rather than who she is as a person. The narrator in Baca’ poem ‘Immigrants in Our Own Land’ experiences similar issues with identity as an immigrant in the United States. The US is often described as a diverse nation and a melting pot of cultures, but there is a sense of ‘otherness’ that many people still encounter in the country just like Hurston and Baca. Identity is a common theme in Hurston and Baca’s works.
Hurston writes about racial identity in her short story. As a young girl. Hurston lived in a small town called Eatonville where everyone was black, except for white passersby traveling through the town. In her hometown, Hurston never had to think of herself as black as everyone was black like her. However, when she moved to Jacksonville at thirteen, she realized that she was different, that she was colored (Hurston 1). As a grown woman, Hurston does not define herself by her race but just as a person. She explains that she when other African-Americans see themselves as oppressed descendants of slaves, she chooses to focus on freedom that others sacrificed for. She notes that she feels most different around white people. Like when she goes to a jazz club with a white friend. She is inspired and touched by the music, while her white colleague merely compliments it as ‘good music’ (Hurston 2). Zora is astonished at how people choose to discriminate against others based on their race.
Baca’s poem ‘Immigrants in Our Own Land’ also explores the theme of identity. The narrator in the poem talks of moving from their homeland to the US, “looking for better days ahead” (Baca 2). The immigrants escaped bad experiences in their old life. The narrator talks of dictators who would break down their doors and shoot as they pleased. They came to the US with hope of a better life. The people are separated based on their race and ethnicity. The narrator writes, “So we go about our business, blacks with blacks, poor whites with poor whites, Chicanos and Indians by themselves” (Baca 27-29). The narrator then moves to a different setting, a prison cell. New people come into the prison frequently, and the narrator tells how prison will change them forever. Some will die in there while those who leave will go with hate in their eyes and no future ahead of them. Prison changes their identity as the narrator says, when they leave prison they will no longer be human.
Both Hurston and Baca writes about how society judges people based solely on their race and ethnicity. As a young girl, Hurston never thought of herself as a colored girl, she was simply Zora from Orange County. However, as she grew up, she noticed that people judged her simply from her appearance as a colored girl. She writes “Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves” (Hurston 2). People expect her to be sad and angry because of the African American history of slavery, but she chooses not to dwell on the past. She says that her ancestors paid the price for her freedom, and she will use it for glory and adventure. Hurston chooses not to conform to racial identities and politics, and pities those who miss out on her company just because she is black. She has experienced some discrimination, but she chooses to ignore it and focus on who she is as a person. She gives a metaphor of nags of different colors (Hurston 4). Only the contents of the bag matter, she does not focus on the color of the bags themselves.
Baca’s poem involves the narrator and other immigrants taking on a new identity. When they first come to the United States, they have a long process to get through before they can assume their new identity. They take many tests, get shots, new papers, and even new clothes. As the poem goes on, there is a sense of despair when the immigrants are put to work in separate groups. They had high expectations when they arrived, but they get had labor jobs that pay very little. Additionally, they are separated based on the race as the administration says that there should be no mixing of cultures. From this experience, it is clear that the immigrants do not belong in the new country. They came for a biter life, but soon they realize that nothing is different. The narrator also talks about his experience when incarcerated. Going to prison changes one’s identity. Life in prison isolates them from their work, from their families for so long that they give up hope. The narrator explains that when the inmates leave prison, few will remain as human as they came in. prison changes their identity after being away from the life they were used to for so long.
Everyone struggles to define who they are, but sometimes people are handed their identity and they have no say in the issue. A perfect example of this is race where people often encounter negative stereotypes and have to work hard to prove themselves against negative views and opinions. Hurston explains that people expected her to be angry and depressed due to black history of slavery. However, she chooses to define herself as a person rather than base her identity on race. The narrator in Baca’s poem explains how workers were separated based on race and how incarceration changes a person’s identity. Race is a destructive social construct that makes some feel inferior to others, which can be quite damaging, human beings should be judged on their character as an individual rather that by the color of their skin.
Works Cited
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Immigrants in our own land.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP (1979).
Hurston, Zora Neale. How it feels to be colored me. Carlisle, Mass.: Applewood Books, 2015.
Specific Prevention Intervention
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Article Summary: Internet-Based Personalized Feedback to Reduce 21st-Birthday Drinking: A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Event-Specific Prevention Intervention
Many young people take their twenty-first birthday celebrations very seriously. Twenty-one is the legal age of drinking and those celebrating their birthdays take advantage of this day to celebrate their freedom. This has led to incidents such as deaths and hospitalizations. Parents, communities and hospital administrators have raised concern over this rite of passage that is most common in college students.
Some of the efforts that have been used previously to prevent this rite of twenty-first birthday drinking include mailed birthday cards containing normative intervention. However, this was found to have limited effectiveness. Providing information such as avoiding drinking games, limiting the number of drinks among other measures was found to reduce extreme drinking. These interventions were found to be effective in cases where the student planned to drink heavily on their twenty-first birthday (Neighbors, et al.). The study is aimed at evaluating the efficacy of web-based interventions.
Participants were selected from large universities, totaling 295 in number. Students were sent emails requesting their participation one week before their twenty-first birthdays. They were screened based on their intention to consume alcohol. The participants were contacted the day before their birthdays and four days after with a link to the web personalized feedback. The control group was only contacted four days after but not before their twenty-first birthdays. The participants were given a list of behaviors to reduce extreme drinking including spacing drinks and alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Hierarchal multiple regression was used to measure the efficacy of the intervention (Neighbors, et al.). From the results, the blood alcohol levels intentions were highly correlated with the levels reached on the twenty-first birthday drinking spree. The measures in the study include evaluating the efficacy of the intervention, perceived norms, and protective behaviors.
From the discussion of the findings, the web-based interventions were effective in reducing the blood alcohol levels of college students during their twenty-first birthdays. However, the limits were still over the legal limit of .08. Students who intended to reach a higher level, however, reached a lower threshold than they earlier planned. The web-based personalized interventions are useful because the drinking behavior of college students is not stable but fluctuates a lot. These interventions should be focused on those at the highest risk of extreme drinking. The main advantage of this study is that it is supported by empirical evidence. Students who had the intention to drink more were the most responsive to the web-based intervention.
Web-based interventions are much cheaper and consume less time. However, personalized feedback for twenty-first birthday drinking would be more effective if presented in person. An example of this is a hard copy of the interventions that would allow the students turning twenty-one to spend more time on the questionnaire. The study faced several limitations, the first of which is the low rate of participation. Abstainers and extreme drinkers are likely not to participate in the surveys (Neighbors,et al.). The second limitation is inconsistency in assessing the intentions of the strategy and the content provided in the intervention. Besides, self-reported levels of blood alcohol content became more inaccurate as the levels of intoxication increased. Students with higher levels may have reported lower levels. Third, the feedback programming did not allow the researchers to assess how long the participants viewed each page. Despite these limitations, the study makes a significant contribution to the analysis of the efficacy of preventive measures on extreme drinking among college students. Inclusion of norms and analysis of blood alcohol levels should be the main focus of future studies.
Works Cited
Neighbors, Clayton, et al. “Internet-based personalized feedback to reduce 21st-birthday drinking: A randomized controlled trial of an event-specific prevention intervention.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 77.1 (2009): 51.
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
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Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
Since the overthrowing of Gaddafi’s government in 2011, the country faced years of civil war. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group spearheaded protests against Gaddafi’s government. The group had been in existence since the 1990s and was identified by the United Nations as a terrorist group (Bhardwaj). This group wanted to overthrow Gaddafi and turn Libya into a state under Islamic law. Gaddafi had been in power for 42 years and kept a tight rein on his government, which was ranked among the most corrupt in the world. The United States wanted to see Gaddafi ousted, so on this point their quest was aligned with that of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
Encouraged by the Arab Spring in other North African countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, the rebels marched across the country in protest of Gaddafi. While most of the protesters were Libyan citizens, a significant number of them were from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the United States had full knowledge of this fact. From Wiki Leaks documents in 2005, the leader of the rebels Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda Bin Qumu was a member of al-Qaeda (Bhardwaj). It is apparent that the U.S. government was aware of the fact the rebellion in Libya was led by terrorist factions yet did nothing since they too wanted to see Gaddafi ousted from office.
Works Cited
Bhardwaj, Maya. “Development of conflict in Arab Spring Libya and Syria: From revolution to civil war.” Washington University International Review 1.1 (2012): 76-97..