Blog #3

So I’m very excited in the group I was placed in alongside Neil (Race and Ethnicity in the International Context) because in all sorts of fields within academia we see a rise in global studies being that we live in a more globalized world. And what better way to study race, ethnicity, and identity than in a cross-cultural context.

My research interests for this class falls within Latin American identity, answering the question “what does it mean to be Latin American or Hispanic?” I want to look at how different Latin American philosophers have dealt with the issue. But even more so, I want to synthesize these arguments and make my own conclusion of what I think it means to be Latin American as I think it is very complex and complicated topic.

There isn’t one face that represents Latin America. On top of that, it becomes more complicated when you have Latinos like me who were born and raised in the United States. Am I (as a Colombian-American) any different culturally speaking from somebody who is actually from Colombia. Does culture even matter? Or are there larger things at work that connect a people, for example, history? Therefore, a comparison would be hugely beneficial in understanding the Latin American multicultural experience.

This leads to the next question: how will this project take form? Well I plan on taking the information from the primary sources (my own “anchor texts”) along with my analysis and presenting it in form of a digital video. The video will consist of pictures with a monologue over them.

So this is my contribution to the final “digital omnibus.” But being that this is also a group project, I and my partner in crime Neil, also want to take this project and engage it with you all, along with any prospective guests. I won’t write for Neil, but as a teaser I will let you guys know that he’s interested in looking into the Chinese multicultural experience. Our plan as a team is to compare our research and raise a discussion out of it.

I know this will be a fulfilling project and I can’t wait to share it with you all. As Dr. Zamora, Neil and I were discussing last class, this course is one of the few ones that give students the liberty to get deeply personal. And I for one am all for taking advantage of a course that I play a part in designing while at the same time will allow me to gain some introspection.