SSA Rough Draft

You can tell a lot about a person by where they grew up, the foods they eat, their political views points, where they work, what school they attended and what neighborhood they lived in. All of these things listed give insight on my socioeconomic background. My socioeconomic background plays a major role in my beliefs, values, goals, and even what my future holds.

I was born in Colorado Springs which is where a US Air Force base is located. Since my father was in the USAF I have moved a few times. After my sister Demi was born on the same base my family was relocated to Berlin, Germany. This is where my youngest sister Paige was born. After Berlin my family was then relocated to Aviano, Italy where I started pre-school. After we live in Italy for about a year we moved to Edwards Air Force base in California where I completed kindergarten and first grade. Then I moved to Springfield, IL, which is the place that I now call home.

Springfield. IL is where I was baptized, confirmed, and learned how to be a Catholic. I attended a Catholic grade school and high school. Even though I am Catholic, most of my family isn’t. My mother’s side of the family is Methodist. My father’s family were raised Catholic. Being Catholic is a life-style which has shaped my life into what it is today.

Another ideology that I adopted from living in Springfield, IL is being a conservative Republican. I believe in hard work and making a good living for your family. I believe the government needs to cut spending on public welfare and that the American people have the right to bare arms.

I would consider my family to be a part of the working class. My father is a technical business analyst and my mother is a cafeteria worker at my former high school. My father is the sole provider for income but my mother was able to get discounted faculty rates to help send my sisters and I to a private school. Since my mother worked at a high school she was also considered to be a stay at home mom because she was off work by the time my sisters and I were out of school and had the same Christmas, Easter and summer breaks.

When my parents were growing up, their families were also considered to part of the working class. My father’s father owned a grocery store and my mother’s father owned a hair salon. Both of the family owned stores were forced to close due to unions.

College has been a part of my future since the day I was born. Both of my parents had went to college but never graduated with a degrees. My father joined the Air Force and my mother was a stay at home mom. I remember when I was little I asked my mom if I had to go to college and she said, “Yes.” Being a young child who really didn’t understand, I asked why and she said, “Because it’s the law and if you don’t go to college then you have to go to jail.” Maybe at this time in my life I thought that this was true but I look back now and realized that my parents just wanted me to do better than they did. To receive a degree so that I could get a good job that make decent money so I don’t have to worry about money like they did.

 When I graduate college I will be the first generation to do so. My grandparents didn’t go to college, my parents, aunts, and uncle didn’t go to college and I have about thirty cousins and only a hand full went to college and only three have graduated from college. Though college can be my biggest enemy at times, it is one of the most important things in my life. I am pursuing a degree in Chemistry and hope to work for a pharmaceutical company when I graduate. Chemistry reveals a lot about me because I feel like I can make a change, whether that’s finding a cure to cancer or bettering the future for my children.

--- needs a lot of work. Do to time I was not able to get in all that I wanted to say. I need to add in concepts and elaborate more on how my background has shaped my life and how it has prevented me to move forward.

An Interesting Twist

First of all I would like to say that the monopoly activity we as a class did today was fun, informative, and shocking. In my group there was one upper class, one middle class, one working class, and one lower class person. I was the person that represented the middle class.

The person in the upper class started with 3,000 dollars which was double the money of the middle class, triple the money of the working class, and six times more than the lower class. Naturally the upper class person got to role first, and on the first role landed on a property. Without hesitation they bought their first property. I, being the middle class, landed on a lower rated property and bought the property without hesitation. But for those in the working and lower class that landed on a property always seemed to hesitate before buying a property and most of the time they would give it up for auction. If one of the properties went for auction it was usually a bid between in the middle and the upper class. But 9 time out of ten the person of the upper class would always out bid the person in the middle class and would most definitely out bid the working and the lower class.

The person of the lower class could only buy properties on one side of the board with the lower rates, the person in the working class could only buy properties on two sides of the board with the lowest rates and the middle class could only buy properties on three side of the board with the rates. The person of the upper class could buy any and all the properties on the board including the railroad and utilities in which the other three classes cannot purchase.

Obviously we can equate what is happening in this game of monopoly to real life. Those in the upper and sometimes even in the middle class have way more advantages than those in the working or lower class.  For an example those in the middle class an upper class have more options about going to college, whether that’s going to college in general or, especially to the upper class, going to a more expensive or widely known college such as Harvard. Not saying that those in the working class or the lower class don’t go to college, it’s just the chances are that they don’t because college can be quite costly and those in these classes probably chose working in order to raise their families.

The Tribes We Live In

In the documentary "People Like Us" the narrator explains that the people in America belong to their own tribes; meaning that a group of people with common backgrounds, common salary, common religion, etc. are linked together in a tribe. Before this blog I have never really thought about what tribe I belong to. After a few days of thinking and processing what kind of tribe that I belong to I came up with a name for my particular tribe, the middle class conservative Catholic.

 

The reason why I consider my particular tribe middle class is because I was born and raised in the middle class. I grew up always having a roof over my head and food on the table but not necessarily enough money to buy a big house or a fancy car. Though some people may look down at people in the middle class I feel completely comfortable and happy being in the middle class.

 

My mother’s sister married into money and my mom had seen how much she had changed even though my mother and my aunt we also raised in the middle class. Growing up I always remember my aunt asking how I could stand to live the way my family and I did. I just remember thinking to myself that my family and I didn’t live any different than most of my friends. Yes, we may have had less than she did but I grew up in a nice house with nice things. So in a sense I knew from my childhood that I shared a different tribe than my aunt even though she was family.

 

Like most of my family I consider myself to be a conservative. Being a conservative has played a huge impact on my way of thinking and how I decided to take the next steps in my life. I believe that it is very important for everyone in the United States to have some sort of political view. I love having political conversations with individuals especially my dad. Though we may not agree on everything under the sun but I believe that having these conversations with my dad has enhanced my way of thinking in a positive way.

 

And last but not least I consider myself to be a catholic. Religion plays a major role in my life. When all else fails in my life I always have religion to fall back on. Since the second grade all the way to my senior year of high school I have attended catholic schooling, which naturally played a huge role in my life. If I had to do high school all over again with a choice between private school and public school I would still choose private. The reasoning being is that learning theology has changed my life completely and has opened my eyes to many possibilities in the world. It has shaped my life into what it is now.

 

Though I know that many of the student in my Social Studies class would not fit into my middle class conservative catholic tribe, this is where I feel most comfortable and this is where my family, boyfriend, and many of my close friends lay.

Tammy's Story from People Like Us

The segment on Tammy from the documentary "People Like Us" was a very sad story but eye opening. I think the most shocking realization in her segment was that she walked eight miles to get to work. Lots of people don't even walk but a mile a day but Tammy did so that she could take care of her family. The part the I seemed less shocked about was the fact that one of her sons was completely embarrassed by his mother and where they lived. He also complained that his mother always wore her Burger King outfit around the house and even if they went out to eat. The reason why this does not seem so shocking to me is because most teenagers his age are usually embarrassed by their parents and even about where they live or what kind of car their parents drive.

And where do I think they are now? My positive way of thinking thinks that at least one or maybe even two of Tammy's sons received a high education and that Tammy herself may have decided to go to college to become a teacher. But to me, in a more realistic way, Tammy stayed in the trailer and continued to work at Burger King and unfortunately most of her children probably fell into her footsteps. It's hard to break out of the circle in which you were raised. And since Tammy's father was also lower class it only seems "natural" for Tammy to be in the lower class.

Social Status

Social class is not something that is new to me. I have studied social class through many different subjects throughout my education such as history, theology, world geography and even in ethic literature. Since I have taken these courses, I actually think about social class a lot. And I believe that social class plays a major role in our society.
As for the video "Wealth Inequality in America" I was not the least bit surprised to see how incorrect people's understandings of wealth distribution is in America. I think that people in our country are afraid to admit that there are very rich people in the world and also that there are very poor people in this world as well.
I think that social class plays a huge role on people's values and views. For an example, in the video "People Like Us" when the lady says that she would never drive Volvo because it screams "middle class mother who has ornery kids with an out of control dog" or that she wouldn't drive a Ford because it was probably stolen. Why is a Volvo considered a middle class car? Oh, because they are less expensive and less cool than Porsche or a BMW. So based on this particular lady's value and views she is able to define your social class based on the car that you drive. This is absolutely absurd. I actually know a guy who I would consider upper middle class because of his salary, assets, investments and savings and could afford a Porsche if he wanted to but prefers to drive Hondas because they are economical.  He believes that buying a Porsche is a wasted investment and he would much rather buy a more affordable car and use his money else where. To me this is thinking smart and economical.
I have ran into certain situations throughout my life where people's values and views clouded their thoughts from what was actually the truth. I attended a catholic grade school and high school in which my high school was one of the most well know private school in the area. When people would ask me where I attended high school I would tell them Sacred Heart Griffin and about 95 percent of they time they would say, "Oh wow you must be rich." Well the real truth was that I wasn't rich. I was middle class just like them. In fact most were very unaware that my mother worked in my high school's cafeteria in order to receive a discount on my tuition.