Author: Karen Hermita

To love something means to be willing to surrender parts of yourself, to feel empathy and identity with this person misery and triumph. But liking something doesn’t allow you to expose yourself, and only reveals the likable surface that you have created. I agree with how Franzen describes, liking something. Although liking something is still somewhat a sincere emotion of fondness; it doesn’t allow a person to confront, reject, nor accept themselves. Love something forces us to choose between running away or having the confidence to embrace it. My relationship with my smartphone or technology is more of a like, rather than a love relationship. To be honest technology and its platforms help feed my narcissistic tendencies. Through the use of technology, apps, and platforms I am able to be the main character. Franzen claims that “our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered,” which is not wrong. Rather than putting myself in a real relation with real people I have become used to this “mirror” relationship with technology. Not having to force myself to become a likable person simply makes life less difficult. Just like Franzen states, “We don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way we might with actual people.” The relationship I have with my smartphones and its apps is something that does not usually concern me. Trying to be perfectly likable isn’t necessarily a health mindset that should be forced upon people. Although my statement might be the opposite of what social platforms and technology actually does; for me it’s an escape from reality. Or even the idea of loving something. A way to shield myself from uncomfortable situations.

My only desire was to learn of the people who came before me. To be proud of the individual I am and who I seeked to be. Being raised in New York allowed me to educate myself and interact with different cultures and people from various ethnicities. All my life I thought I had an inclusive knowledge of various ethnicities and their struggles.Till I realize that I had never learned of the impact the hispanic community had on the development of the United States. ​My unknowledgeable understanding of the struggles of Minorities, is representative of a more comprehensive problem that occurs within the educational school system of the U.S.
As I mentioned before I grew up in an extremely diverse community, however not everyone is fortunate enough to be surrounded by different cultures and ethnicities. Due to the environment I was raised in I thought I would receive an inclusive educational curriculum, however that wasn’t the case. I was fifteen when I first learned about the “Chicano Movement” which can be referred to as “El Movimiento.” As a Mexican- American it was astonishing to have never heard of a movement that advocated for social and political empowerment, especially since it was my own community that had to endured decades of discrimiation in southern areas of the United States. At seventeen I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre this was a year after I had finished my US history curriculum. Although the Tulsa RAe Massacre is known as one of the deadliest riots in U.S history it was never mentioned during my segregation unit. Who was supposed to tell that the worst incident of racial violence that has ever occurred in the US, was also the least known.
My lackluster knowledge of the struggles that my community and other minorities, represents how the educational school system of the U.S. has failed us. The lack of representation of individuals from various ethnicities and racially distinct groups in American textbooks and their achievement; reveals how students have trouble identifying the significant role they have on society.