A Change in Heart

So far I think that the juvenile system has potential to do a lot of good for those in the system, however, it is not up-to-par just yet. At first, I thought that the kids who were committing the crimes had been desensitized and would have a hard time changing the way they were programed to think. As I have been reading True Notebooks, I see that these kids recognize their previous horrible way of life and wish to change their way of life. Many of them are frustrated, though, because they feel trapped by the system and sense no way out. Even though they have committed terrible crimes, they feel a tremendous amount of guilt and wish that they could prove to everyone how they have changed for the better.

It is hard not to feel prejudiced against these young adults when some of them have even committed murder. I am not arguing that they be treated with lenience; nevertheless, it is important for those in charge of the system to understand their background, and how something as simple as recognizing how harmful taking part in a gang can change these unfortunate youths' mindset. They are inspired to change their lives, yet they know the permanence of their situation. Perhaps, then, they should be given better attorneys to help improve this situation and even be given parole. I think that more attention should be given to these youths, because clearly they have the capacity to change, and if given the right opportunity, they will.

My Bad... Or is It?

After reading The Code of the Street and the different theories behind crime and deviance, I am more interested in why there is crime and how to prevent it. It is clear that much crime and deviant behavior has no definitive causes. Instead, there are many influences that one must consider before condemning an individual on his poor actions. One question is, did he have a choice based on his background and environment?

It is evident in The Code of the Street that there are children who manage to avoid becoming "street" personalities despite their violent homes. Nevertheless, it cannot be assumed that everyone will act this way, and perhaps if children who were raised in abusive environments received helped prior to joining gangs or engaging in criminal behavior, they will be less likely to become a deviant.

Why is there Crime and Deviance?

It is difficult to thoroughly explain what crime is and how a person can become a deviant. Many sociologists have tried to tackle this explanation by creating different theories to try to describe how crime and deviance functions. In Anthony Giddens’ Essentials of Sociology, he mentions a few of these theories to try to help others understand deviance. In The Code of the Street, Elijah Anderson explores one example of crime and deviance in a specific subculture – the lower class that exist in inner-city life and its suburbs. Anderson touched on a few crime and deviance theories; however, the most prominent were differential association, subcultural explanation and conflict theory. Of those three, subcultural explanation has the most impact.

Young children are very susceptible to adapt to and absorb their surroundings, which is essentially primary socialization. Children in poor city neighborhoods are generally born into two types of homes – the “decent” home, where good morals and valued, and the “street” home, which tend to go against mainstream norms and can be abusive. Since children are so easily influenced by their environment, “simply living in such a [hostile] environment places young people at special risk of falling victim to aggressive behavior,” (Anderson 171). These young people will learn that aggressive behavior is the only way to effectively survive in the street environment. Most of this forceful behavior is learned from the home, where parents will be harsh to kids since punishment is what they are most familiar with. Moreover, the more violent the parent is with their children, the more they “learn that to solve any kind of interpersonal problem one must quickly resort to hitting or other violent behavior,” (Anderson 174). As the children grow up, they learn that it is acceptable in their street society to behave violently, as they are accustomed to those actions. After they have successfully learned to behave in the street manner from their home, these street kids group to form their own subculture of street life.

After assimilating the aggressive behaviors from their parents, children find others with similar backgrounds and come together to share what they have learned. Whether they are conscious of this act or not, “in the street, through their play, children pour their individual life experiences into a common knowledge pool, affirming, confirming, and elaborating on what they have observed in the home and matching their skills against those of others,” (Anderson 175). It is important to understand that being violent is the only behavior that these children understand. This violence may be the only way they know to communicate with other another and establish community relationships. In addition, they tend to discard what most would consider “normal” behavior because they have never directly experienced such conducts within their own society. In general, subcultures that are lower class have the tendency to “reject the middle-class values and replace them with norms that celebrate defiance, such as delinquency and other acts of nonconformity,” (Gibbons 154). They cannot relate to the middle-class lifestyle, and there are many reasons why these lifestyles are different. Of course, those of the lower class are not as well-off, and perhaps some feel the need to commit petty thefts in order to survive. Also, they have different experiences growing up in the home, and a more violent setting can cause a different outlook on life and how to respond to life matters.

Another issue with city life is the fact that the police are not always able to deal with every problem that occurs in street life. This shortage of police force encourages some to resort to their own measures to ensure their safety. To ensure this security, “the street code emerges where the influence of the police ends and personal responsibility for one’s safety is felt to begin,” (Anderson 172). They create their own code that everyone in their subculture has to live up to, otherwise they will punished with forces described within this code. The street people do not think that the police adequately guarantee the safety amongst their society. Many times, however, different societies have felt the need to create their own rules. It has been an observed phenomenon, and “theorists of the new criminology frame their analysis of crime and deviance in terms of the structure of society and the preservation of power among the ruling class… They reject the idea that laws are neutral and are applied evenly across the population,” (Giddens 156). The societies that feel neglected by the “ruling class” recognize that they must develop their own laws in order to protect their society and the individuals within the group. People must form their own rules to organize themselves to create a stable society.

The functionalist theory, specifically subcultural explanations, best explains crime and deviance. It incorporates not just the functionality of the subculture itself, but how each individual’s background helped shape this subculture. Without sharing similar experiences, these people would not feel the need to form their won group identity, separate from the social norm. Furthermore, the addition of each individual’s poor behavior forms a sort of “snowball effect,” and “researchers located deviance in terms of subcultural groups that adopt norms that encourage or reward criminal behavior,” (Giddens 153). Each new bad behavior encourages the well-established street mannerisms to continue, and these new additions are encouraged by the existing behaviors that they are accepted in street life. These behaviors, though, were adopted from what the individuals have learned from their environment, and most importantly, their home. Once they have established their own street act, they can continue to join their appropriate subculture and foster their aggressive behaviors. Also, it is the interactions of these personal experiences that can help create an attitude for the group as a whole.

Deviance and crime are not clear-cut ideas. They are complicated, and while one theory may suite most examples of deviance, it is how these theories relate that can best describe and help to understand why there is crime and deviance.

Sociology & Me

There are many aspects of sociology that I have learned thus far. For one, I learned how different aspects of a society, whether they are within the home or the surrounding itself, affect personality and the overall characteristics of an individual, or their identity. It is believed that many people develop most of their identity from their parents during early childhood, and as they grow older, outside influences such as media, peers, school, etc can have their effect on personality. In addition, it is important to understand one's society's own history and the history of the world to understand how they impact one and another and oneself. These aspects are called agents of socialization, basically referring to how different influences from a person's life affect who they are as a whole.

"Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both." 

- C. Wright Mills

After completing the first portion of the class, I have learned ways to help me write more effectively and efficiently. I never fully appreciated the usefulness of annotating texts, and will definitely continue to do so in the future. As for writing the essay itself, I now concentrate more on having a clear focus, not just for the entirety of the essay, but each individual paragraph. I see how concentrating on different structures that comprise an essay can better the product in the end.

Her Words, My Inspiration

Through reading Rose Guilbault’s memoir Farmworker’s Daughter, I gained insight into my own life and the influences on my identity, or agents of socialization, that Rose and I had in common. Our mothers, for example, each played a huge role in shaping who we are, especially during the early parts of our childhood. We learned a great deal from our mothers’ experiences, which in turn helped us to understand the importance of doing what we think is right. Growing up, we both lived through a big move and had to adjust to new environments. Fortunately, we both found role models who helped guide us and helped us to find our passions.

Rose had to manage many changes that occurred throughout her childhood. The one thing that remained constant was the presence of her mother Maria Luisa, who was a strong woman. Rose perceived this strength at a very young age. Her father, Tito, became a cold father and a disloyal husband, and Maria Luisa struggled to maintain her marriage. In fact, it was expected of the wife to accept every challenge presented to her by her husband, and “it was considered shocking and unacceptable for a woman to seek divorce, and what with the church, society, and family stalwartly against it, it took either enormous courage or folly for the woman to follow her moral convictions,” (18). Maria Luisa believed that it was more important to do the right thing, and not the expected. In this circumstance, Maria Luisa felt that she and Rose would suffer if she did not leave Tito, and this courage to stand for what she believed in later helped Rose to find the strength she would need to face many hardships. My own mother knowingly went against tradition, as well, when she chose to date my father during college. She was Chinese and attended Beijing University in China and my father, who was a foreigner, was teaching in her department. Dating was prohibited among college students at the time, and furthermore, having a serious relationship with any foreigner could have been grounds for expulsion. Despite these life-altering risks, my mother chose to pursue her happiness. My parents told me this story my whole life, and learning about my mother’s courage to follow her heart showed me that I should be bold like my mother. I learned that I should not let what society expects of me control my actions if they conflict with my ideals and needs.

My mother ♡

Not only did Maria Luisa leave her husband, she felt it was necessary to leave her 

hometown and move to the United States to create a better life for herself and Rose. This decision, however, was even a more daring choice for Maria Luisa to make because even “a willing immigrant … must have great optimism and little to lose. But [her] mother was leaving behind a great many things,” (22-23). Maria Luisa had no idea what to expect when she arrived at her new home; all she knew was what Rafaela, her distant cousin, had told her. Maria Luisa wanted to escape the criticisms she knew she would face at home, and in turn she wanted to build a better future for Rose, who recognized that they had much to lose. This loss, however, was not tantamount to what they would go through had Maria Luisa stayed. This further encouraged Rose to recognize the significance of self-confidence and courage to embrace any new situation. Again, my mother experienced a similar decision when she chose to leave behind the life she knew and follow my father to the states. I have enormous respect for my mother, and for the confidence she had in herself and to the way she proved to herself and to everyone else that her choice was not a mistake. Whether subconsciously or not, I therefore hold myself to a high standard in my own ability to handle new environments.

After moving to America, Rose had to learn how to be flexible in order to adjust to life in her new home and school. This change proved very difficult for Rose because of the vast culture shock. She did not easily comprehend English, but even more overwhelming was not understanding and knowing American customs. The difficulty of assimilating into this new culture remained with her during her youth, as she always “felt like an outsider, and [she] would not be able to shake that sense of alienation throughout [her] school years in King City,” (50). No matter how hard she tried, her background and ethnicity would create a barrier between her and her peers, who seemed oblivious to her efforts to be like them. Despite the gap she felt between herself and her peers, she never let that discourage her from searching for where she belonged at school. She gave many activities a significant effort, even if they proved to be great challenges. She tried playing the clarinet, for example, and even though she “was not a great musician… the band was a wholesome activity that integrated [her] into school life – into America – and so it was important to [her],” (55). Disregarding her heritage, Rose even struggled to discover a place for herself. Yet this only persuaded her to reach beyond her comfort level and become more open to new possibilities.

I, too, have had to learn how to adapt to new environments. I never lived in one place for an extended amount of time during my early childhood, particularly throughout elementary school. When I was four, we moved from California to Massachusetts, which had a very different environment from the one I was used to, even at such a young age. We moved yet again five years later after I had already established a group of friends at my first elementary school. Starting in a new environment at the beginning of third grade was scary. In this new school I felt more like an outsider because I was the only one with an Asian background in a predominantly Caucasian school. Of course I did not experience such drastic cultural differences as Rose because I was still in America. I did, however, recognize that there was a dissimilarity between myself and the other kids, and they did as well. Regardless of the subtly cold attitude I received from my peers, I managed to break the ice. No sooner had I felt like I belonged we moved back to the Bay Area. This time, I was able to use the skills I had developed while living in Massachusetts to form a new group of friends more quickly.

The other editors, Wojcicki and me after a long week of production

Not only was it essential for Rose to establish a place in which she could belong, but also for her to acquire a mentor who could steer her in the right direction. Before she reached high school, Rose could not find an activity in which she succeeded. It was not until she met Edith Winslow, King City’s only female journalist, that Rose discovered her life’s path. Edith agreed to take Rose under her wing, and Rose “vowed [she] would not let anyone stand in the way of [her] chosen career path. [She] would do it to prove… [Edith] right,” (146). Edith gave Rose newfound courage to pursue her dreams of becoming a journalist, despite other people’s opinions. After this point, Rose became a fighter. In a sense, she was tougher than ever because she felt that she had found a purpose. I, too, did not have a clear career path in high school until I met Esther Wojcicki, my journalism instructor. If it were not for her words of encouragement throughout her beginning journalism class, I would not have considered being a part of the school newspaper. I now have a clear understanding of how I want to lead my life. With her coaching, I feel like I have the strength to achieve my dreams of becoming a journalist.

Looking past our obvious differences, I discovered that Rose and I have had similar influences on our sense of self. Whether related to family or school, it was the commonality of our experiences that shaped who we are today, two courageous women who have the strength to pursue happiness no matter the odds.