Becoming a Man?

Title: Becoming a Man?

Topic: Rites of Passage

Source: This week’s reading in the ANTHO textbook, talking about Rite of Passage and what Arnold van Gennep considers to be the "rituals that mark a person's passage from one identity or status to another" (Robins, p. 139)

Relation: Growing up in a single-parent household, I never understood what "Rite of Passage" was or why people considered it to be important. With my dad gone, I had no one to teach me about it. When I was a freshmen in high school, I was told what Rite of Passage meant. It was the thing or things that turned a person into an adult or from one stage in their life to the next. 

Description: While in high school, I was told that Rite of Passage was something that people did to consider themselves closer to adulthood or to the next step in their lives. I had a friend that saw getting his driver license as a rite of passage. I personally never got that chance because I still, to this day, do not have a car nor a drivers license. I didn't do a lot of things that most people consider rites of passage. I know that getting married and going to college were viewed as passages as well, but while being in high school, I wasn't going to college anytime soon and I surely wasn't going to get married. So then I decided to view something else as my own rite of passage. This was the day I became the Battalion Commander for the Army JROTC program at my high school. Getting into this position was no easy "walk in the park". There was a lot of work and skills that I needed to learn and do in order to get the position. What a BC (Battalion Commander) does is he/she is the "boss" of the program in which they supervise and maintain all cadets and cadet staff within the program. I was put in charge of 250 students, just like myself, during my senior year of high school. I knew that this was one of my biggest rites of passage. I went from being a little freshmen to being the person who was well known and trusted within 4 years. 

Commentary/Analysis: Going into my third year in college, I realize that rites of passage are anything that takes a person from one stage to another in their life. Wether it being getting a car and drivers license, or becoming a BC and running a program of 250 students. Just like the young men in the Maasai community, they are circumcised to represent their entry into adulthood (Robins p. 140), I personally looked at being the BC as my rite into becoming an adult because if I could be trusted with leading 250 students to greatness, then I knew I was ready for life. Now, I have my own home (that isn't my mothers), going to college and being my third year here and having my first job at the HSU bookstore. I have definitely changed from being a shy freshmen in high school to being a Battalion Commander for the JROTC program to becoming a college student with my bills and house. (Not happy about the bills part of adulthood).  

Love Is For Everyone

Title: Love Is For Everyone

Topic: Love

Relation: In our ANTHO text book, Robbins talked about three different groups of people and their love life. The groups are the Ju/wasi, Trobriand islanders and the chinese (Robbins, p. 124-125). The main things in these groups are love, sex and wealth; each having different role in them. In the Ju/wasi, wealth does not play a big part in their lives, but for the women in this group, love, sex and beauty are very important.  The reason why this relates to me is because not only am I in a relationship with a man, but I also look at the values that the Ju/wasi live by. 

Description: Being raised in a house hold that had mexican values, my mother always taught me that money wasn't always everything. As I grew up and learned more about myself, I figured out that "love" and having the "special one" was not about having money, but to have amazing feelings for someone. During the summer of my post high school senior year, I met my boyfriend while we were taking our entrance exams for the CSU systems. On our freshmen year, we became roommates and the moved into our townhouse by our 2nd year. While it was super hard to maintain the relationship that my boyfriend and I had, it became harder to maintain myself due to short of money. Finding a job here in Arcata seemed almost impossible, but with luck, I was hired during the summer of 11' to work as a house keeper for the Housing + Dining office. There would be times in which I would have nothing to eat because all of my money went to my cell phone bills, and my boyfriend would have money, but my mother taught me not to take money that I didn't earn myself. Also with the fact that I have a man instead of a woman, society thinks that this is a wrong thing. But I feel that slowly, but surely society is letting it go. Being almost two years together, my boyfriend and I have been through a lot of things together and have learned that money, society or anything else that involves bad karma can stop us from being together because we "love" each other. No one really knows what love is, but I think that someone makes their own definition when they feel something different with someone. 

Commentary/Analysis: After being together for almost two years, my boyfriend and I have learned a lot about each other and feeling as though we have gotten closer. Love to me is something that feels amazing. I feel someone different for the person I love. I love my mother, my family, but the love the I feel with my significant other is bigger than the love for my family. Wealth does nothing, but cause problems and there is always a bad that comes out of it. 

"Do you Believe In Magic?"

Title: "Do you Believe In Magic?"

Topic: Magic

Source: Robbins textbook Ch. 4, pg. 87. Section is about the metaphors of Contemporary Witchcraft and Magic and how Tanya M. Luhrmann got to see some of the urbanites magic with "New Age" ideology. 

Relation: I feel that when people thing of the word "magic", they picture a man in a cape with playing cards about to throw them in the air and preform a trick. In modern days, people might think about the big- hit movies "Harry Potter", but I think that people don't know the true about magic and if it really is "real". The middle-class urbanites from England emphasize natural foods, food health, and personal stability. Their "magical" practices consist of mainly conjuring spirits, reading the tarot, and magical healing. When I was a young boy, I saw my first and only magic show at an amusement park. I could't believe my eyes. 

Description: I think I was about six or seven years old when I saw my first magic show. I was at an amusement park and they had a Big Top tent that was used as a restaurant. There was a sign outside of it that read "Magic Show in five minutes". I begged my mother if we could go, so after all the whinnying and screaming, we went. the only thing that I remember to this day was the guy on the stage with a cape and big, black, Abraham Lincoln looking hat, putting his thumb through a five dollar bill that he got from an audience member. I was so disappointed when nothing was neither real or entertaining. But one thing that I didn't know was that my mother knew and visited a shop where they read her tarot cards. I would always be in the waiting room wondering where I was. I would see pictures of Jesus, but then I would see candles in the shape of the Grim Reaper. I knew that I was in a store, but was to young to understand. my mother would tell me it was a place where she could get help that didn't involve a doctor or high bills. I didn't care so I never really asked. As I grew older, I met the lady who my mother would go see and I didn't feel like she was a witch or anything dangerous. She reminded me  of my grandmother because she was so nice and joyful. To this day I don't know if I believe in magic, but some people believe it is true and others think it doesn't. 

Commentary/Analysis: Being in college, I still don't understand "magic", but I believe that it is something that people need to believe in so that it can be true. Taking "Karma" for instance, people believe that if you do something nice, you will receive good karma in return, but mess with someone or talk shit about someone else, then in return you get bad karma. This is a believe that most younger generations believe in and if its real or not, who knows. Can it be looked at as magic? Maybe. It all depends if someone believes.