Assignment 3

My last name, Hanaka, is not Japanese.  Multiple people asked me about my last name and very few would guess I am actually Polish.  Usually, Polish last names end with “ski” but not mine.  Both of my parents are both Polish and come from a small village named Szczebrzeszyn.  Because of this, I am Caucasian.  My race and ethnicity are not that important to me.  I have met many Polish people who say they are proud to be Polish because of people like Marie Curie and Fredric Chopin. I don’t feel like I should be proud of something I didn’t do.  At the same time, race is not important to me as well.  

The doll video left me a disappointed in our society.  No child should feel like the girls in the video do.  If we were all the same, the world would be boring. When the girls were asked to describe a perfect female, they said she was white, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.  In all honesty, if we had a world filled with Barbies, I think I would rather move to Mars.  Or Pluto.  It is really sad that young girls feel that they are not considered pretty because of their ethnicity or race.  One thing the video teaches us is that we need to teach children that everybody is beautiful.