Global Citizenship Unit Review
“The experience of Chinese immigrants in the West became a struggle to advance economically in the face of racism and discrimination.”
Globalization: The ongoing process of world economies and cultures becoming integrated.
How does this quote relate to the The White Umbrella and When Father Came Home for Lunch?
The White Umbrella
“‘Things,’ she would say. ‘What’s the matter with a raincoat? All you want is things, just like an American.’”
Discreet: Careful or guarded in one’s speech or actions.
Materialism: Belief that material possessions and comforts are more important that spiritual or ethical values.
Who is being discreet in this story and what is she being discreet about?
Who is materialistic in this story?
When Father Came Home for Lunch
“Half-an-hour of noisy manners
and he’s gone, back to work”
Shoyu: A Type of Japanese soy sauce.
How would this father feel if his daughter was obsessed with owning a white umbrella?
China economy sees strong growth
“China is expected to become the world’s biggest economy in 2030.”
GDP – Gross Domestic Product: The measure of a country’s total economic output.
Who has the world’s biggest economy today?
Who will China surpass this year to become the world’s 2nd biggest economy?
Slavery in the 21st Century
“Nobody is free until everybody is free.”
Trafficking: The transport or trade of humans, usually women or children, for economic gain involving force or deception.
Domestic: Something that pertains to a home or family.
Restavek: Haitian children who work as domestic slaves.
About how many slaves exist in the world today?
What members of society are most likely to become slaves?
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
“I suppose I looked like a man who had escaped a den of wild beasts, and barely escaped them.”
“It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.”
Feeble: Weak or powerless
Objectify: To degrade someone to the status of an object.
Ethnocentrism: The belief that one’s culture is better than others.
How did slave owners justify slavery in their own minds?
What is the symbolism of the root in the story?
Haitians Hoping For A Way Out Look to US Embassy
“Child abandonment by destitute mothers is not uncommon in Haiti”
“He hopes with just names and addresses of in-laws in New Jersey that they’ll let his family of 14 immigrate to the States.”
Visa: An endorsement on a passport to stay in a country for some amount of time.
Destitute: Without the basic necessities for life.
What would be your judgment of the Americans who seized 33 Haitian children after the quake?
we shook the bridge
“I was not a citizen. I couldn’t vote, but Uncle Sam could put an M16 in my hands and send me to Vietnam.”
“The infrastructure was so rotten and corrupt, eventually the companies couldn’t even do their exploitation properly.”
Infrastructure: The basic physical and organizational structures of a society. For example: roads, bridges, buildings.
Junta: A military group that rules a country after taking it by force.
