When I first started the school year, I did not know what to expect from taking humanities core. I thought it was simply a course requirement for the campus honors program and a fast and easy way to complete my GEs. I didn’t expect to like humcore as much as I do now. I enjoyed…
Skin Whitening: A Product of Western Imperialism
A Vicki Belo Skin Whitening Ad Around the globe, from India to China to America, billboards and advertisements abound with notions of lighter skin as beautiful. More beautiful, in fact, than darker skin. The skin-whitening industry has boomed especially in the metropolises of Asia. The Philippines, in particular, has an intense fascination, borderline obsession, with…
Self-Segregation in College Campuses
Throughout lecture during weeks one and two of the spring quarter, Professor Block has discussed how race, gender, and sexuality helped justify the enslavement of people and define the power hierarchy among different peoples. Race and racecraft, in particular, have been used as a platform to marginalize ethnic groups and warrant white supremacy. Historian Barbara…
Fighting for Independence
Through our study of colonialism and its effects throughout history, I have always wondered is the fighting worth it? Is the pain, suffering, loss of lives worth the battle for independence and freedom? Does the ultimate end outweigh the means? Although I understand why people rebel against an oppressive empire, I always questioned whether rebelling…
The White Man’s Burden
Throughout the Humanities Core Course, we have analyzed how imperialism and colonialism affect the conquerors and conquered. By exploring texts from the Romans to the Incas, we have seen how empire inspires revolutions, cultural transformations, and new schools of thought. As I learned more and more about the motives of empire, my mind flooded with…
Colonization of the Americas: Acculturation vs Assimilation
A couple days ago, I began the winter quarter of my first year. As I sat and listened during my humanities core lectures about how the Incas and Andean people resisted total Spanish conquest by retaining parts of their culture, I wondered, why were the Native Americans in the U.S. unable to achieve the same…
Searching for Human Connection
Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is about the magistrate’s journey to try to help the Barbarian people tortured by the empire. Throughout the novel, Coetzee details the different forms of torture that the wicked Colonel Joll employs and shows how ultimately, torture is an ineffective form of interrogation because at some point, the ones tortured…
Roots of Human Cruelty
At a very young age, we are taught that to be human is to be kind. Philosophers like Rousseau believed that humans were inherently compassionate and benevolent and that no human desires to abuse another. I believed in this philosophy all my life because I could not comprehend unnecessary cruelty and had faith that people…
Corpses Floating in a River by Sasaki Chizuko
Corpses Floating in the River by Sasaki Chizuko (1945) Through the manipulation of line, color, and texture, the tragically beautiful painting Corpses Floating in a River by Sasaki Chizuko illustrates the disastrous consequences of unchecked power and nuclear war by invoking feelings of anxiety, fear and trauma. Upon first glance at the painting, the viewer…
Crazy Rich Asians: Progressive or Regressive?
Henry Golding (Nick Young) and Constance Wu (Rachel Chu) pose for Crazy Rich Asians Promotion for Entertainment Weekly Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians has proved to be a landmark film, garnering high praise for being the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority Asian American cast in a modern setting since The Joy…
Journey through the Past 