If you could choose to be apart of a group or discourse, what would you choose to be? Would you choose to be apart of another race? In "Goin' Gangsta, Chosin' Cholita," teenagers talk about how they have chosen to change their identity, or rather, their image, but, in reality, these teens are white. My question is, though, that if discourse heavily relies upon being recognized as a specific discourse, are these teens really apart of these discourses.
For instance in the movie, "Save the Last Dance," the main character, Sara, moves to New York to live with her father, and attends a prodominately African American school. As the movie progresses, she starts to hang out more often with African American teenagers who act, speak, and dress in an urban fashion. The more she hangs out with them, and relates to them, she begins to pick up some of their speach, action, and dress patterns. Even so, when she starts to date an African American guy, her guise does not hold true to some of the other African American characters who feel she should not date him because she is white.
The issue here is that the other characters would not accept her as being "Black." Although she could dress like them, speak like them, attend their school and clubs, and later even dance like them, she was still white in their eyes. Her progression into Urban Society, though shows how one's environment can affect the discourse that a person chooses. Surrounded by African Americans, she chose to try and fit in even though she never lost her true identity.
Ergo, are the teens in "Goin' Gangsta, Chosin' Cholita" ever really gansta or cholita? Personally, I don't think so because these discorses are related to specific groups within races. Instead, I think that these teens have created a different discourse all together.

Welcome to the English Blogging Community

Hello Bloggers,
So, today in my English Class, we were discussing communities. One of our assignments was to construct a list of different communities that we belong to. Being the ever diligent student, I made a huge tree-like graph of all the different groups and subgroups I belong to…The human race, several ethnic groups, religious groups, the college I attend, my area of study, clubs, likes, dislikes, et cetera. What I couldn’t add before this very moment, though, is that I also belong to the Blogging Community. Before taking a college English class, although I’d glanced at quite a few blogs, I never thought of “blogging” as a genre. In fact, I would call myself blogging illiterate!
Apparently, blogging is a huge part of everyday life now – the era of technology constantly evolving. First, it was, “you have to computer savvy,” then it was, “you have to be internet savvy,” and now, not only do people have to be able to use Microsoft works, read/write emails, and use the Google browser to succeed in life, school, and jobs, but we have now entered the world of Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging all of which take the place of photo albums, resumes, and diaries – Personally, I liked keeping those things private…I don’t want people seeing my humiliating pictures of birthdays-past where my mom thought it would be funny to smoosh my face into the cake; nor my 7th grade diary entries about how enamored I was with the guy who sat in front of me in my history class. Oh well, such is life when taboos are redefined as normalcy.
Here’s a few things to think about, though. Who says we have to blog, twitter, or create Facebook profiles to be literate and why do people feel the need to belong to this community?
Here’s a list of a few things I feel have changed in American Society due to the redefining of literacy (computer literacy):
· Dating/Making Friends
· Researching/ Education
· Politics
· Vocabulary/Grammar
· Letter writing
· Job/College Applications
· Recruiting
· Gossiping
· Shopping
· Jobs