Brats and Polishes

On a whim, my family decided to take a two day road trip up to Milwaukee. On our way there, we had lunch at the "Brat Stop", a fully-fledged Wisconsin dive, serving mostly brats, polishes, and cheese curds. 

While in Wisconsin, there was a clear German (Eastern European) influence peppering the town, in the cuisine, architecture, and beer. I wondered which ethnic group most heavily influenced Chicago to make it the city it is today, contrasting with the likes of Milwaukee. 

Lunching at the Brat Stop made me wonder why restaurants like that one aren't in Chicago. People still eat brats here. What was different between Wisconsin and Illinois that made them develop such different cultures?

On the New York Times website, there is an interactive map that shows where different ethnic groups lived in United States from 1880 all the way to 2000. 

From early on, it is clear the WI and IL had heavy populations of Western and Eastern Europeans but as time goes on, IL's population of these groups decreases whereas WI maintains this heavy population well into the 1900s. This could explain the heavy Eastern European influence that is evident in Milwaukee and other parts of WI. Today, the Eastern European influence is only seen in distinct neighborhoods of Chicago rather than the whole city or even the state of IL.

Another contrast is found if we look at Texas, which has a pretty consistent Latino presence and the New England states have a consistent Western European population. With a difference in not only cuisine, but accents, architecture and life style, it is clear how the different regions have developed according to the ethnic groups populating the area. 

With these different groups populating diverse climates and terrain, obvious cultural differences were abound to take root and continue to influence the development of our country. We are the country that we are today because of the different groups that have shared their cultural history with us, integrating into the American identity. 

When you look around today, what cultural differences to do you see?

Everyone is a Winner

Education is one of the most important pillars that shape a culture. In the New York Times article, "My Family's Experiment in Extreme Schooling", Clifford Levy recounts his experience in Russia and sending his three children to a Russian private school in which they were taught completely in Russian and most teachers couldn't speak English. Most of the article is about his children's experience in the school but what stuck out to me was a brief comparison to the Brooklyn public school they had previously attended.

In Russia, "children were graded and ranked, with results posted". However, as most of us are accustomed to in the U.S., his school in Brooklyn "instill[ed] an everyone's-a-winner ethos".

This "everyone's-a-winner" thinking is evident everywhere in a America. Kids on sports teams get trophies simply for showing up and we have devised a system at my high school where grades are kept as private as possible to defuse the competition around academics.

This system has its advantages, however, as Levy noted in his article, tough competition can sometimes be the best motivator. At the Russian school, the grades of all the students would be posted and ranked with categories for the best and worst students. Levy's children comment on this different system and how it pushed them to keep trying their hardest, even when they couldn't understand what their teachers were saying. By the time they left Russia, not only were they fluent in Russian but they were also at the top of the ranking.

In comparison to the system I've grown up in, posting grades seems like a crazy, unhealthy system and I honestly can't imagine how it would change my already hyper-competitive school environment. But, as frustrating and stressful as it sounds, I know that posting grades would definitely push me to work to be the best student I can be.

America is facing the new reality that we might not be #1 anymore with countries like China pumping out smart kids left and right and beating our test scores. People are baffled, wondering how it's happening, but it's all embedded in how we motivate our children and how that supports our education system.

I'm curious, what incentive would propel American students to excel academically? Do American students need intrinsic or extrinsic motivation?

Mixed Prom

Until 2008, Charleston High School of Charleston, Mississippi had two proms - one for the white kids and one for the black kids. Even though the school had been desegregated in 1970 (16 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered all desegregation), the white parents refused to integrate the prom. This started a long-standing tradition of separate proms.

Morgan Freeman grew up in Charleston and after gaining fame and fortune, he offered to pay for CHS's prom - as long as it was mixed. Morgan Freeman set up a film crew to follow certain kids around as they prepared for prom and interview them regarding the issue of race that continues to grip the town.

The final product, the documentary "Prom Night In Mississippi" is a glaringly honest picture into how racism still exists in the U.S. despite legislative and social changes in the fight for equality.

However, what became clear through each interviews was that all of the inter-racial hate was directly caused by how the students had been raised. Most of the kids were in support of a mixed prom, and had been even before Morgan Freeman made his offer, but it was the parents who refused to let that happen.

This gives hope to America because even in a community like Charleston where racism guides most social proceedings, there is a generation coming of age who want to enact change. They are aware of the hypocrisy of equal rights  when some students can't get jobs in Charleston because they are black or because they are white and have black friends.

It's easy to think that racism is no longer an issue where we live but even on the North Shore, if you look around, how much diversity do you see? We need to ask ourselves how we can start enacting change for a stronger, more united America where the "race card" is no longer relevant and where racial stereotypes are long forgotten.

Progress is evident in America but documentaries like "Prom Night in Mississippi" show us there are still radical cases of racism and remind us that in our own communities, racism can still be evident in significantly less obvious ways.

How can we work to eliminate racism in our own communities?

Breakfast Essentials

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I love every type of breakfast food and it's also important because it gives you the energy to start your day off just right. When I saw this "Breakfast Essentials" commercial, it struck a chord with me and my love for a classic meal of pancakes, bacon and eggs.

The kid in the commercial is depicted pulling his feet along a school hallway and stopping before the stairs because he didn't eat breakfast that morning and doesn't have the energy to bound up them like the other kids. The obvious solution is to drink their product - a protein smoothie-type concoction with all the nutrients any kid needs.

But why not just feed your kids a real breakfast?

That seems like the more obvious solution in my mind. Upon further research of the actual product, I found a blog titled "Start With the Inside" that analyzed the ingredients of "Breakfast Essentials" and whether not it was a good alternative to actual breakfast (pointed towards an audience looking to lose weight). The post found that it contains 230 mg of Sodium and the second ingredient listed is sugar. In terms of losing weight, a sugary breakfast will make you crave more later in the day which can make a diet much harder to keep.

So "Breakfast Essentials" isn't actually a healthy alternative to real food for breakfast, filling you up with carbs and sugar rather than the nutrients you might get from an egg or healthy cereal. That covers the health issue...but whatever happened to sitting down to breakfast before school, talking it up with your parents - all that good stuff?

In my mind, the real issue isn't the particular healthiness of the drink but the fact that kids simply aren't taking the time to sit down and eat breakfast. Sitting down to a meal is such an underrated activity in a fast-paced world of instant communication and stress that no one seems to make the time for it anymore.

If we all sat down, just for 15 minutes every morning, to eat our breakfast, drink our coffee, and scan the newspaper or what have you, not only would we have the energy to start off the day right but we would also have given ourselves a few minutes of peace to get ready to face whatever we might need to during the day.

Geneva Convention Quotes

American Studies,
Here are some quotes that might be helpful in writing your perilous papers!

These are brief excerpts, visit http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/375?OpenDocument for the full articles. 

Convention (3) Treatment of Prisoners of War, Article 12:
“Prisoners of war are in the hands of the enemy Power, but not of the individuals or military units who have captured them.”

Article 13:
“Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

Article 16:

all prisoners of war shall be treated alike by the Detaining Power, without any adverse distinction based on race, nationality, religious belief or political opinions, or any other distinction founded on similar criteria.

Article 17:

"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

Miss Representation

If you ask a class of first graders how many of them want will become president one day, most of them will raise their hands. Ask a high school class and the chances of someone raising their hand are significantly lower.

Ask a girl if she hopes to become president one day and the chances of her saying yes are even smaller still. 

This idea of women in leadership positions and power is one of many gender issues explored in the documentary Miss Representation. It addresses how women are portrayed in the media and I'll be analyzing specifically women of political power. 

According to the documentary, women represent only 17% of the U.S. Congress. By that statistic alone, it is clear that there is a lack of a female presence and voice in terms of who is being heard when decisions are made. 

In the documentary, Condoleezza Rice (former Secretary of State under the Bush Administration) recalls the time when changes were being considered for Title 9*. Rice remembers going up to Bush with other female members of congress and basically telling him, "You don't know what it was like before Title 9, having to do bake sales just to get enough money to take your team to a basketball tournament". 

The obvious problem with a male dominant society, in terms of who is holding office and high positions in places of business, is that the female perspective and rationale is lacking. 

However, female representation in such positions cannot change until young girls witness other women in power. A point made in the documentary is that what someone aspires to do is inspired by something else. Only men have ever been president, so how can young women aspire to hold that same position when no other woman before them has done it?

Before the next generation of young women can begin aspiring to lead in powerful positions, whether that be of our government or business establishments, they need to see strong women in similar positions making effective change. 

The United States has made leaps and bounds in terms of giving women a voice and affording them equal rights. We can see, with strong female political leaders like Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, that there is a future for women in politics. 


Considering how far we have come as a nation, it's sometimes hard to see how much more progress still needs to be made for women's rights. How do you see the role of women changing in our country? What progress needs to made or has been made already? 

*Title 9 states that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..." (United States Code Section 20)
For an article published during Title 9 debates, click here.

Neapolitan Ice Cream

With our American Studies class, we took a field trip to downtown Chicago to see the Pulitzer prize winning show Clybourne Park at the Steppenwolf Theatre. The theme of racial boundaries within Chicago neighborhoods political correctness fuels the conflict of the production.

In the first act, the characters are dealing with the first black family to move into a predominantly white neighborhood. This was a precedent to what we now call the "white flight". In contrast, the characters in the second act are concerned with the gentrification of the same neighborhood fifty years later.

Within the play, there is the recurring image of neapolitan ice cream. In the opening scene, the character of Rus is eating from a box of neapolitan ice cream instead of helping his wife get the house ready for them to move out. He savors every bite but is only eating from the vanilla strip.

The concept of an ice cream with three flavors, all distinctly their own color and flavor, placed right next to each other but never mixing, is parallel to both the geographic and racial divisions of Chicago neighborhoods.

People who enjoy neapolitan ice cream either prefer to mix the flavors or refuse to mix them, eating one flavor at a time, just as Rus would only eat the vanilla flavor. Goodness knows what would happen should he accidentally mix in some chocolate. The pure white of his creamy vanilla strip would be tarnished. In the world of the play, this was manifested in the hostility members of Clybourne Park felt towards a different "flavor" of people moving into their neighborhood.

We like to think that times have changed and that, as individuals, we would never respond to a similar situation in such a close-minded way. But how can we know for sure? In our own homogenous culture of the North Shore, how much diversity do we actually encounter on a daily basis?

How is the ice cream a metaphor for separation in our own lives?