The feeling of not belonging is uncomfortable. Velasquez-Manoff talks about the different views of races and racism in Hawaii vs the main land. Velasquez-Manoff talks about the study done by Dr. Kristin Pauker. Pauker had discovered that white upper-middle class children on the main land had developed stereotypical attitudes toward other races at young ages. When doing the same study in Hawaii, Pauker found that the children were not blind to the different races, but they didn’t identify these stereotypes that the main land children did. Velasquez-Manoff talks about the very high populations of mixed races in Hawaii. When children learn about someone’s race, it isn’t just white or black. The children will link many different cultures to one person. This article definitely relates to Nguyen article about how America ruined her name. The sense of feeling out of place and uncomfortable is one that Nguyen felt. One relation I found was when Velasquez-Manoff talks about the drop out rates, in correlation to race, in Hawaii vs the main land. Velasquez-Manoff says “Just as students of color often drop out at a higher rate than whites from universities on the mainland, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, it’s white students who drop out at higher rates.” This can show relation to Nguyen’s story and how she felt uncomfortable and wanted to change. Nguyen talked about how people loved her name but never wished for the name. It is easy to look from the outside, but until you are actually in the uncomfortable position, its not so easy. This article is just another way of showing how much we categorize people, even from a young age. The children from the study on mainland aren’t racist or evil, it is what they learn. At as young as 4 years old, they are already categorizing people depending on there race.
