April 29th

Today's class started off with Rab's feedback on our blogs. He mentioned how biases are not necessarily bad all the time. What we actually have to do is to identify whether that bias is acceptable or not. After knowing this fact, I came to understand how Loewen's biased view on racial minorities was acceptable. Although it may be true how slavery was quite common back then, Columbus' brutal domination over slaves and people from other racial minorities still cannot be justified because ideas that were against slavery also existed at the same time. For example, Las Casas opposed slavery and claimed the unfairness that slaves were undergoing. Therefore, this shows the acceptability of Loewen's suggestion of Columbus' brutality, which makes his biased view on racial minorities agreeable. 

Then we moved on to a discussion on the second chapter of the book. The first question was why do textbooks include the flat earth theory when it is so obvious that it is false? Our group's answer was to make Columbus more heroific and to give a better image of him as an explorer. The drawing that Rab drew on the white board about the theory was really helpful, and at the same time I was surprised of the simplicity and fragility of the theory. Next, the role of Catholic churches was put into discussion. In my interpretation, the catholic authority was used as means to justify domination over the Americas. In other words, conquest was taking place in the name of missionary work. 

Then came the most interesting topic of the day which was about culture. This topic was a familiar one since we all were able to relate to ourselves. For me, I feel that I am strongly influenced by three different cultures, which are American, Spanish, and Japanese. Since I spent my early childhood in the US, my way of talking and acting derives from the American side. Coming back to Japan at the middle of 1st grade, I struggled for a while to figure how the Japanese culture worked out. For example, to clean the classrooms by ourselves bothered me so much. I would always think "why do we need to clean when the school already hires a cleaning lady?!". This weird custom still remains as a mystery for me. However, concerning my family's background, it is inevitable for me to get influenced by this culture. As for my personality, Spain dominates a huge part of it. For instance, Spanish people are mostly loose in time and so am I. Overall, the conclusion is that I don't belong to any particular culture. And all the other members of the group also agreed. Instead, we should have a culture for the people like us so called the "returnee culture". I'm sure that the other returnees will also fit in to this one:)