Family Tree

I did my Family Tree assignment on my dad's mother's side, Charlene (Mueller) Weismann .  I interviewed her on her family from her parent's to some of their parents.
My grandma's parent's on her father's side were both from Hungary. Their names were Franz Mueller and Threasa Mosung. They came to the United States because they were promised a quarter of land. The loophole was though they had to farm the land for three years before it was considered theirs. If the wife wanted her own land she would have to build a house on her land and live in her own house while her husband lives in the house on his land.

My grandma's father was 13 years old when he moved here with his parents. He only got to go ot school until the 3rd grade. Most kids quit school after the 3rd grade to go to work. They came over on the S.S. Willehad, 1894 North German Lloyd on May 20, 1897. They settled on a farm North of Glen Ulin, North Dakota.

My grandma's mother's side were both from Speier, Russia. They came to the U.S. for the same reason. Their names were Nik Kuhn and Anna Hoerner. For some odd reason I do not know if it is true but they were on the same boat as the Muellers.

My grandma didn't know too much about her grandparents except for Nik's parents. Nik's father died in Russia and his mother was getting older so she just stayed. Nik went over there three times to visit his mother. They wrote each other a lot. Nik sent money with his letters, but his mother never got any of the money. The Russian embassy went through the letters and took the money and only gave Nik's mom the letters. Nik's mother died of starvation.

To become a citizen they had to sign a lot of papers. They had to sign a declaration of the intentions to become a citizen. Had to sign a Homestead Application to apply for their land. Homestead proof where they had witnesses that witnessed the signing of the contracts. Their applications had to be signed by the President of the United States. All of their Applications were signed by Theodore Roosevelt.

They all lived in a village, but in the morning went out to the farms.

This was my interview with my grandmother. Not a lot of information but I thought it was interesting learning about her parents' origin. They all spoke German and had to learn how to speak English. Something that isn't seen as much today. That is all my grandmother told me.

Week 3

This week in class I gave my values presentation. Well I gave some of my presentation but I cutted out during my presentation, so Tony finished my presentation for me. Thank you Tony for doing so.

Now this week in class we had that one lady from Ole Miss talk to us about the Muslim Culture. I actually learned quite a bit from this lady. The Muslim isn't totally different than our culture today. They have some rules and holidays we do not celebrate. They have Ramadan which I sort of knew about but I didn't know that if you were pregnant or taking care of a infant you can eat and take in liquids. I had a history class last semester we learned about the Vietnam War. We learned that the famous Muslim boxer Muhammad Ali was actually drafted into the war but refused because war was against his religion. I thought the lady from Ole Miss was very interesting and I leanred a lot Tuesday from her.

When we talked about the Religion Readings I found out polygamy isn't practiced by the Mormons. This surprises me because out of any culture I would expect it from the Mormons especially. I didn't really understand the Freemasons as much.

The World's Culture

Everyone in the world is different. You will not meet one person who is alike in any kind of way. Everyone has a different culture and different beliefs. There is a lot of discrimination and hate in our world. Why is this? What makes our culture so much better than someone else's culture?

We watched the video in class that was about other people's cultures and it asked what they wanted to be called. To be honest with you this video didn't make any sense to me. The people in the video went around and asked different people of different race what they wanted to be called. I don't see what this video was suppose to teach. I can see how they ask because they are called a lot of different names or racist names.

Our class discussion hit me in the head pretty hard. I knew there were a lot of cultures in our world. I didn't know that people had cultures based on what they do, example: video gamer. I figured a culture was just where you were from or what you believed in, but its not all based on that.

I thought the speaker was a very nice lady to come in and tell us about her country and culture. I learned a lot from her. I learned that Ukraine is quite a bit different than the U.S. In their schools they do not get to pick their classes the school board issues them their classes.Their holidays aren't that much different, their dates are just different.They are very different when it comes to food. They don not have a bunch of fast food like the United States does. I was puzzled by the religion. I thought the Ukraine would have a lot of the same religions, but they practice a lot of Orthodox.

 Our culture differs a lot from other cultures.

Killings is Egypt

Could you ever kill someone because they do not have the same religion as you? Not to long ago there was a shooting in Egypt because of this conflict. to be more specific it was a drive-by shooting outside of a Christian church. None of the newspaper articles or associate press had a valid date of the killing. Mohammed Ahmed Hassanein, also known as Hammam al-Kamouni to his friends. was the killer. Six Christians were killed and a Muslim guard was also shot.

At a different church on New Year's Day a Muslim suicide bomber entered a different Christian church and set off his explosives. This explosion killed 21 Christian followers.

The Christian community in Egypt is out number by the Muslim religion. Christianity is only about 10 percent of the whole population. So, what is being said is the Christianity religion is the minority of Egypt.  An Associated Press article on January 16th of this year said that the Egyptian government convicted the man who is Muslim.  A mention was made of a rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man.  What the two had to do with each other other is not explained.  I think it was because they were both based on the two religions and that they do not get along.

Mohammed quotes "I am a victim, I did not do it."  I think he did it.  It reminds me of the Jewish people in Germany when Hitler was in charge.  The killings remind me of the gang shootings that happen.

What do you think?

The article, 'Egypt church shooting attacker gets death sentence' can be found at: http://nytimes.com/2011/01/17/world/middleeast/17egypt.html?ref=egypt

Title

My main goals for this class is to learn about different cultures and to also understand my culture a little more and compare it to other cultures. I would love to leave this class knowing a lot more about other cultures in the world and how they compare to the culture I see daily.

I would have to say my expectation for this class would have to be to learn something about the world. I am in high school we do not learn about cultures, we just learn about post wars and a country's government. I would love to get something from this class so when I am off to college I know a little more about other cultures and how I can relate and understand people from other areas of the US and the world.

I thought the video was a very good at showing how people discriminate other people before they really meet them. It showed how confusing it is when two people of very different cultures meet and don't have any idea about the other one and they miscommunicate. I think the video probably could have showed a little more about the discrimination that happens in our country and how its wrong to judge other people before knowing anything about them.  This video got me thinking about discrimination and cultural differences.