Research Findings

Questions:

What is the purpose of corporations using young teens in sweat-shop labor?

What are the effects of people working with no fair labor standards?

“Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation” by Matt Zwolinski

            Summary: This article is called Sweatshops, choice and exploitation and it talk about the different reasons that people accept these conditions to work in sweatshops. For example, they have the choice to not work in those conditions yet they take the opportunity that the people who direct the sweatshops give them because they want to be freed. They don’t work to get luxury and expensive products, they only work to survive. It also describes how the government and other third parties deprive from refraining sweatshop labors and deprive workers from accepting the jobs their.

Quotes:

 “ Sweatshop workers do not generally choose to work in order to gan some extra disposable income for luxuries, or simply  to take pleasure in the activity of working.” (Zwolinski 692)

“.. there is a strong moral reason for third parties such as  consumers and host and home country  governments to refrain from acting in ways which are likely to deprive sweatshops workers of their jobs, and that both the policies traditionally promoted by anti sweatshop activists…”( Zwolinski 690)

These two quotes helped me understand the question that I posed because it is giving me the answers of why people accept sweatshop labor. Also, it is giving me an idea of how corporations get a benefit of having them working there. It gives me the understanding that corporations and the government know that it exists and they do not do anything to stop it. maybe they are doing that because they get profit out of them.

Key concepts:

·      Policies

·      Voluntary self-regulation

·      Standards

·      Violating others rights

“A search for standards to monitor labor conditions worldwide” by S prakash sethi

Summary: This article is describing and telling the reader how the corporations actually work. It is letting us know how they think and why sweatshops happen, they happen because laws are not being enforced in those places where the companies move. Corporations, move to other countries because it is easier to exploit workers and give them harsh working conditions, yet, they will still work no matter how much they get paid or how much they have to work because they need the cents to survive.

Quotes:

“MNCs use both the fact and threat of moving their purchases and capital to another country in order to extract maximum productivity gains from cheap and abundant labor.” pG 272

            This quote is explaining why the corporations take their labor to other countries because its easier to exploit people that are in need of jobs. This can help me go further in my ideas because it is giving me the understanding that corporations are violating the laws by going somewhere else where the laws are not being enforced.

“Local corruption creates conditions for non-enforcement of even weak laws with regard to worker safely, health, wages, and working conditions.” Pg273

Key concepts:

·      Exploitation

·      Corruption

·      Laws not being enforced

Unit 1Final Essay and Reflection

            In the book Hearts and hands: Building Community in violent times by Luis Rodriguez, a former gang member, community activist, foster parent of troubled youth, wants to bring awareness and demonstrate the possibility for change when it comes to down to violence in the community. He wants to inform community leaders that have the power to provide resources to youth, academic students and politics, government that the solutions that they have today are increasing violence and that youth have the capability to change with other preventative routes. His purpose is to provide context, challenge the assumptions, to demonstrate the possibility for change when it comes to people like him. He wants to find a way of empowering those who are affected by violence. He wants to create change. There a many people who believe that youth who was troubled once will never change. They have the assumption that if they are affiliated with gangs they should be called “monsters”, and not treated like humans, they believe that they should be isolated and go to prison because those with authority and parents do not give them the opportunity for that individual to explore other ways to create change. They have the misconception that ones a gang member, always a gang member and will never change. The problem in our community is that society fails to teach youth to no be violent; they isolate them for the mistakes they do and don’t give them the opportunity to find a solution. Therefore, youth turn to gangs to find comfort and acceptance. The solution would be that youth should be encouraged to attend programs, which will help them change unlike, being isolated like the current system does it.

            Youth that is believed to be affiliated with gang’s, are now called “monsters” and they have the connotation that they do not deserve to be treated as humans. Those with authority make regulations for the troubled youth, like treating them in court as adults. They are humans themselves and deserve the same respect as any other human being in the community. In the book, Hearts and hands, Rodriguez claims, “Of course being called a “monster” now a days had the connotation of not being a human—an animal—therefore, deserving of less than human consideration” (Rodriguez 31). This makes me view that violence changes the whole perspective on people and how they view those that are involved violence. People in the community should not judge the youth, because they do not know the reason on why they join gangs and why they are violent. Youth happen to join gang’s, which leads them to violence, one factor that leads the path is the experiences they have at home. For example, Francisco, from the book hearts and hands, was physically abused by his step-father, his mother hold him down so he can beat Francisco. That experience affected him, in feeling the sense of not belonging there and not feeling loved by his mother anymore. Youth need to feel surrounded by people that receive them with hearts and hands; which is necessary for their proper growth.

            Youth need support and guidance from the community and their families, they need to be reached out from people that can help them experience proper growth and can help them succeed in life. He asserts, “Young people need a place—both at home and in the community—of unconditional acceptance, where they are honored, where their natural gifts are nurtured and they can live out purposeful lives” (Rodriguez 50). I believe youth can succeed in trying to change for good, if adults can help them feel accepted by the community and honored, the youth will feel encouraged and will try harder to become engaged in life and find their ability to reform the world with their own gifts. A good example, is Francisco, which he was involved with gang members soon after he felt unloved and misplaced by his mother and step father. An English teacher found the potential in Francisco and gave him the patience to help him study for his General Equivalency Diploma (GED). She saw a genius not a gangster, Francisco was desperately seeking to be filled. It took time, but he succeeded, he became a father and vowed to not repeat the mistakes his own family did with him.

People need to not judge others and think that they are not going to change just because they made a mistake once.  Rodriguez provides, “The group cant meet here anymore, he declared. I’ve heard you have gang members in the group. We don’t allow any gang member in our facilities” (73). It was unfair how the director of the community center where the youth would meet, told them that they could no longer meet there because he had heard that they were gang members. They were once affiliated with gangs, but they were in the community center, involved in activities because they were willing to change. I believe that the society in which youth is also part of, needs to help the youth instead of rejecting them and putting them aside. Our methods of authority towards the troubled youth, is only pushing them away by isolating those who do “bad” things. The justice system that we currently have, should have alternatives other than isolating the prisoners in jail. The alternative would be programs in which the youth can reflect on their life’s and the problems they have, rather than being isolated in prison, forgetting how your community works and putting others in danger because the prisoners do not know how to act once they are released in to the community.

Youth seek to find their place where they feel recognized and they can see their way out of violence and their involvement in gangs if any. Rodriguez created a program called Youth Struggling for Survival (YSS), this program is set to reach out and assist youth who are falling into traps of violence, drugs, and alcohol. Rodriguez describes, “ The purpose of these workshops was to take twenty to thirty young writers from various public and private schools, homeless youth shelters, and violence prevention programs and help prepare them for a writers life” (219). Having Luis take those kids to the workshops and having them find themselves with writing is a good prevention program because it helps them take their mind off of the streets and violence, and they are more likely to be involved in activities that can help them feel honored, welcomed and acknowledged for what they do.

In conclusions, this issue is important to the community because it makes the community members think about how many youth are involved in violence and the reasons are not only because of gangs. Everyone from the community should care about this problem because anyone from their family can be in the certain situation. Like I said before, if we continue to focus on the bad things youth do they will continue to ignore what you say and turn to others for comfort, support and acceptance. People need to stop categorizing youth based on what they see around them. Young kids usually sacrifice themselves and turn to drugs, violence, gangs and prison, by paying with their lives just because those in their community fail to give them the place they need in order for them to feel accepted

 

1. How do violence, pain, and loss impact our personal identities? Our communities?                I believe that violence affects our personal identities in many ways. It can impact you mentally, or physically and then you wont be the same after that .For example, in the book hearts and hands, there's two siblings and one of them is believed to be involved in gangs and he gets thrown to jail. He was very close to his brother and ever since his brother got thrown in to jail because he was believed to be affiliated with gangs he hasn't been the same. He has anger towards people and he feels lonely because the only person that he had was him. So this goes back to how violence and being involved in gangs can cause that sense of loss in you an d then at that point you just don't care. 
2. Violence impacts our community in a bad way because it can make people scared to go out and not feel that comfort of being in the community. Gangs are usually against other gangs and that's how violence is made. Also, it can affect the community in a negative way because violence is giving the youth a perspective that it is okay for them to do what they see. like vandalism and shooting others and having a rival gangs. it gives the youth to mind set of not doing anything with their lifes wither sent to jail or dead

           

Unit 1: Revision Plan

2a. Yes
b. yes
c. Yes, i need to fix my thesis based on the comments my peers gave me. my thesis is based on three different points and my peers gave me feedback on the points that i make in my body paragraph because I'm making two different points in my essay. I need to fix it because i need to focus on certain points more than others i feel like my essay is out of content.
3.a "Yes, I think Amalia will talk about her believe of why youth can succeed, then why the youth join gangs, and finally the solution she believes will help stop or fight the violence." (Jose)
b. this quote will help me because it shows on the part that i need to focus on in my essay.I was focusing on why the youth join, but in reality i need to focus on the solutions that will help stop the violence and will help youth reflect on their bad habits.
c.·  "In paragraph 2, you provide a quote support but it does not support your point because you are trying to emphasis that authority pushes young people into gangs, but your readers would not know what you meant by using Rodriguez’s quote." (daisy)
d. This comment will help me because i now know that i need to put an explanation at the end of the paragraph 2, i just put a quote and i did not put an explanation and why it relates to the theme of my essay.
4. Yes i think that i have to revise my body paragraphs because my essay os all over the place. I need to find one concept that i need to focus on and expand and develop more on it.

Thesis:Even though many people think that troubled youth wont succeed or change after they join gangs, I believe they can change. Youth joing gangs for many reasons, authority pushes those youth to gangs, they turn to gangs to find comfort and acceptance, the solution would be that youth should be encouraged to attend programs which will help them change unlike, being isolated like the current system does it.

Youth that is believed to be affiliated with gangs, are now called “monsters” and they have the connotation that they do not deserve to be treated as humans. Those with authority make regulations for the troubled youth, like treating them in court as adults. They are humans themselves and deserve the same respect as any other human being in the community. In the book, Hears and hands, Rodriguez claims, “Of course being called a “monster” now a days had the connotation of not being a human—an animal—therefore, deserving of less than human consideration” (Rodriguez 31). This quote makes me view that violence changes the whole perspective on people and how they view those that are involved. People in the community should not judge them because they do not know the reason on why they joined the gang and violence is not always the main reason.

         

Tentative Thesis Unit 1

Even though many people think that troubled youth won't succeed or change after they join gangs, I believe that youth join gangs for many different reasons, our methods of authority push those youth to gangs, they turn to gangs to find comfort and acceptance and they are able to change by being involved in programs not isolated like the system does it.

Looping In-Class Freewrite

            After reading the book hearts and hands, I changed my whole view on gangs and violence. Violence just doesn’t happen because people want to harm others. It happens because youth see their way out of struggling and they see their way out of their problems by turning to gangs. I agree with Luis Rodriguez on his solutions on how the system is set up to corrupt the prisoners. And it shouldn’t be like that. The youth are kids and they make mistakes they just need someone to be there for them and straighten them, to give them support and acceptance. Because if the youth do not find acceptance in their families and in their community, then they turn to gangs because the gangsters the “bosses” the ones that demand them to do things give them acceptance and the youth feel comfortable with them. I think that the youth find comfort and acceptace in violence because that’s the only other option they have if no one else thinks what they do ids good. Also going back to the system and how it is created, it gets families angry. I believe it was in chaper 4 or 6 im not sure where they took a kids sibling in to prison and his brother was really close to him and he got really mad that he was taken away from him so he turned to violence and gangs.

I agree with Luis Rodriguez on his solutions on how the system is set up to corrupt the prisoners.

            I agree that the prisons corrupt the prisoners by taking them away from society. I think a better option would be to make programs where they can still be in the society and contribute but also, they can reflect on the mistake they did. For example, if authority figures take those who do crimes they are only isolating them from the society and they will not be able to function the same when they are out in the community. When they are released, they are just getting the community and the people in danger. Also I believe that creating rehabilitation programs instead of prisons can get the prisoners to reflect on what they did and maybe they can change. According to the book there is a few example of former gang members that went on to the YSS program and they are now straightened up witht heir lifes and that was with the help of the the YSS program and because of luis rodriguez which is helping them reflect and showing them that they can succeed, but they need support from their community and families. (youth need hearts and hands.)

and because of luis rodriguez which is helping them reflect and showing them that they can succeed, but they need support from their community and families. (youth need hearts and hands).

            Youth need hearts and hands from their families, referring to the families accepting and honoring them and giving them love. For example, a young child that is being acknowledged on both the good things and bad things he does, he will feel good about himself because he is getting attention from his loved ones and he doesn’t have to turn anywhere else for that support. Unlike a young boy whom his parents are only focusing on the bad things he is doing, he isn’t finding comfort in his family and he needs support and attention from others. So he turns to gangs or violence where there  is other people like him which have turned for that reason or another reason.