On Race & Ethnicity at Towson vs. Silver Spring

One of the things I enjoy most about my decision to stay in the state of Maryland for college is that here at Towson I get to meet people from all over the state. Meeting people from my own county (Montgomery) as well as other counties such as Carroll, Allegeny, and Hartford to name a few, has opened my eyes to some of the unique racial and ethnic demographics of where I grew up. Silver Spring is located just outside the D.C. border. This means that people from literally all over the world visit and move to the area. Within a block of each other you can get authentic Itallian, Greek, Indian and Jamaican food.

In grade school I was used to a rough racial breakdown of about 35% Latino, 25% White, 25% Black and about 15% other (Asian, Indian, pacific Islander etc). With this approximate demographic being the norm for just about all of my childhood, I had come to the belief that white people were just another race and not the majority.

When I got to Towson, I was quite surprised when I realized that white students made up the bulk of the population. It felt strange not to be in one of the smaller racial categories. What was even stranger was that when I started making friends with white students from other counties I was shocked to find out that by  their standards, Towson was much more racially diverse than their town of origin.

I feel spoiled in many ways by the fact that I have been in such diverse settings my whole life. After realizing that in most of the country, whites are the overwhelming majority of the population, I just cannot see myself moving to many parts of this great Nation for fear of living in a culturally sterile environment.

Resident patterns in my own life

One concept from Cultural Anthropology that I feel relates to my life is the concept of residential patterns among family. Initially my parents broke the norm set by their parents by marrying outside of the Faith. My father is Roman Catholic and my mother is Jewish (an example of exogamy). More interesting, however is the difference in residence patterns on my respective parents side of the family. On my father's side of the family, the trend is to live partilocaly, or near the father's house. Of my Dad's four brothers and sister, none of them live outside of the state of Maryland. In fact, one of my father's brothers lives 5 houses up the street from my Grandparents.

Contrasting this is that on my mother's side of the family no one seems to live near my grandmother or at least by their own choosing. Originally raised near Philly, my Mom moved to Maryland, her brother moved to Alabama, and her sister moved to North Carolina. My Grandmother eventually moved near my Aunt's house but the general trend is completely contrary to what my father's side did.

I am not sure why there are such radical differences. My mother's brother moved to Alabama to be with his (then) wife and my mother's sister moved because her husband's job moved down to NC. I just don't understand how no one on my father's side of the family managed to find employment or opportunity outside of Maryland's borders.

As for myself, I cannot really say where I will  end up in life. Will I follow my in my Mom's footsteps and move away

Globalization, Music & Me

As a musician and music lover, globalization has deeply affected the way I discover new music and find new fans for my own projects.

Americans have always consumed music from other parts of the world. Classical music has its roots in western Europe and later eastern and northern Europe. Tchaikovsky, a romantic era composer from Russia has had much success with American audiences. Most Americans are familiar with the Nutcracker suite and many 4th of July celebrations include fireworks set to the 1812 Overture (despite the fact that the piece is about Russia's defeat of the French, not the American war of 1812). Unfortunately, it took many years for Tchaikovsky's music to reach stateside and so, he was never able to truly appreciate his overseas success.

Now however, due to social media such as myspace and Facebook, new artists and bands can reach new fans in a matter of seconds. Taking a quick glance at my ipod, I find as many bands from Europe as I do from the states. The reason for this is because I find out about a lot new music via blogs, both the heavily funded and advertised kind as well as the more underground variety. The bloggers who run these sites are not concerned with nationality, ethnicity or race; they just want to find the best possible music the world has to offer. Consecutive blog posts might cover bands from Norway, The United States, The United Kingdom, Singapore and Brazil.

For my own musical endeavors, I can see that the trend of globalization has done wonders for speading my bands' music. For one of my bands, about a quarter of the fans we have made through facebook have been from Eastern Europe. for my other band, many of our fans are from Central and South America. Neither of these projects has been signed by a proper record label, but thanks to the world wide web we don't need one to reach international fandom.