Sociological imagination stems from the awareness of there being a relationship between the individual and the social forces that are present in everyone’s lives. Being a Mexican-American Latina, I was raised in a society here in the United States that taught me the importance of striving for greatness and also in a society in Mexico that ingrained in me the power of getting through hardships with family. Both of these social atmospheres are linked to who I am as an individual, and it is seen in the way in which I have accomplished to build a life, not only myself, but for my family as well.
Change is an aspect in life that comes and goes on a regular basis. Being raised in a home with parents who were constantly toxic to one another, I believe my siblings and I were experiencing a public issue. Even though it was kept behind a closed door and not a lot of people knew what was going on, my siblings and I created a bond and were able to relate to each other. Soon we realized that some of our close cousins also experienced their parents being abusive to one another, and it created an altercation in our family social structure.
Max Weber believes that social status determines who has power, in this case the boys in my family. The girl’s willingness to obey the authority of my cousins placed the boys at a higher social status that us, girls. My young boy cousins learned to be hard on one another and began to believe that they held a sense of responsibility and power over girls. Girls obeying the boys in my family quickly became into deviance. Us, girls, were protected and even though we were at a young age, the boys in my family learned that they were to take care of us. The violence that was taking place in the homes of my cousins, and even mine, was a sense of parents trying to have social control over one
Anna Valles Aguilera Sociology Dr. Moolenaar
another. Deciding how they want each other to act, caused my cousins and I to develop a culture of deviance.
John Witt in his textbook, uses Erving Goffman’s definition of deviance as a stigma that labels individuals of a group as less than whole persons due to some attribute that marks them as different in the eyes of others. In this case, us girls were seen as being unable to take care and protect ourselves, so in the eyes of our parents, we were seen as different, and boys were seen as the protectors.
This sense of power that the males in my family had, cause huge differences in the way in which me and my cousins were raised. I am a Mexican-American Latina, and so is my family, and, sadly, there are some truths to the association to crime within my family. Growing up, I had several private troubles. My mom and I had several personal hardships at one point in time. We were both working two jobs in order to be able to make ends meet. Being raised deviant, I was prone to also being understanding and not making compulsive decisions. Deciding to help my mom with economic stuff quickly allowed me to understand the challenges that others go through. It’s not easy trying to get through life being born in a social class that isn’t as fortunate as others, yet I am still grateful for everything that I have.
On the other hand, my male cousins have grown up to the belief that they have a power over a majority of people. This created a huge amount of conflict in my family and in my community. On the north side of Denver, there is a huge amount of gang activity and a tendency of experiencing loss a lot more than others, and my cousins involved themselves in a lot of that atmosphere. Karl Marx’s conflict theory interprets society as a struggle for power between groups engaging in conflict. I never understood why my cousins were to be attracted to gangs and violence; however, looking into the history of Hip-Hop in one of my classes, and the relationship it has with low income communities, people who wish to succeed believe they only have one way out of poverty, and that is with the involvement in crimes.
Witnessing the conflict theory, first hand, I realized that the dominant ideas of getting out of poverty maintained a high interest in the working class. When my mom and I, were experiencing private troubles, we wished to get out of the situation that we were in. We went to the extreme and each got extra jobs in order to be able to surpass the dominant idea of poverty. Along with Karl Marx’s theory, our capitalized country cares more about maximizing profit and that has now been imbedded in a lot of people’s mindsets. This private issue that I, and many of my family members, have experienced has become a public issue that a lot of people struggle with.
In my life, I never thought I would have to be working two jobs in order to keep a roof over my head, and that is the situation with a lot more people than just me. The only real concern is to increase the amount of money that one has in order to succeed. Success is not only nice or fancy objects, now I understand that it is a calm lifestyle. When some people do think of success, it also tends to be how others become deviant to one who is seen as being higher up in the social class.
The way in which we see ourselves is much more important as to how others see us, yet weirdly we are who we are by the way in which we believe that others expect us to be. John Witt mentioned in his textbook the “Looking-Glass-Self”, a theory that was brought about by Charles Cooley; in addition, Cooley made this theory in order to learn who we are as individuals by interacting with others in three phases.
The first phase: imagine how others see us. In working communities, people tend to work harder in order to have a bit more than what they usually can have in order to seem like they are not part of the working class. This was the case with my mom and I, we worked hard in order for us to have what we need, and so others would not see down on us and think of us as helpless. By this we know that we are determined to get what we need, so others would not need to help us.
The second phase: how others evaluate what we think they see. My cousins did not want to be seen as part of the working class. I know that they knew that others would see them and automatically think “gang members”. There were numerous
occasions where others would give them a look of being looked down on, and this resulted in a lot of problems and conflicts between my cousins and the other people. Understanding who you are and how people see you is that will drive those to succeed. There is not a lot of people who use to associate with gang members and are now higher in the social class (excluding narcs), but my cousins knew how they were being looked as, and they took it into their advantage and started to use it as a way to build up in their life’s.
The third phase: We define ourselves as a result from these impressions. Going through hard times with my mother and being proud to say that we are now in a better economical place, I can define ourselves as hardworking and we persevered and got through it. On the other hand, my cousins cannot be defined as more than what they are already seen: criminals, gang members, violators, etc.
I am a Mexican-American Latina who has taken obstacles and applied them into my real life to find out who I really am. Change will cause a difference in who one is: one moment you can be someone, and the next day life changes and it takes you with it. Using sociology to understand who I am and why I am the person I have become has opened up my mind. Conflict in everyone’s life as a blessing in disguise because it will lead to having to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself who you are, and who you will become.