I’m a complicated individual, there’s not that much to me emotionally or anything I attach my self to that matter. For me to be emotionally attached to an object is beyond even my understanding, I don’t know how it happened but it happened, when a object is attached to you emotionally its called a personal artifact and that object is my salutatorian award. When someone looks at my artifact they will just think of it as a award, sometimes I even look at it just as an award, but I don’t as well if that makes sense. Sometimes I’m an outsider to my own feelings as if they have no attachment to me but they do, lets start from the beginning so you can try to understand what I’m trying to portray.

Off the get go I was faced with a challenge of not being raised by my own mother but by my aunt and uncle; I felt torn between the fact I don’t see my mother as my real mother but as a person I’m related to by blood that’s all. I partly think that is one of my main reasons of feeling cold hearted toward people but that’s a different story, so as life goes on I’m trying to chase a dream that seems impossible from the family I come from. No one in my family even passed middle school, so if I achieved even half of my journey ill be in uncharted territory. Middle school was light work in my opinion but its where I built my character being the “Smart” guy in the family, and once a label is attached to you it makes a difference in how you act so you won’t disappoint the ones who care about you.

During my middle school phase it wasn’t fun like most people, I faced hardships like having to choose who you want to live with. Spoiler alert, I didn’t choose my mom so how you think I felt when I told my own mom I don’t want to be with you as a 13 year old. Not to mention also seeing your dad for the first time in your life at the age of 12 than he leaves again after saying he will come tomorrow to pick me up. I put my trust in my own blood related parents and they don’t own up to their own promises which ends up strengthening my character, as they say “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.There’s only one person I can actually say helped me with my journey and its my grandma; giving me the intellectual talks about where I come from and how being a minority is a gift from god and to keep trying no matter how high the hurdle.

I carried my grandmas wisdom all throughout high school not competing with other people but with myself because trying to out-due yourself everyday is the hardest challenge. Junior year is when I put my mind to the real test studying for the SAT’s and doing college now at Lehman while maintaining a 90 gpa in school. The principal was astounded because I wasn’t like all the book smart kids, I was the kid that skipped class to go to the gym but I do all my work on the right time and it meant I was a outlier in the group. When the SAT grades came back I had the 3rd best score in my school with a 1110, in my mind I was confused because in my family you either end up in the streets or just behind bars, so hearing all these good grades my adoptive parents were happy with the future I was creating for myself.

Throughout senior year I got hit with Senioritis like a truck, not going to school early or sometimes not at all. I only went for tests and attendance which the teachers got mad because I lost all my motivation when I was so close to the finish line. When my science teacher Mr.Kim sat down and gave me a real man to man talk about how to leave my delinquency behind and to start taking up responsibility, it made me buckle up for the remaining 5 months and I was back on my grind. My journey of getting my diploma was almost done but I didn’t think I would achieve this dream with high expectations. But my abilities proved me wrong and when I stood on the graduation stage at Monroe giving my speech seeing my family cry from happiness, that someone is finally breaking the chain and moving on to better things was the best feeling in my life, that I’m more than just a regular person on the block but rather someone who won’t let the past determine where he is going to end up.

Having the weight of your whole family on your shoulders may feel like too much at first, but when you finally show them what seemed just as a dream become reality, it’s a good feeling. With what I went through my whole life to finally graduate not just by the minimum but 2nd in my graduation class, all that emotion is In bodied in the award I have. The object which I hold close to my heart is about 6 ½ inches in height, 1-2 lbs, bronze, had a engraving of a cap, book, diploma followed by a quil writing “George Rodriguez BAHS Salutatorian”. I won’t call my self a scholar because I’m not I don’t see myself part of that culture.

The culture I see myself part of is people who want to be the best person they can be; and if having good grades is a cause of it well I wont complain. I’m a outsider to the scholar sub culture this award is meant for, but I’m a insider for the people who just want to chase their dreams. When we say were going to do our best we mean it to our hearts content. Our ritual is keep on trying till we have our dream in our grasp, if we fall we get right back up and retry twice as harder.

The people in my culture is the successful people that doesn’t say no to a challenge but faces it head on. It could be your friend, some stranger, or even you if you keep on with only positivity guiding you to your fullest potential. Awards in general have been as a tribute to great achievement in human history, and in this occasion its my achievement in trying my hardest.

The way I use my artifact is if I’m doing homework or if I’m just feeling like I cant do it anymore I take my award and just look at it, and it brings up memories of me hustling to my goal and reminds me of the type of guy that can overcome his challenges. My object as I said has no cultural background, or tradition connected to it; but I do see it as a family award where as my adoptive parents can also see it as they did a good job raising me to be a man one day that can do anything I put my mind to.

A personal artifact doesn’t mean just a necklace with a cross on it, something from your great grandma passed down, but something that has deep sentimental value to you. If you feel as if an object makes you feel a certain way when you hold it or look at it, it might be a personal artifact. What culture you think your personal artifact makes you part of? Now are you an insider or outsider to that very culture?

The day was like any other, I woke up got ready for work with so much things to do in my mind. I was stressing a lot because in my mind I don’t see how serious the corona virus is. It’s basically just a cold on steroids. But let’s leave the jokes alone for now, thank god I had a morning shift and the customers were somewhat tolerable that day. But first thing on my list was the partner interview and after I could finally relax so as soon as I got the chance, I made a video call with sherzod to get things rollin.

When the video chat was on, I was tired so I answered the questions as good as I can but I had to interview him as well so I asked. “I know even though we go to the same college we grew up in different areas so where are you from?” He than answered “I was born in the city Samarkand, Uzbekistan. My city has a rich history thanks to Tamerlane, who was a famous conqueror and founder of Timurid empire.” I’m going to be honest I did not know who Tamerlane was but when he said he was a famous conqueror and founder all I knew was Tamerlane was a very important person to Sherzods area so I respected it. So, then it intrigued me he knew a lot about where he came from so than I asked “what do you do on your off time? Do you like to study?” He than replied “I like to self study a lot. I learned how to create websites on my own. I am currently learning to use ProTools, which is a professional software for editing and creating music.”

Now I thought to my self (maybe he wants to have a career in computers and be a producer). So, then I asked him “So do you want to be a producer? Or just make programs with computers?” He responded “My goal for life is to become a diplomat and work for United Nations. I want to arrange diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and the United States” I than responded “such a different career instead of computers, so why the interest in government?” Sherzod than said “During my childhood, I used to watch news a lot. At the age of 10, I already knew about Cold War between Russian and U.S. but why be such aggressive? I understand that they have conflicting interests but also, they do have similar interests. I want to fix the world on the international level.” After hearing his explanation, I asked a follow up question “why you think you can make a change in the situation between Soviet Union and America?” His response is as follows “Because I was born in the former Soviet country. I went to Russian school for 7 years. So, I understand their mentality and logic. Also, I finished high school and I am currently in college in the U.S. So, I know American mentality.” Then I took an understanding into what he was saying. It’s the same way how I feel about being a cop. Why have a person who is not from the ghetto try to “Protect” me without knowing where I come from. I would rather have cops that grew up in the area facing the same problems I am to understand even if I need protecting.

I had to change direction of the conversation so I thank asked “So while I know your career you might not have a sub-culture related to what you want to do, so I wonder what sub-culture you associate with?” Sherzod replied happily “I belong to anime subculture since people who watch anime truly value the life because they see how characters in anime suffer, how they keep going, how they fight for what they deserve, how they turn their dreams into reality. As a viewer, I totally feel all the emotions that anime characters felt. In this subculture you value human emotions, life and friendship. I think even if I meet a stranger and if he watches anime, we will quickly become friends because we don’t just have a common interest, we have common emotions, feelings from anime. I believe that anime subculture connects people of all ethnicities.” Once I heard he likes anime I soon understood what feelings he was portraying because I could relate. I love anime like death note, my hero, Black clover, I could go on but if someone says they also watch anime I could just go into discussion but I had to keep on with the project.

So, I thought about his sub-culture and from hearing it I could pretty sum up what his personal artifact was but I can’t just guess it so I obviously asked him. “Obviously you like anime so what is your personal artifact and I probably know what it is” and we both laughed and he responded “My personal artifact is Japanese anime because it motivated to move forward. The characters from anime live in my heart. I truly believe that without anime, I would not succeeded because it was really hard for me to get good grades in college, and English isn’t my first language.” I’m going to be completely honest when I say when I was growing up in middle school, I loved watching Naruto because he was an outcast that kept on thriving for his goal. And I loved watching it because it made me feel like I can complete my goal, now I know I wasn’t the only person who related to this thought.

It was pretty late and I got all my questions in and I told Sherzod “thanks for complying with me and answering questions. It really helped me understand you and I hope we can talk bout anime sometime for fun.” He than said “anytime get rest I know you work hard juggling school and work.” He than hanged up and I gathered all my information and tried my best to incorporate it into this essay. After the video call I can picture myself in his subculture of anime because I also take a liking into that types of artwork, not as dedicated as Sherzod but I do know some Information on the culture. Not to mention its hard having a language barrier and still trying your hardest to achieve your goal, I give Sherzod a lot of props for doing what he has to do. If I had to close this essay, I would use a quote from Naruto me and Sherzod can agree with as Naruto says “I work hard and I never give up! That is my gift; that is my ninja way!”

In today’s world the human population keeps rising so obviously since there is more people, we need more food and that can result in treating animals carelessly. Humans are omnivores so we could eat plants and animals so why do most of us head towards the massacre of animals just to feed the population? Were on top of the food chain so who cares about the animals we eat anyway. There are people that believe animals also have feelings so they build a moral or way of living by being vegetarian which means they will only eat the food they need from plants. There are multiple ways of turning vegetarian you could either not want to eat animals that has been killed without the right treatment or just dislike meat all entirely. I am here to find out what is the main factor in creating vegans is it the cruelty of animals or is it just something entirely different? It could even be a mix who knows but that is what were about to find out.

I am the type of person that does not mind what I eat, I could eat vegetables for an entire day or I could eat meat or I could mix the two I really do not care they both taste good. But vegetarians come in an all different variety, some only eat eggs, fish or just do not eat anything from animals. But what really makes a vegan a vegan? Do they just like vegetables better or is just disgusted by meat? Most of the time I ask a person why their vegan they mostly always give me the same answer. “The way they treat animals is wrong, they live in inhuman conditions. They are forced to breed, make milk and people put chemicals in them so they can produce ore meat and to me it’s disgusting if I’m going to eat anything that lives in that type of environment.” My cousin’s girlfriend told me this and yes it intrigued me because even though I know all this information I am not going to stop eating meat but that is just me. She is not the only person that feels this type of way about animals because almost any vegan feels the same way. If it’s not that than it is mostly because they want to lose weight or something of that nature.

A lot of experiences could make a vegan but the most common one is the one you most probably expect which is the exploitation of animals. It is mostly always that as described in the article “Why go vegan?” They explain it’s not always the reason, but it is mostly the reason by any way you look at it. “Preventing the exploitation of animals is not the only reason for becoming vegan, but for many it remains the key factor in their decision to go vegan and stay vegan. Having emotional attachments with animals may form part of that reason, while many believe that all sentient creatures have a right to life and freedom.” Even though we are the top of their food chain doesn’t mean we should just treat animals in an inhuman way, they still have thoughts and feelings just as we do, we should have animals in a more friendly environment before we kill them of is what vegans are trying to portray because we do have animals locked up for their whole life than just kill them without remorse.

People believe if they go vegan it will help the animals in danger and in conclusion help the cause. But does it help the cause? It could just be a wild guess and looking towards the positive side of all things. On the website npr.org it states being vegan actually does help the animals in our society “It suggests that 95 “is the average number of animals spared each year by one person’s vegan diet.” There are a variety of sources estimating average individual intakes of meat. A story in USA Today Wednesday reported that each meat-eating individual eats 7,000 animals (including fish) over their lifetimes. This number is based on the Vegetarian Calculator.” This quote is trying to say for each person living a vegan lifestyle it spares an average of 95 animals per year, so that number piles up for every vegan and next thing you know over thousands of animals are saved.

The way the animals are treated in some farms is really frightening if you investigate it. It is a slaughterhouse for any animal who does not supply what is needed to sell, the chickens, cows, pigs, and any animal that is needed to produce food is killed off once their productivity drops. In the article “recipes.howstuffworks.com” they basically say how animals’ lives are affected. “Like chickens, dairy cows are killed when their productivity rates drop. Cows can live up to 25 years, but most dairy cows die after five. Male calves, which have no value to dairy farms, are quickly sold and slaughtered in veal farms.” These animals have feelings to just like us, how would it be if we were treated just as those animals? It will be heart breaking to even be in this type of situation so ofc I under why some people in urban cities choose to change their diet.

With the many food varieties in the urban cities we can choose what we eat and when we eat. With all the resources at our disposal we can easily change our diet whenever we want to rather than the people in places that are not as adapted as us. For instance, there are tribes that are disconnected with society and they are forced to have a certain diet for survival. They eat meat from the local animals and practice in agriculture so they can plant certain vegetables or fruits. What if vegetarians are also turned with the fact of being comfortable with changing their diet? If they have no choice to only eat meat, I am sure they will eat anything to survive.

Take personal experience for example, in our community you’re hungry and you have a choice either a cheeseburger combo for 5 dollars or a salad which is like 8 dollars and that is just the salad. You are hungry and not having that much money you’re going to choose the burger because it fills you up more rather than the salad which won’t even hold you off for more than 30 min. Looking back at it yes animal cruelty may be the driving factor the making vegans but I also believe it’s a combination of morality and economic stability of even being able to switch your diet. In my community there is such of variety of fast food that is ridiculous, there is 4 establishments in a 1 block radius and not one sells a salad. So, society also adds in a factor of a person’s diet over their life in my low-income community there is rarely eating healthy eating available while in the higher income areas its more accessible.

This is more of a problem with low income families who really cannot afford healthy eating, so they choose the food which is more accessible and end up eating fast food which has the animals which vegetarians are trying to protect. If it was the other way around best believe there might be more vegetarians because of how costly fast food will be compared to healthy eating. From what I have been looking at vegetarians will mostly be a group of financially stable people who can switch diets with no worry of their income. Not saying people in low income families cannot be vegetarians but it is more of what the group will consist of. The article “Nutrition quality of food purchases varies by household income: the Shopper study” states this exact idea I have come across but they studied the experiment of the correlation with economic stability and food choices “Lower income households purchase less healthful foods compared with higher income households. Food purchasing patterns may mediate income differences in dietary intake quality. It is saying what I said that lower income households eat less healthier foods while higher income households eat healthier foods, and this could relate with certain people being vegan.

Being vegan does not just deal with choosing to be vegan and that it. There multiple factors, the first is not feeling right with eating meat at all you would want to stop wanting to eat meat entirely. A crucial factor of being vegan is the first reason as said in the article “14 Reasons Why You Should Go Vegan in 2020” it says one of the main reasons of being vegan and you really can’t deny it. “Even though for some people, the ethical argument for veganism isn’t as strong – it can never hurt to be kind. Sparing someone’s life is always the right thing to do, especially if that someone is completely innocent. Unfortunately, there has been a huge greenwashing campaign going on, started by the meat and dairy industry, to play with our conscience. Happy animals are shown on cartons and packages while the reality is a lot more sinister. There’s really nothing humane about animal farming or taking someone else’s life.” Its stating that animal cruelty is bad so we should be vegan because innocent deaths should be stopped. Going back to my research question which was what makes a vegan a vegan and yes animal cruelty is the driving factor of creating vegans but to become vegan your economic stability is a big part of it to. To make this diet change you need to afford it because eating healthy is more expansive than eating meat. Therefore, that is the reason behind become vegan.

                                                                                                            George Rodriguez 
                            Works cited

Alena, et al. “14 Reasons Why You Should Go Vegan in 2020.” Nutriciously, 27 Feb. 2020, nutriciously.com/why-go-vegan/.
Dowdey, Sarah. “What Is Vegan Diet?” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 29 Aug. 2007, recipes.howstuffworks.com/vegan.htm.
King, Barbara J. “Does Being Vegan Really Help Animals?” NPR, NPR, 12 Mar. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/03/12/392479865/does-being-vegan-really-help-animals.
Turrell, G., et al. “Nutrition Quality of Food Purchases Varies by Household Income: the SHoPPER Study.” BMC Public Health, BioMed Central, 1 Jan. 1970, bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-6546-2.
“Why Go Vegan?” The Vegan Society, www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan.

When I first applied for this class, I thought it was just going to be a class where you just write about boring articles and gain nothing out of it. But boy I was wrong the teacher was very social and you could tell by the jokes now and than trying to break the ice with us first year college students. I’m a good writer but I could always learn more on how to write and to bring my thoughts together. With the writing exercise he does everyday it actually helped me with my few problems on thinking of what to write about. Over time in this class my thoughts got better because of the ten-minute exercises he makes us do everyday and this exercise also helps with my shyness now I could talk in class without too much thought of it.

Because of this class I also made friends that I could actually count on to help me through the college years. Without my friends I’m pretty sure I would be struggling throughout this year and I owe it to this class because about 80% of my social circle is from this class. But for the assignments that the professor gave it made me look into myself seeing what made me be me. For instance, the first major essay which was I believe about the personal artifact made me go into deep thought. After high school I lost my passion for doing my work because I didn’t know what goal I was striving for, yeah, I was trying to go for my degree but what’s a degree without a path? I was in my room looking around just trying to see what was important to me and that’s when I saw the award I received when I graduated high school.

The thought process was filling me with memories from my past and how much that award or artifact meant to me, and with this information I wrote the essay but when I was going to revise it it showed how much I lacked grammar and punctuation and till this day I still have problems with those same credentials. Not to mention before this class my last English class was about 6 months prior to this class so my writing knowledge wasn’t in its prime. I had to remember the writing elements over again but it came back quicker than I thought. Because of this essay it helped me do better progressively in my other classes my thought process got way better. This class helped break the ice in my laziness and helped me get into the flow and I was back on my grind because of it.

The next essay was about interviewing your peer about their subculture and when I heard this, I wasn’t happy about it. Yeah, I’m a social person but at the same time in not if that makes sense. I rather do work where I could depend on my self and not someone else you know I’m still like this actually. I don’t like group work because when I was growing up, I was the one to always do all the work but that’s another story point blank I had to do what I had to do to secure the grade. So, my partner was Sherzod and we was on video call asking questions for our papers and it made me realize its not just my journey in life but everyone has their own journey they go on. Every single person has a story to tell because everyone has obstacles to overcome and sometimes you might have similarities with people you think are the totally opposite. This paper personally showed me its not just me in this world and to also be more open to people because you never know who you relate to in the room and you might need each other help someday. So, with him I had to listen to his words and ideas and he had to listen to mine.

With all the knowledge I gained in this class finally the final assignment came to test my experience in writing and let me tell you it was a rollercoaster. First, I was confused on what I was even writing about and when I found it it was just an informative essay it still was hard to put my ideas on the paper. I’m the type of person that writes a lot of argumentative essay and I argue myself a lot, so when I was writing the essay, I accidentally kept on arguing and I had to redo some paragraphs. When I had to think of the topic for my paper, I was thinking about the most current ideal I dealt with and the ideal of vegetarians came to my mind. And personally, I was curious of the conversion to being vegetarian.

In the essay the main question I was trying to answer was is the main factor of turning vegetarian animal cruelty? And from my findings it basically was because of how people felt animals were being treated they converted to being vegetarian. But founding information was a little difficult because it had to have 2 different types of information. Popular media which is information for the general public so everyone can understand and peer advised which consist of more crucial information which only certain groups can easily understand the information. Gathering the ides was the easy part but the putting on paper and making 6 pages out of it was the hard part but with the determination of finishing my final paper and long nights I finally completed it.

I believe after the paper was done I could have done better, don’t get me wrong I tried my best on the paper but because of the situation of 10 hours everyday of work because I’m an essential worker and mostly everyone else called out I was tired from the day. But I still went and did my best on the paper it was hard to get revised because over the internet its actually hard I’m a hand on person on learning. I probably believe my downfall on the paper is mostly punctuation and grammar as usual.

This class is what actually helped me do better in the whole semester without this class I probably wouldn’t have done as good in my other classes. This class helped me be more social and gather my thoughts better even if the essays got in the way of my other work. Everyone has that one class that helps them build as a person and this class was my class. I actually looked forward to this class during the week the welcoming atmosphere and calming attitude everyone gave off helped me as a person. This class is amazing and I would recommend it to everyone to take it even if it’s a required class and eventually everyone would take it.