Chapters 1+2

I can not begin to explain how interesting I find this book! I believe that the first chapter really tries to capture how great the school really is with all of the diversity of the students, making it seem like an extremely great school. On the other hand the second chapter really captures what the school is really like and the issues that there are due to the extreme level of diversity..

One thing that I found extremely interesting is that the word "identity" was not used until page 52. And then after it was only used a few more times. I believe that there is an extreme case of identity confusion at this school. The students are facing struggles of deciding who they are and what they are suppose to be. They do not want to act American because then they will be betraying their culture, but if they do not try  to be American then they are pointed out as being different. It's a struggle, and even more I think that it is interesting that what you wear in the school really points out who you are. I felt so bad for the girl who came to America from Mexico and she wanted to wear a clothing item that is traditional to her culture. She was so excited to wear it and be proud of where she is from but then when she got to school she was ashamed and embarassed because she felt so different from everyone else. Poor girl.


I truly like the activity that the teacher is doing with her class about mapping out the school. The issue of race seems to be how the school is divided, and it is obvious that all of the students know and realize this. Also, at the beginning of chapter two I found the rules that each class, the class of immigrants and the class of white students, came up with were completely different. The class of immigrants came up with rules like "no mean racism, dont make fun of peoples dress, dont make fun of culture and try to learn about each other." While the regular white classrooms rules were "No put downs, no personal attacks. Respect yourself and others. Dont talk while others are talking." So it is obvious that the immigrant classroom wanted to make rules that respect their differences, while the white classroom wanted rules that told them not to attack them and the rest of the rules were not creative in that "respect yourself and others" is something that a 1st grade classroom could come up with.