Irony

The irony that Buruma speaks of is incredibly evident through the life and death of Theo an Gogh. Van Gogh simply insulted anyone and everyone. He made fun of religion, politics, you name it, and used humor as a means to escape responsibility for his words, when in reality what he was saying was no joking matter. Also, van Gogh's death was ironic in that while during his life he attacked nearly everyone and seemed as though he had no definitive target, his killer believed that he did; so ultimately by trying to avoid responsibility for his words and actions, he received blame to the greatest extent possible.
The wearing of religious attire to show devotion and to stand out is ironic because while one is trying to make a personal statement to set themselves apart from the larger Dutch population, they do so in a way that requires them to blend in with other Muslims. So in their efforts to be unique and assert their beliefs, they become common.
The quote about rappers reminded me a bit about the discussion of the Dutch inaction during WWII in spite of their reputation for being incredibly tolerant. The same irony is seen with rappers, who rap about being murderers when in reality they would never do these things. Also, i find it ironic that tolerance in the Netherlands includes free speech, which for instance in the case of rappers, leads to speech that is quite intolerant.
I had a hard time finding a connection between the readings, but I guess the idea that too much knowledge limits knowledge can be related to tolerance. Too much tolerance can limits actual tolerance. For example, as I just mentioned with free speech, tolerance to the level that allows everyone to express themselves in an uninhibited manner can lead to the threat of losing the very tolerance that allowed for free speech to exist.
As for the idea that 2nd generation immigrants often feel alienated, I can't really speak much because I do not know first hand what it is like to be from an immigrant family. However, I do not believe that the alienation that may be experienced has to lead to extreme alliances and actions because there are many other, less radical approaches to dealing with alienation. I do recognize that alienation is often a cause for such alliances, yet I am not confident that this is the case for the majority of people feeling alienated for any reason.

Jessica's assignment

Subject: UW student
Sex: Female
Age: 21
Race: Caucasian
Religion: Unknown; no visible markers of any kind

Clothes: Subject was dressed casually; jeans, a shirt and a sweater. The jeans were fitted, yet too long for the subject and the bottoms were slightly shredded as a result. The jeans showed many signs of fatigue; tears on the pockets, a few on the seams, and a worn spot on the right knee. No brand name was visible on the jeans because the logo on the back had been removed, leaving behind a square of slightly darker denim where the tag had previously been. The shirt was fitted, with a red border and large multicolor polka dots all over. The shirt appeared new, the colors were still very bright, and no signs of wear were present. The subject also wore a black cardigan sweater with ¾ length sleeves. It was slightly faded, with keyholes at the bottoms of the sleeves.

Footwear: The subject was wearing dark brown leather shoes. The backs were fully covered by the long jeans, but the front of the shoes showed signs of wear. The fronts were scuffed and the laces on the right shoe were shredded. No brand name was visible on the shoe; possibly due to the fact that the back half was not visible.

Hair: The subject’s hair was chin length and medium brown with slightly choppy bangs. It appeared to be untreated by color because there were no visible roots or distinguishable highlights. No hair accessories were present.

Accessories: The subject was wearing no accessories aside from a necklace consisting of a silver chain with cherry shapes hanging off of it. There were no visible tattoos and while the subject had pierced ears, she wore no earrings.

Part II
I accidentally fell asleep after my alarm went off on Monday so I was running a bit late and didn’t really plan my outfit. Having just done my laundry Sunday night, I picked the shirt that was on top of my laundry basket. Seeing that it was kind of grey and gloomy outside, I picked a black sweater out of my closet because it was warm and didn’t clash. My favorite jeans unfortunately had to be retired last week because they had a few too many holes, so the ones that I ended up wearing were older jeans that I’ve had since high school that are a bit long. The tag was missing because it had started to fall off after a few too many washes so I pulled it off without knowing that the color of the denim underneath was completely different. By shoes (ecco brand) do not have a brand logo on the outside, there is just one inside and then on the sole. I love these shoes because they are so comfortable and I end up walking a long ways during the day, so comfort is important to me. For one of my jobs I work in a bead store, and as a result I have become addicted to making jewelry and I try to justify my habit by making sure to wear a piece of jewelry every day. Monday I wore my cherry necklace because I had just finished making it and wanted to be sure it laid right and didn’t do anything weird when I wore it like poke me or flip around.

Research Abstract 1

Entering the retirement age of the baby boom generation, everyone has one thing on their mind: Health Care. The situation is no different in other countries. While many people take available and affordable health care for granted, it is an extremely serious necessity that people struggle with all over the world. We want to explore the state of Dutch health care, and because of our interest in the current immigration issues, specifically associate it to the immigrant populations in Amsterdam. More particularly, compare the availability, accessibility and affordability of health care to immigrants in Amsterdam in comparison to native Dutch citizens. We plan to utilize several research methods in creating a fairly good picture about this issue prior to in field research. Looking at health care facilities around Amsterdam, private and public, and comparing the patients that turn for health care at those facilities, as well as the known public reviews of those locations. Also aside from the actual numbers and statistics, is looking at the website of these locations, and eventually visiting them, and looking for indications of who their services are centered at. For example signs, information and brochures: are they in Dutch only? English? Several Languages? And same goes for their website. Also there are numerous websites as well as physical community centers in Holland and Amsterdam particularly dedicated to immigrant services. Talking with and researching them could lead us to the facilities that they suggest and point immigrants to for services, and for what reasons do they suggest certain facilities over others. Once in Amsterdam, we plan to visit the health care providers as well and immigration community centers, like mentioned earlier. Above everything we hope to do in person interviews and/or surveys with immigrants in Amsterdam and get their opinion on what they feel about their health care (availability, accessibility and affordability). And if any patterns arise from that, such as certain nationalities feel overwhelmingly different than others, we hope to explore those further as a subset in our research. While this is the general direction we wish to take our research, we are open to changing things around slightly as we further dive into the information we find and other things that indicate more of priority in the current social situation.

Understanding Amsterdam

I read Castells' "European Cities, the informational society, and the global economy". This piece didn't focus on observations and "reading the city" like the other articles, but instead focused on globalization, informational societies and the creation of a dual society. The presence of a global economy in Seattle was incredibly evident simply by noticing the variety of brands of running shoes and mp3 players people had at Greenlake. Also, as far as an informational society is concerned, it was interesting to see how many people had headsets on, as though even during their recreational time they could not pull themselves away from the phone. Were they still on the clock, were they talking to friends, or was it just sort of a comfort being "plugged in" in a sense? One thing that we really didn't focus on in our reading the city excursion that came up in the reading was how the development of informational societies and a global economy leads to the formation of a dual city in which the upper and business classes are subject to a completely different reality than those who are poor or working class. I have noticed this many times when walking around Seattle, and also specifically around Greenlake. While middle and upper middle class people sporting their expensive name brand running/walking gear, when you venture a bit off the main trail into the back alleys of businesses and the fronts of shops, there are a lot of homeless people and drug addicts to whom Greenlake is not a place of recreation and fun. For them, the area is where they get their fix or where they find scraps of food to get them to the next day.

Reading the City

We went to Greenlake today to do our reading the city assignment and it was pretty interesting what we found. We didn't really have any initial questions, we just wanted to look at interactions between people, but after observing people for a time, many questions were raised.
We started out by walking along Ravenna near the storefronts and then settled down on a bench on the trail. What initially grabbed my attention was the variety of people/groups present. There were mothers walking with their kids, dads carrying babies while walking the dog, couples walking hand in hand, lone joggers, groups of rollerbladers, and groups of friends. It was interesting to me how with so many people doing different things, and all the while seemingly ignoring the designated walking/jogging/rolling paths, there were no serious congestion problems on the trail. Joggers simply and calmly went around those walking. Those with small children didn't appear to be worried that their kids would get in anyone else's way, nor did any one throw weird looks when a child stepped in their way, they simply went around, making no eye contact or exchanging words with the parents or the kid.
The funny thing was that no one was making eye contact with each other- for a such a busy recreational place where people go to relax or have fun, it just seem a little odd that no one on the trail seemed curious about the people around them or cared to make eye contact and exchange smiles. Usually when I go running, the people that I pass at least smile, so when I noticed that the people at greenlake didn't even seem to acknowledge those around them, I began to wonder why they all go to such a crowded place to walk/run/rollerblade, etc if they have no interest in interacting with the people there. Is it the location, the water, the nice flat trail? There are plenty of places to walk and run in Seattle, so what makes Greenlake so popular?
We also noticed a lot of diversity at the lake. There were a lot of different ethnicities present, and interestingly groups were not mixed. I wasn't sure if this was because they were family or what, but it made me wonder. Also, there was a couple walking around barefoot for some reason (Jon got a pic of them that he has in his post). I don't know if they were looking for attention or if they thought that shoes weren't organic enough for them, but it was interesting to see how as they walked down the trail, no one else seemed to notice because they were too occupied with their own activities. Also, when we first got there there was an older man with a scraggly white beard walking around with a "Spanish Lessons" banner around him. I kind of wanted to follow him when he came back around and see if anyone started up a conversation with him, but sadly he never came back.
As far as our research question is concerned, we didn't really notice anything along the lines of immigration/assimilation but becoming familiar with observing people and becoming interested in certain social cues such as eye contact, verbal communication, smiles, etc. helped me understand more of what we could look for in Amsterdam.

Reading the City

Due to conflicting schedules, our group wasn't able to meet up this weekend to complete our assignment :( However, we plan on going to Greenlake on Tuesday evening to "walk around a block" or two or three. Our research question relates to immigration and I'm not sure that we will be able to look at immigration issues specifically but we plan on using the time to learn how to slow down and open up to what is happening around us. We will start out just kind of wandering around, taking in the people and interactions around us and then find a spot to sit and observe to goings-on. John mentioned bringing his camera along so that we can keep a record of our observations. Probably what we would most like to get out of this project is a feel for how to observe and read people without necessarily entering a dialogue with them because it could be a great asset when we actually get to Amsterdam. I will be updating this plan and posting our findings on Tuesday so stay tuned!

Web Results

So I still have a very long way to go, but here are some sites that I found that could be useful:

http://my.expatica.com/c:nl/forum/index.php?c=6
This site has a ton of up to date news from Holland and around the world as well as a variety of resources for immigrants. What is most appealing to me is that there is a discussion board on which those new to Amsterdam can ask questions about life in Amsterdam, visa problems, assimilation, education, you name it.

http://www.immigrationboards.com
This one was awesome because it is a message board specifically for people who have questions about immigration, how to obtain visas and work permits, what the application process is, etc... Its nice because the discussions are split up based on the country in question so you don't have to search through a ridiculous amount of posts that aren't really relevant.

http://redskybrothers.com/2006/03/26/the-dutch-and-islam/
I just stumbled onto this page when trying to search for information on the new Dutch immigration video, and was excited to find a short clip from it. The video was more cheesy than shocking or offensive in the 6.5 minutes available (the actual film is ~105 min), yet it was interesting to see how it was set up and what points were being emphasized the most.

Other than that, I did find a lot of articles and papers discussing immigration issues in the Netherlands, but since they weren't particularly interactive, I don't know that they count.

Groups!

After hearing about everyone's fabulous ideas and doing some thinking, Jana, John, and I have decided to form a group. We intend focus on immigration issues in the Netherlands. We haven't yet decided what our official broad question is going to be but taking on the topic of immigration gives us a lot of freedom. So far we are thinking of exploring factors that may influence degrees of assimilation such as country of origin, religion, age of immigration, etc. One problem we foresee in trying to conduct our research is that much of our findings will rely on the willingness of people to speak with us honestly about their experiences. Jana came up with a great way of measuring levels of assimilation by developing a questionnaire that poses questions about languages spoken, which news is watched, whether those surveyed tend to socialize primarily with those from their country of origin, and if they are still in frequent contact with their country of origin. Using a survey such as this will allow anonymity which could get more people to participate. Also, we are planning to visit different cultural community centers in hopes of finding some willing individuals to be sources of information about life as an immigrant and assimilation issues. One other thing I would like to explore is the concept of forced tolerance; in order to assimilate into Dutch society, are immigrants forced to be tolerant? We still don't really know if it is possible to truly measure the existence/degree of forced tolerance, but this may change. One possible way of looking at this topic would be to examine Dutch immigration policies and how they approach the topic of assimilation (e.g. Clifford mentioned that there is a video that immigrants are required to watch upon entering the Netherlands that sort of forces the acceptance of prostitution and drugs).
Since we have a broad topic and we want to be able to have flexibility with our research, we are planning on going with an international engagement.

With the new crack-down on immigration in the U.S., I am interested in exploring the concept of pragmatic tolerance, and specifically how tolerance in Amsterdam is affected by immigration. I would like to explore this topic mainly from the viewpoint of immigrants in the Netherlands.

Questions:
1. In order to assimilate into society, do immigrants feels as though they are forced to be tolerant? If so, does this involve giving up traditions/beliefs or is tolerance simply a learned behavior?
2. As people come to Amsterdam from so many areas of the world, they bring with them their customs and beliefs. Do new citizens feel as though they and their practices are tolerated?
3. Why are people inspired to move to Amsterdam? Is it what they expected?

Evidence:
So I was thinking that I could go to various immigration offices and cultural centers throughout the city in order to talk to people new to Amsterdam about their experiences thus far. Also, by going to churches/ mosques/ synagogues, etc, I would be able to talk to people from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds about how religious beliefs and practices are perceived within such a liberal society, and if the culture of tolerance forces individuals to sacrifice tradition. I have absolutely no experience with cultural research, so I'm sure that there are probably many other ways to go about this; I will likely change my plans drastically as the quarter goes on and I get a better grasp of how to go out into society and collect well rounded, unbiased data. So these are my ideas so far!