Month: April 2017 (Page 2 of 3)

While discussing Netherland by Joseph O’Neill in class today, the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center were brought up. These attacks not only had a big impact on the events in this literary work, but they also greatly impacted American foreign policy and history. The thought of these attacks, and the possibility that they could happen again, frightens me immensely. They are not something that I think about every day, however when I read the newspaper to catch up on current events, my fears are reestablished. New York City appears to be an optimal place for a terrorist attack to occur since it is one of the most important and well-known cities in America. This makes our home more of a target than other cities in the United States are. In addition, our class also discussed other people’s experiences on 9/11. Unfortunately, most of my classmates, including myself, are too young to be able to remember the events of this day first-hand. However, I have often heard my friends and family members tell stories about this day. Each person is able to recall what he or she was doing when these attacks began. Many of them say that they had never seen people be as kind to one another as they were in the first few weeks after the tragedy. The 2017 Presidential Election is the only situation I have experienced that I can liken this to. Much like those who witnessed 9/11, I was shocked when I awoke to discover that Donald Trump was the 45^th president of the United States. Baruch was eerily quiet that day. I even had some professors and peers who cried during class. For me, this was the most shocking event that I can remember living through. I am sure that I will never forget it.

Pursuing this thought further, another perplexing question that was raised in today’s class was whether the events of 9/11 spread so much panic that they would eventually cause the people of the United States to pick Donald Trump as their president, out of fear of immigrants. This theory makes sense since Trump repeatedly spews negative stereotypes about people of particular nationalities and maintains a loyal following despite these discriminatory remarks. At first it was difficult for me to understand where all of this hatred stemmed from. However, after listening to our class’s discussion, I have realized that perhaps this racism was perpetuated by the tragic events of 9/11. Fear of terrorism caused Americans to turn to the antithesis of tolerance, Donald Trump. However, it is important to remember that hate only breeds trepidation. We should embrace other cultures; we can’t live in fear of people’s differences forever.

During Wednesday’s class, we discussed at the very last minute the “anomaly” of having an unexpected customer in an ethnic restaurant. There was a shared opinion that often when we see a restaurant, especially an ethnic restaurant, that has diverse clientele, then that restaurant must be doing something right and worth trying.

This raises the question of why do we have this mindset? What influences or persuades us to take the leap of faith to try someplace new when we would never have bothered to notice it before solely because others are going there? One of the many answers is social media. When mouth watering images of food plague our feeds and dashboards, it’s difficult to not notice or at least get curious. However, why is there a party heralding this movement to begin with? These “trendsetting” foods would never have been considered as “trends” if they were never “discovered” by a third party. Whomever this third party is, in regards of which racial, age, professional group whom we put our trust in, they undeniably have the omnipotent power to define which stores or restaurants will be successful and which will be left in the dust.

The example I am most concerned with are “food trends” that appear all over social media and as a result, credit and respect for diversity seems to be thrown out the window. For example, rolled ice cream in 2016. The concept at first is indeed inventive and the making process is possibly classified as art. However, what is herald and validated as something “brand new” and “innovative” by whomever received credit as the first store to have it available to the public, completely disregards its cultural history and presence in Eastern Asia where it has been a popularized decades prior to its first appearance in the states.

Simply put, go beyond your favorite dishes and the Instagram posts that decide for you what you should eat, what you should visit, and frankly who you should care about. To solely give social media the benefit of the doubt that this is the “correct” way to “genuinely” seek out “authentic” and “trendy” foods because an unrelated third party decided to take the opportunity to capitalize off something that has been around us the entire time is quite disappointing. There are established communities where locals and other people do enjoy without the approval of anyone else why they should go there instead of here because they live in and know their neighborhood. NYC itself allows us the privilege to do the very same thing as exploring the world with a simple train ride to the multiple ethnic neighborhoods throughout each borough of the city to discover. There will be places worth going and knowing if you simply explore for yourselves what the world really is and not the world only present behind the screen of your phone or computers. With that mindset, one can find themselves grow and learn more and more about themselves and about their world.

Dilpreet Singh

After our discussion about cultural food in class, Raian and I were pretty hungry and decided to get some Indian buffet food. We choose to eat at a buffet because we were basically starving until that moment and wanted to fill ourselves up.  After walking around a few places examining the price, menu and other various factors, we decided to go with Dhaba, a Punjabi Cuisine place that offers both dining, takeout, and delivery. Dhaba is a sort of higher class Indian restaurant that has been recognized for its outstanding Indian cuisine, excellent service, and friendly staff. Additionally, with waiters and chefs from South Asia, it was easy to see that Dhaba tried to portray a more authentic look. In contrast, Raian and I have also gone to places like Haandi, which provide Indian food for a lower price and the waiters and chefs are from a Mexican descent. Additionally, the environment at Dhaba was very different from Haandi. Dhaba was a lot cleaner, customer-friendly, and the food was, in general, more fresh and tasty. On the other hand, Handi was a lot more dirty, noisy and less aesthetically-pleasing. At Haandi, the food was not as authentic in comparison to the food in Dhaba as well. I think the fact that Haandi does not have chefs from India ultimately does hinder it from reaching its full potential. When people typically go to an Indian restaurant, they want a cultural feel in which they eat food that was cooked by someone typically of Indian descent. However, I think at Haandi this criterion is not met and causes it to lose potential customers.