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Movie Review: Paperclips

Whitwell Middle School is a middle school in Whitwell, Tennessee. They created a monument using paperclips for the victims of the Holocaust. About 6,000,000 people died during the holocaust; this included mainly Jews, but also gypsies, mentally handicapped, and also gays & lesbians. The mission for this middle school was to commemorate the people that died during the Holocaust, and to show people how many 6,000,000 actually was, just in case they couldn’t imagine that number.

In 1998, a teacher of one of the classes that was teaching the Holocaust to 8^th graders realized that the kids didn’t really know much about the Holocaust because they grew up in a small community where everyone knew each other, and they were all of the same race and religion. Not knowing about the Holocaust in the beginning, after learning about it, they were really inspired and decided to do something. They were so overwhelmed that they said they wanted to collect something to represent the amount deaths during this time period. The students slowly started off the project with sending out letters, and they created a website to get the word out. They didn’t really collect much at first, but as their word got more and more out, people like the former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as many other celebrities started giving the paper clips by the thousands. Many months passed, and the amount of paper clips increased in a great amount, about over 30 million; Whitwell Middle School had over-achieved their goal of 6,000,000.

One of my most favorite scenes in the movie was when the kids got a visit from the Holocaust survivors. The shock in the kids’ faces showed how much they really cared for the people who had survived life during the Holocaust.

Overall, this story, to me, was very inspiring and I hope other people can see how inspiring it is. This reminds me about the importance to persevere, show empathy, to be tolerant, and understanding.

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Cross cultural experience with Jezzica Amigo:

            Today I spent about 4 hours with Jezzica learning about her life and the way she lives it.  Her house was much more different than mine, she only has two brothers and one mom only; whereas, I have about two brothers, two cousins, aunt and uncle, mom and dad, grandma and grandpa all living with me.  In her house, Jezzica’s mom is always on top of them to get stuff done, but they are pretty lazy and don’t do much.  Also, her house is organized only in half the part, whereas mine is always kept neat.

            This really showed me how other people live at our school.  If I wouldn’t have gone over to her house and learned about her, I wouldn’t have known about how other people live.  One thing I learned about her was that she is Christian, and I’m a Sikh.  They are pretty much different religions and we practice much different things, like she goes to church and I go to the temple.  A similar thing between our religions is that we both believe in god and we go to worship god mainly on Sundays.  One of the things I learned that she can’t do being a Christian is that it isn’t accepted to be a gay/homosexual, although you can if you want, but it isn’t really suggested.  If a Christian does something bad, they have to ask for forgiveness from the god.  To Christians, God is like a father to them and they freely talk to him at their own will.  Her religion isn’t much different than mine, but there are a lot of differences and it was a good experience for me to witness.

            Jezzica is Filipino.  The way Filipinos live life isn’t very different than the way I live my life, as a Punjabi.  In the Philippines, it is important to ask a father’s permission in the hand of marriage.  Also, it isn’t an over-night thing, it takes time for the father to approve and to like you.  It is also key to show respect to your wife and protect her in any case.  If you show harm to her, you would get arrested and the men from other houses would protect the wife.  There are two different ranking for married men, one of them is if you are a white man and sort or plump, you are considered to be rich; if you are mostly dark and skinny, you are considered to be working class or poor.

            The way Filipinos dress now is much more different than the way we would dress to a Punjabi cultural event or wedding, or even to the temple.  On their wedding days, the men would wear barong Tagalog, which is a traditional Filipino costume for men.  The woman would wear a custom-made white wedding gown with a veil that must cover their face; most of them are Catholic weddings.  Also, you are not allowed to see your groom one day before the wedding, otherwise, it is considered bad luck. 

            Overall, my day with Jezzica was surprising because I didn’t really know this about her and I got to learn more about her and how she lives her life.  I learned that our religions aren’t very different, our likes and dislikes are pretty much the same, and our personalities are very alike.  In the end, I had learned a lot about her and found out she was very similar to me in many ways.  It was a fun and interesting experience, and I am glad I did it.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgW6gXoXF8

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Museum write-up:

            May 18^th, 2012, AF went to the Museum of Tolerance in West LA.  The purpose of this field trip was to learn about the different acts of intolerance.  I learned a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about in the beginning.

            One event that really hit me was the one with the two men being ignorant towards one another and towards the people surrounding them; they ended up killing a woman by shooting her because they were intolerant of one another.  This event really stood out to me because it shows that two peoples’ ignorance can lead to one woman’s death.  This example for an act of intolerance is because of the two men’s human nature. 

            Besides that one event, we had gone through many others; and there was one other one that struck me hard; it was the Holocaust.  The Holocaust is the genocide of Jews advised by a genius man named Adolf Hitler.  Hitler was a very smart man, but instead of using his brain power for good, he used it for bad and evil.  Not only did Jews die, but also the mentally handicapped, the handicapped, gays & lesbians, and gypsies.  Just because Hitler was angry, he decided to plot a plan against everyone else, and wanted Germans to rule the world.  I think this example of an act of intolerance is because of Hitler’s external environment.  The reason this is, is because he probably grew up not being loved as much as a regular kid would, and also his family was probably harsh with him.  Everyone is innocent unless exposed to bad nature, in my opinion.  So Hitler wasn’t always a bad man, he just grew to become one.

            The last act of intolerance that struck me was the examples shown about the Indian man trying to make a living in America, and couldn’t because 9/11 had just happened.  The reason people were intolerant toward him was because he wore a turban, and since the 9/11 attack was plotted by Indian looking men, everyone just assumes people with turbans are terrorist.  Anyway, this man was shot and killed just because of his turban, he wasn’t even the same religion or race as the terrorists that plotted 9/11; he was Sikh.  This event really has a great impact on me because I’m Sikh and this has happened to my family before, they were accused of such things that we weren’t.  So every time I hear a story like this one, it really hurts me because I know what these people are going through.  This example of an act of intolerance is probably because of people’s human nature and instinct.  I think this is the reason why because most terrorist are Middle Eastern, but I don’t understand why people can’t tell the difference between a Sikh and a Middle Eastern.  People just assume that what they see is always the case, well, it isn’t. 

            Overall, people are selfish for one or both of these two reasons: their human nature and/or their external environment.  You shouldn’t judge someone from their race, who they are, or even how they look.  So much has happened in history and we should learn from it, not repeat it.  This museum, overall, really showed me how selfish or how intolerable we can be, and I’d like to change that from now on.

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