Names carry a lot of meaning and weight in our society and can change throughout our lives as we too change.  The name Kristen, that's me, carries meaning in our society and to me.  The name Kristen in Christianity means "follower of Christ" and has English and Irish origins.  When my mother was choosing my name, she purposefully chose a name with a Christian meaning and a name that was primarily English.  My name has influenced me in how I have identified myself as someone of English descent and categorizes me as an American.  The name is Kristen has set me apart in that the spelling of Kristen is most commonly Kristin or even Christine, which do not have the Christian meanings attached.  The spelling of my name is important because it carries meaning in my religion and is unique from the more common spelling.

Anna Quindlen's "Life in the 30's" discusses how women not changing their name when they get married has an impact on their standing as part of the family.  I think that everyone has moments where they identify themselves differently than the opinions of a large group because everyone has different experiences that change their perspectives.  For me, being a part of a volunteer group at my youth group was a unique experience that challenged my beliefs.  From a popular vote, the group decided that we would volunteer at Habitat for Humanity instead of the Ronald McDonald house like I wanted.  In my opinion helping children, especially sick children and their families, is the most rewarding and valuable volunteering that you can do.  Habitat for Humanity is an excellent program for helping the economically disadvantaged but my passion is with children.  My opinion differed from that of most of the group and brought up the question of whether or not I should continue volunteering for the group or should volunteer by myself.

I will admit that I felt incredibly guilty for considering quitting a volunteer group because of the type of volunteer work that we would do.  However, my selfish tendencies to do what I wanted to do were present because I wasn't terribly interested in Habitat for Humanity, I am not good at building or working with power-tools.  This feeling made me stick out in the group because everyone else was thrilled for that volunteer work.  Even though I wasn't excited about building houses, I still wanted to feel as part of the group as every person wants to belong and tried to become passionate about the volunteering.  This need to fit into a group was so strong that I stayed in the volunteer group and volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House later.  What we believe can sometimes be different than what a group holds as a passion and we have to choose whether we will stick with our passions or change according to groups.    

Photo

Wing Young Huie, We are the Other, 2012-2013

This picture shows a man of Asian descent holding a sign saying "When I come to the US, I don't have nothing. With my bare hands and hard work I now own two barber shops."  The man is standing in a barber shop with an employee to his left and a group of customers behind him.  The barber shop is well kept and appears to have a lot of business from the group of people at the front.

The statement on the sign is important because it demonstrates the immigrant's low English quality.  The man makes several grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, which would suggest that English is not his first language, or he slept through English class.  By looking closer, you can see that the Asian owner is the only Asian in the room and is wearing a uniform typically associated with a dentist or barber.  This can be representative of the minority of immigrants and the disproportion of immigrants as business owners.  This man is representative of the immigrant population as he discusses his past of being in poverty and working toward his goals.  This man is arguing that he overcame his disadvantage when arriving to America by working hard and persevering.

Wing Young Huie and Margaret Atwood present the concept of "othering" through writing techniques.  Language is used to separate people into groups by these authors through their descriptions of these people.  In the photograph by Huie, the writing on the chalkboard uses language to portray the Chinese immigrant as a non-American and serves to single him out against the American customers and employee. In the novel, The Handmaid's Tale,  Atwood singles out several groups of people such as the Handmaid's and the Unwomen.  Language singles out these groups describing the Unwomen as "lower-class" and "near-death."  When Atwood mentions the Unwomen, the language surronding it has a somber, gloomy, and hopeless tone to highlight the disadvantage of these people.  Color is something that is used by Margaret Atwood to classify people into groups like the Handmaid's and the Unwomen.  The Handmaid's are associated with the color red in this novel to represent fertility and to make them stand out against the other people.  The Unwomen are represented with color because they are the only people not wearing a uniform and therefore wear many different colors.  The different colors represents the wide range of people that are Unwomen and their unabiliity to conform to a societal class.  Color is also used in the photograph by Huie as the photo is in black and white and there is no color.  The absence of color shows how the immigrant man has overcome his past poverty and has become part of the social class of small business owners.  The effect of using language and color to single out people is that social groups become more rigid as the people who don't fit into these descriptions cannot be in that social group.  These social groups are also hard to change as the immigrant man shows that he was only able to escape the group of poverty was to work hard.  Social groups and the concept of "othering" people are important in these works because they shows how people are categorized and placed into groups based on their situation.