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Way George
Professor Guenther K.
Intro Sociology 001
19 November 2010
We Make the Best of What we Have

There are many things that can influence the way people grow, mature, and function in

society. This main focus of this research is to examine the specific factors of race, class, and

gender and how they affect opportunities, limitations, and identity of members of society. In this

investigation, the question of how race, class, and gender affect peoples’ opportunities,

limitations, and their identities is addressed. As many sociologists have noticed, people are

affected by their race, class, and gender within a society. All three of those factors are given to

people all by chance. This leads me to hypothesize, that race, class, and gender play major roles

in society and the opportunities, limitations, and identities given to people in a society.

The research conducted was all during an in-person interview with my mother- a lower

middle class Japanese female- that lasted approximately fifty minutes. During the interview,

there were many things that happened. Susan’s posture was erect; she was speaking slowly and

clearly. There were times when the participant was reminiscent of her past and chuckled a little

at some of the things she had never really thought about. Numerous hand gestures and facial

expressions were used throughout the interview. All of the answers that were provided seemed to

either prove my hypothesis right or give some hint into other possible hypotheses.

As a female growing up in the 1970s of American society, she did feel that there was

quite a difference between males and females. Apparently, girls had more expectations than

boys, in her opinion; the girls had to be a little more feminine and show that they were lady-like
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but the interviewee claimed that she chose not to follow those social standards and acted like a

tom boy. Basically, in her opinion, girls could do what they wanted to do as long as they did not

hurt anyone. She said that boys had it better than girls because they could do pretty much

whatever they wanted to do besides play with dolls or wear dresses.

As a child, she was born into the working class of America. Although her parents were

working over twelve hour shifts to make ends meet, just like the people in “Nickel and Dimed”

by Barbara Ehrenriech. Although they were not part of the underclass, they still worked almost

as hard as them just to barely pay the bills and feed their children. Women did not have much

opportunity to get high paying, skilled labor so her mother worked several jobs as a hotel

receptionist, homemaker, and restaurant hostess. Her father was a gardener, working on yards

and gardens of the upper class in West Los Angeles. Most of the day, she was left home alone

and thus, she grow up a more natural style like the children from Lareau’s findings in “Concerted

Cultivations and the Accomplishment of Natural Growth,” and how they grew up with limited

interaction with their parents. My mother grew up taking orders from her parents without

question and felt a sense of constraint. When asked if she wanted to belong to another class or if

she felt that being a girl had an effect on her opportunities, she answered that she was happy with

the class she grew up in and that women did have less opportunity than men.

When addressing the idea of opportunity due to race, class, and gender, there was an

answer proving my hypothesis. It seemed that if you were female, you did not have as much

opportunity as a male because there indeed exist a glass ceiling at that time. No matter how good

a woman was at her job, if she applied to become a management official, she would be turned

down significantly more often than if a man were to apply for the same position. Being a

Japanese-American at the time in Los Angeles, there were jobs open in the Japanese community,
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so she had a bit more opportunity than other minorities because she was Japanese-American. As

far as class went, she wanted to gain some social mobility because at the time, she did not want

to end up like her parents- coming home everyday almost too tired to do anything but relax. So,

she attended CSULA to get her B.A. degree in English. So, she identified her class as a limiting

factor in her in the ways that in her current situation, she would not have too much opportunity

and more limitations.

Although, race, class, and gender seemed to play a role in the life of my mother, does it

apply to others that did not fit the same category and those that fit the same category? When

asked about her friends that she grew up with, she said that most of them ended up in the lower

middle class but some stayed in the working class caste. Over time, she and a few of her female

friends obtained managerial positions in the places they worked. So it appears that as time

progressed, the barrier between men and women started to dissipate a little but there was still

quite a big barrier with the higher positions. Race played a part in opportunity in my mother’s

life as well as the life of her friends. She said that she got her first job because her employer was

Japanese and he was looking out for the people of his community. Also, her white friends were

able to get jobs faster than any of her other friends due to their ethnicities but they became

entangled in the “financial trap.” As William E. Thompson would describe it, they buy things

because they can afford it with their job, but as they continued to buy things, they put other

things aside to the extent where they become dependent on the job and cannot take up another

job due to limiting factors such as education. So race played an important role in their

opportunities and did not serve as a limitation for them. Different people received different

benefits, but if they belonged to a different race, class, or gender they would have different

opportunities, limitations, and identities.

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Many aspects could have been improved in this study. For example, more interviews

should have been conducted with different genders, classes, and races. Some of the interview

questions were too specific to the person being interviewed; they should be kept to a more

general, sociological way of questioning. The person was a little tired before the interview which

could have lead to skewed answers.

There are too many limitations that do not allow legitimate conclusions to be made. First

of all, the only method used to gather data was interviews and some influential factors were not

taken into account such as culture. There was only one interview that was conducted and her

race, class, or gender was not applicable to a large majority of people in society. In addition,

culture was not questioned. Cultural influence could have played a major role in the life of my

mother and how she perceived things, so she might not be the same as all other lower middle

class Japanese females. In conclusion, the research conducted is far from conclusive- it only

scratched the surface of the question due to all of the limiting factors of the research process.
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Interview Guideline

1. How was it like to be a girl growing up in the 70s?

a. Did you like being a girl?
i. Why or why not?
2. Were boys significantly different than girls?
a. What were they allowed to do that was different?
i. Did you ever wish you could do the same?
3. What opportunities did girls have?
a. Were there more things for women to do than men?
i. Why was that?
4. Which class did you belong to growing up?
a. Did you like being in that class?
i. Can you elaborate?
5. How did that make you feel?
a. Why?
6. Did you want to belong to any other class?
a. How did that affect your attitude toward you own class?
7. If so, which class did you aspire to get to?
a. What made that class more appealing?
i. Would that really be an advantage?
8. How was it like to be a Japanese-American when you were little?
a. What type of community was it?
i. Did they provide opportunity?
9. Did you feel like an outcast because you were a minority?
a. Why didn’t you feel that way?
10. Did you view race as something important to belong?
a. What effect do you think that had on you?
11. How do you think growing up in East Los Angeles affected you?
a. Was that a good thing?
i. How did it influence you?
ii. Did it have a big impact on you?
12. Did you wish you grew up somewhere else?
a. Why?
b. Why not?
i. What would that have done?
ii. How would you have been different?
13. Did race play an important role in your career?
a. Where was it most important in your career?
14. How were your friends affected by race, class, and gender?
a. How did that make you feel?
15. How did you feel about the races that had more “privilege” than you?
a. Why are those feelings present?