Despite the somewhat pessimist feel to some of these songs, I do believe that ultimately my goal with them was to uplift others like myself. I believe they can be used to bring up many of the arguments used in the articles relating to socio economics, stigma, reference groups, institutions, race, immigration and ultimately cumulative advantage. The end result however is the same, they all intersect to a certain degree and they each play a part in social inequality. For some, as is the case with myself, there are certain things that played a bigger role than others.

I don’t necessarily want to give impunity to an individual’s choices, but I do want to make it clear that one’s circumstances can have an effect on their choices. I can admit that my environment in a lower class community with a gang issue and the stigma that is tied to being from a city or a certain neighborhood within a city, or a certain race, played a part in the way I chose to look and even behave. I believe people act the way you treat them. With regard to myself, I felt criminalized both as minority and as a child of immigrants. I believe this can lead some to choose those reference groups placed on them by others and seek to divide themselves more than seek similarities (as noted in my Brown Skin song). Some even embrace the negative stereotypes and try to turn them into a form of power. For myself, personifying the gangster lifestyle, gave me power via fear and stereotypes. It was a means to feeling respect when other facets of society like education weren’t providing it. Of course not all blame is to be placed on the educational system. Parenting plays a role when there isn't given much importance to it in the household, which I'll touch on later.

This can undoubtedly have more negative results than positive ones. Which is the reason why I chose to include the song I did for my son and specifically tie it to the notion of one’s life cycle. In my personal life, the ability to complete a “normal life cycle” is something that had a major effect in the direction of my life. Prior to marriage and children I was headed down a path towards the disadvantage of a criminal record. In all honesty, if I was unlucky, I could have been an ex con for various things ranging from petty theft to grand theft auto. Had I not escaped the penal system, it would have been life altering, even after having a wife and child (as noted somewhat in my Daydreams song). Reading the articles on mass incarceration and on institutions such as prison, only reiterates that and I certainly would not be sitting here writing this e-portfolio at UCI today. Even if education had at some point been a priority after imprisonment, the financial burden would have been too great to take upon without the financial aid afforded to me as someone without a criminal record. 

Having children isn’t necessarily something that is a guarantee to straighten out a youth such as myself, as is evident by the disadvantages we’ve seen that face many single mothers and their children. However, I can credit my decision to turn my life around based on my own upbringing. I thankfully had both of my parents growing up and despite their divorce, I saw the value in being a father. Had that not been the case, I’m not sure whether having children of my own would have been enough to make me value that role in my life. I believe the normalcy and the extent to which young men in today’s society see single parenting as an expectation, hurts future generations of men and women, as much as mass imprisonments does with regard to "normal life cycles". 

As a father myself, the song about my son also ties into my views on cumulative advantage. Specifically looking at the article that we read with regard to parenting differences between upper class and the poor. I myself can attest to having been raised “poor” despite not necessarily fitting that category economically. This was due in part to my parent’s lack of education and/or assimilation into middle class parenting norms. This is an aspect of immigration that I don’t believe we covered much in its section with regard to the role education plays in different immigrant groups. This too can be seen as either an advantage or disadvantage. Now, having attained more education than my own parents, I find myself raising my children in a more “middle class cognitive” way. Although I enjoyed my upbringing and see the value in some of it, I also want to provide that which I didn’t get from my parents or at least a mixture of both. Ultimately I feel most parents want what is best for their children and they try to provide it as best they know how. The keyword here is “know-how”. You can only teach as much as you’ve learned, whether it is via experience or education. As a parent, I also understand why you would want to give your child the best possible opportunities to succeed, especially knowing that there are barriers within society which you don’t have much control over. I stated in various moments of class and discussion that ultimately, to me it comes down to choices versus opportunities. We can say that we all have the same choices, but if we don’t necessarily have the same opportunities (for the many reasons we’ve studied this quarter), it will have an effect on our choices. On top of that, our circumstances might be ever so slightly different, that one seemingly insignificant aspect creates enough of an advantage in the form of making a better decision, that one ultimately succeeds, whereas another doesn't.