My assignment is as follows:

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Prepare a 1,400- to 1,750-word autobiographical research paper that analyzes the influences of race as it relates to your community. In your paper, write your first-person account of how human interactions in your community have been racialized. For the community, you can consider relations within your neighborhood, local government, service groups, clubs, schools, workplace, or any environment of which you are a part. In your paper, be sure to answer and provide examples for the following core questions:

- Do members of your community look like you? In what ways do they look the same or different?
- How do leaders within your community treat people who are like you? How do they treat people who are different?
- How do other members of your community treat people who are like you? How do they treat people who are different?
- Do your texts or work manuals contain information by or about people like you?
- Do the local media represent people like you? If so, in what ways?
- What are some similarities and differences between you and the people who are in leadership positions in your community? Do you feel minority group interests are represented within your community?
- If you could resolve any inequities within your community, what would you change? How and why?
- Which main concepts from the text relate to race? Apply some of these concepts toyour project.

Ensure the following elements are included:

- The thesis addresses racial issues in your local community.
- The content is comprehensive and accurate.
- The paper itself draws on your personal experiences with and opinions about cultural diversity in your community.
- Three sources are used, and one source is a community member, leader, or representative from a local community organization.
- The paper is written in first-person point of view, with an autobiographical approach.
- Text concepts are applied to your observations.
- Assignment questions are answered.
- The paper includes perspectives from supporting sources.
- The conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the major points.
- Paragraph transitions are present.
- The tone is appropriate.
- Sentences are well-constructed.
- The paper, title page, and references follow APA guidelines.
- Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed.
- Spelling is correct.
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I know only I can write about MY community. I'm from India, no matter how hard I search I can't find any racial issues in India, I only get ethnic issues like Hindu/Muslim and caste issues. It does not bring up racial issues like black and white in the united states.

Can i write about issues relating to cultural/religious difference instead of racial differences for this paper?

Yes, you can write about the cultural and religious differences in your community. It should make for a very interesting paper.

I am sure it will make a good paper, but I am wondering whether I will loose points for not addressing "racial" issue the assignment asks for.

The cultural differences in India between the various groups are very much like the racial differences in the US.

Look at the first 4 or 5 sites here.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Ethnic+groups+in+India&btnG=Search

I did go through some of those sites and it says ethnic groups include Negroid, Australoid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid.. so something like that.

My parents are not as ignorant of Indian culture as me but even still they don't recall any of these except Mongoloid but they said they don't recall there being an issue/conflict regarding this.

This is a strange assignment.. I have to write an "autobiography" of something I'm totally clueless and even my parents themselves are not fully aware off.

Do you think writing about religious issue like Hindu/Muslim could work instead?

I don't know what topic I should base my research on... nothing about India comes up on university library etc...The paper is due next week.

Please help, if I loose 250 points on this assignment all other assignments I did so far will be useless as this will completely affect my grade.

I think the essence of this assignment is to relay your own cultural identity to the entirety of the community in which you live. I will use an extreme example, but perhaps it will make sense:

Think of a typical American small town in Nebraska. Population: 120. I am an African American, yet the majority of the townspeople are Caucasian. This assignment is basically asking you to compile your experiences within your community, based on the questions found in the syllabus for this project.

I have just finished my paper and am very proud of it. Hopefully you will feel the same way about yours.

Ask your professor for clarification. I am dealing with a similar issue and am considering going for socioeconomic prejudices instead of racial prejudices in my community. Knowing my professor is the one grading my final project and it is his opinion that matters, I will not put weeks of work into a paper that will not be accepted. This is the route I am taking, running it by my professor before specific research is done in this area.

Hi,I am taking the same class. I'm White. lived here all my life, and I i'm having the same problem. I should have put this in with my comments with the survey they do at the end of classes. They seem to have these classes for certain ethnic groups. It's easy for some to answer these questions, but not for all. They need to re-think their curriculum. It's not as easy for some of us. good luck!!!

Carolyn,

I am taking Eth 125 and am now entering into the final project. I too find myself wondering who to write this paper! I am white as well, and live in a very small communtiy. There are no racial problems here. We treat everyone the same here, in fact any african american that live in my community when I was growing up, was always popular. They were never treated unkindly, so I do I write this paper?

I'm in this class right now, and my paper is due tonight. I'm white and so is almost everyone in my community so how do I write about race when it's almost 100% white? this is hard!