Day 133 - Winter classes further impressions

Part 1 - Koreatown

A fortnight on from returning to the United States, winter quarter has begun already and is picking up momentum rapidly. Since my last blog post I have been busy doing various academic, social and recreational activities. Firstly, I have been discovering Los Angeles with more intrigue, tasting the wonderful mix of cultures that is contained here. An observation I would make is that Los Angeles is very culturally segregated, this goes against what I claimed in my first blog post when I stated it wasn’t as culturally and racially segregated like other major metropolitan cities. My adjusted claim is one that is backed up in the works of Logan et al. (2002), Pulido et al. (1996) and UCLA’s own Roger Waldinger (1996) whom highlight the segregation of African Americans and Latinos in South Central LA and other pockets of the city, infamous for being extremely poor, receiving the least public spending, and with the highest police presence (Logan et al., 2002). The area of Los Angeles I visited the other day was another well known area, Koreatown or ‘K town’ which grew in central areas of the city out of the mass immigration of South Koreans in the 1960s (Light and Bonacich, 1991). Figure 1. Illustrates a rough estimation of the extent of Koreatown shows the sheer size of the region, at around 2.7 square miles (Lee, 2008). Clearly, a pocket of culture like this is not uncommon for metropolitan cities; as many around the world such as Toronto and London of course have similar areas, however I haven’t witnessed one on a similar scale to this. The purpose of the visit was to taste for the first time a Korean barbecue at an authentic restaurant that was bustling with Koreans and tourists alike. The food, needless to say was flavourful and extremely tasty. It is always thought provoking to me how my favourite dishes since arriving here in Los Angeles wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for widespread migration In the 20th century. The Asian and Latin tastes of Los Angeles are one of the highlights of my experience thus far. These sets of thoughts make me reflect to immigration situations home and how immigration has enriched culture in the United Kingdom. My favourite food at home also comes from the various swathes of immigration, with Indian cuisine being my favourite. It is almost inconceivable nowadays to find a small town without a local Indian restaurant (Narayan, 1995). It makes one question the distaste towards the recent wave of Eastern European immigration into the UK over the past decade. Hard working, culturally and occasionally skilfully rich individuals contributing to the resource pool of the UK. I perceive it to be largely ironic that the same ignorant individuals whom complain about immigrants ‘stealing their jobs’ are the same people that will happily consume immigrants’ traditional dishes on a Friday night. Unfortunately this hypocrisy and ignorance will be something we will most certainly have to contend with for the foreseeable future.

Figure 1. Map of Koreatown, Los Angeles

Part 2 - Classes

My hydrology class is proving to be challenging as I anticipated but it is mostly proving to be resourceful, taking conceptual hydrology further and applying it to practical scenarios. Weekly assignments building on skills taught in class are testing my knowledge of statistics and ability to analyse them. Considerations however are taken further than this to engineering and how to produce the hydrological information that informs engineers planning to build culverts for example. This includes understanding how to use peak streamflow data to predict the chance of certain basins having a 100 or 500 year flood, so engineers and planners can decide whether the levels of risk are significant enough to plan accordingly. Although truthfully I preferred learning about the conceptual side of hydrology it has been important for me to build on my current knowledge of the topic area. My impressions of lectures by Professor Lettenmaier is that he teaches in a similar way to lecturers at UCL, knowledge and skills are less ‘spoon-fed’ and lectures are merely an introduction into a topic area where further reading and practice will aid in skill building and advancing comprehension. I believe this is refreshing and makes learning the topic more mentally stimulating than simply being told to replicate answers and methods taught in class. In addition to this, reading is a lot more fluid, with less emphasis on one textbook and more on practical examples of published work done by other hydrologists.

Political Geography is a well-structured, thoroughly interesting class. Professor Agnew has taught three different theoretical perspectives that are widely used to analyse topical issues. The first of which rose in the 1960s, spatial analysis, utilizing GIS to make inferences about patterns (Agnew, 2012). The other two important discourses are a Political Economic analysis looking at economic/organisational forces to explain patterns and Post Modern, a new analysis which arose in the 1980s through the growth of Critical Geography, led by the likes of Edward Soja (1989). This perspective aims to analyse stories and narratives to pose ways in which actors produce outcomes or patterns (Agnew, 2012). Further explanation of these is out of the scope of this post, however utilization of these perspectives to analyse recent or contemporary conflicts will enable one to differentiate between these perspectives and their different inferences they make. Despite early indications of Agnew critiquing International Relations as a theory, it appears geopolitics will not be looked at in depth in this class. My exposure to political geography and geopolitics in the UK placed emphasis on the study of geopolitics and interstate relations, as opposed to political geography. As I learn more about the two I’m more clearly understanding the differences between them.

My upcoming post will be leading up to midterms, in the meantime the fun, hard work and exploration will continue!

Agnew, J. (2012) Making Political Geography, Maryland: Rowman and Littlfield.

Lee, D.O (2008) ‘Koreatown and Korean Small Firms in Los Angeles: Locating in the Ethnic Neighbourhoods,’ The Professional Geographer, 47, 2, 184-195.

Light, I. and E. Bonacich (1991) Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982,’ Los Angeles: University of California.

Logan, J.R., Alba, R.D. and W. Zhang (2002) ‘Immigrant enclaves and ethnic communities in New York and Los Angeles,’ American Sociological Association, 62, 2, 299-322.

Narayan, U. (1995) ‘Eating cultures: Incorporation, identity and indian food,’ Social Identities: Journal for the study of race, nation and culture, 1, 1, 63-86.

Pulido, L., Sidawi, S. and R.O. Vos (1996) ‘An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Los Angeles,’ Environmental Racism, 17, 5, 419-439.

Waldinger, R. and M. Bozorgmehr (1996) Ethnic Los Angeles, New York: Sage.

Day 119 - Returning: Winter quarter begins

After a thoroughly enjoyable break at home with friends and family in the familiar chill of England, my return to the US has left me feeling tired from jetlag but also excited for the quarter ahead. I’m very much eager to be exposed to Agnew’s take on Political Geography and Geopolitics and also Professor Lettenmaier’s approach to teaching principles of hydrology.

Firstly in this post I’d like to share my results from my first quarter at UCLA. I did amazingly well achieving A’s in all three classes I took, giving me a 4.0 average GPA, the highest average one can possibly achieve. Although it wont hold significance for my degree, I wish to build on my excellent results and keep my average as high as possible as it means a lot to me to thrive and succeed academically. In the three days I have been back in the United States, I have been exposed to the very first meeting of each class I am due to take this quarter. I shall discuss my very early impressions in this blog entry.

My very first class was ‘Spanish 25: Advanced conversation and composition’, the successor to Spanish 5 I took the previous quarter. The high expectations from the teacher were made clear early on. This course has a strong emphasis on Latin American culture, which personally I find very interesting. Linguistically however this will prove to be challenging, as it requires thorough analysis of literature and interpretation of linguistic devices in Spanish. Poems, sociological essays, book extracts, ancient scriptures and art from the likes of Frida Kahlo are the basis of this course. It is likely to develop my Spanish, the main purpose of me choosing this class. It will be interesting if it improves the array of vocabulary that will be useful in business contexts, an important aspect of the language that needs to be mastered for using the language in a graduate job. The UCL CLIE provides an array of Spanish classes that emphasise Latin American culture, but also provide classes that focus on vocabulary specific to certain professions, a very useful aspect which isn’t replicated here at UCLA. It is my intention therefore to improve my language as much as possible using the courses provided here, becoming more culturally aware of Spanish and Latin American historical past before returning to the UK and focussing on a certain profession in which I wish to become engrossed in.

Yesterday, I attended my first classes for political geography and hydrology and some initial observations were taken. Like with political geography classes in the UK a segment of the course focuses on the ‘historical canon’ (Agnew, 2011) analysing the work of important naturalist political geographers such as Halford Mackinder and Ratzel.  The most interesting observation made was the emphasis to which Agnew was lecturing on the political geography of the US, using examples such as the electoral results of 2008 and poverty in Los Angeles as examples to inform the theoretical perspectives (Kousser, 2008). It will be fascinating to see how this class evolves with time and to have insight into how political geography plays a role at the nation, state and local scale in the United States. Furthermore, in his first class he stressed the flaws of International Relations as a theory, with the assumptions that all bounded states are the same and neglecting analysis of power relations being the fundamental flaws, just as he outlined in the important compulsory reading in last years geopolitics class (Agnew, 1994).

As I entered my first hydrology class with Professor Lettenmaier, he stated to the class that we would be his ‘guinnea pigs’. As a newly hired professor at UCLA, thanks to the recommendation made by our own professor at UCL, Professor Taylor. Initial impressions of this class tell me that it is going to be a challenging one, however I believe it is going to be of much more practical use than classes I have taken previously. Rather than emphasise conceptual ideas of hydrology which I already have a good basic knowledge thanks to the 2nd year Hydroclimatology class, this one appears more statistics based and what one does with hydrological data acquired from sources such as the US geological society. This more practical way of teaching hydrology should be really resourceful for my dissertation in which is based fundamentally on secondary hydrological data.

In two weeks time I shall have a better impression of these classes and hopefully a few more interesting observations to analyse between the ways geography is taught in the US and UK.

Agnew, J. (1994). ‘The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory,’ Review of International Political Economy, 1, 1: 53-80.

Agnew, J. (2012) Making Political Geography, Maryland: Rowman and Littlfield.

Kousser, T. (2009) ‘How geopolitics cleaved California’s republicans and united its Democrats’ California Journal of Politics and Policy, 1, 141-73.

Day 98 - Finals

After what feels a while since my last entry, fall quarter has come to a close and I’m now back home in the UK to spend time with family for Christmas break. My final exams, which were all compressed into two intense days, went rather well. They were structured in a very similar way to those tackled in my midterms with an emphasis on short question answers, an assessment technique I believe not to be a good way of testing depth of knowledge and understanding of a topic. I hope to have received my final grades by the publication of my next post. As highlighted in my last blog entry, this post seeks to merely summarise my findings from my first quarter at UCLA. Firstly, it is important to emphasise that thus far It has been a thoroughly enjoyable first few months in the United States, I have made many friends, acquired new skills, seen amazing sights and importantly acquired useful knowledge around the subject that interests me most, geography. I have had mixed feelings towards my experience of geography at UCLA to this point. My experience in Food and Environment has enlightened me to the fact that there are really interesting courses that are being taught here within the geography department, covering areas that are not so well explored at UCL. However, my experiences of physical geography thus far make it evident that department strength in this area is not as strong as UCL. This proved to be bittersweet as although it was partly enjoyable feeling knowledgeable about what was being taught, it was rather frustrating not being able to advance ones knowledge in a topic area which interests me a lot. In terms of Spanish, though initially I found it rather perplexing, in the end I managed to overcome these challenges and feel confident in speaking Spanish fluently. I believe the teaching and assessment methods employed here have enabled me to advance my fluency in the language, one of the main reasons why I wished to study at this establishment.

In terms of Los Angeles as a city, my first impressions are it is a fabulous place, however it is not all what is portrayed in movies and media. Despite the glitz and glamour of more affluent areas, there are areas where poverty, unemployment and amount of homeless is really high, culminating in ‘food deserts’ and the disappearance of investment and capital (Cockrall-King, 2011). High levels of disparities are very evident; the city is not based around an affluent business centre like London per se. I find it a fascinating city that I intend to explore a lot further in my final two quarters here.

Edit: poor Internet connection meant this post didn’t publish when initially intended.

Cockrall-King, J (2011) Food and the City: Urban agriculture and the new food revolution, New York: Prometheus.

Day 77 - Thanksgiving

Since my last blog entry the past two weeks have been rather busy. The big USC vs UCLA American Football game took place in which we won! Enrolment for the next quarter also is now coming to a close. As emphasised in my previous post, I greatly desired to enrol in Hydrology and Political Geography, two modules of which I feel will be a bit more in line with the knowledge I acquired at UCL. Thankfully, I was able to enrol in both classes despite the high demand surrounding them; I can now look forward to starting them after Christmas and developing my knowledge in both subject areas.

In this post I wish to discuss more about Applied Climatology and how it has compared to what I have studied previously in the UK. Despite having high hopes for this course, I feel underwhelmed by the substance of the lectures. Rather than being technical and going into detail about processes in the climate, the class has been structured into 10 rather vague lectures in which do little more than outline climate processes and their interactions with the environment. In my first blog entry I made reference to Chagnon (1995) definition of Applied Climatology with the 3-ringed theory. For me, this was an interesting way to approach the area of climatology and I expected that the class would explore the topic through the lens of Chagnon giving equal emphasis on each aspect of applied climatology. Despite this however, I feel there has been an overemphasis on the ‘inner ring’, which comprises of interpretation and generation of climatic data (Chagnon, 1995). This could be seen as one of the flaws with using the quarterly system instead of the semester system which is hotly debated between students and teachers in the United States, with such little amount of class time, one can barely scratch the surface of the main objectives of the module, something that I believe not even extensive reading could fix. In addition to this, a lot of the reading is based on IPCC workings; the ones that feature in my reader however are out-dated, using the 2001 publication. In terms of differences between what I’ve learnt in the UK and US related to climatology through this module provides no distinctions of interest in terms of perceptions and paradigms. The notable differences are present in how engaging, and stimulating the content taught has been. The science is essentially the same, the IPCC is an intergovernmental body and widely considered of great importance in providing up-to-date data and assessments both in the US and the UK. Yet, I have found that climatology has been much superior and interestingly taught in my experiences at UCL.

As I write this blog entry it is torrentially precipitating outside, a sight that is not often seen in this semi-arid area of California. This proves noteworthy as it provides a momentary break from what has been the worst drought in California’s history (figure 1), or at least since 1895 according to the standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SEPI) for California (NOAA, 2014).

 

FIgure 1. NOAA Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index for California

The subsequent blog post will be in a few weeks as final exams are fast approaching! After this busy period I shall be returning to the UK and providing a summary of my findings.

Changnon, S. A. (1995) ‘Applied climatology: A glorious past, and uncertain future’, American Meteorological Society, 379–393.

NOAA (2014) SPEI California Drought through to October 2014. [WWW.] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/drought/; [Accessed: November 30, 2014]

Day 63 - Midterms and revelations...

After two months of consuming happily the wealth of amazing food offered at the dining halls scattered around campus it appeared to me I needed to start being a lot more careful with what I consume. This thought process was inspired by reading ‘Salt, Sugar and Fat’ (Moss, 2013) a recommended reading for my Food and Environment class. The book explores the politics, science and corporate aspects of modern processed foods and how many deceptions lay underneath the grey areas of food labelling and processes of production. The book makes a vital point that fat cannot be detected by the receptors on the tongue and there is no tangible taste that can be attributed to it (Moss, 2013). In addition to this, Moss highlights that fat stimulates the brain and is widely enjoyed inviting extensive addition of fat to foods in order to preserve, reduce costs yet still satisfy consumers. Upon adjusting my consumption patterns, opting for less fatty foods, I decided to try one of the appealing salads offered by one of the healthier choices of on campus restaurants. I was rather shocked when I saw that my salad of choice contained 74% of my recommended daily intake of fat and 53% of saturated (figure 1). Putting this into perspective, the night before, I consumed deep fried chicken tenders and curly fries, which contained only 51% and 37% respectively (figure 2). This revelation reminded me of some of the key ideas and experiments undertaken in ‘Salt, Sugar and Fat,’ as fat can be hidden into even the most healthiest of foods, and yet still cant be detected through taste. Not only this, but it sparked interest into the perception of healthy foods. I feel that there needs to be a better understanding of what actually constitutes healthy and nutritious food as many people will happily indulge in a salad like the one I was interested in believing it is nutritious, healthy and almost fat free. This interest led me to the work of Marie-Claude Paquette at the University of Quebec, who did a direct study on the perceptions of healthy eating in Canada and highlighted similar issues (Paquette, 2005). These are some of the deeply interesting debates that I’m covering currently in Food and Environment. I feel through this course I have gained a significant understanding of what food constitutes, where it comes from and the scale of politics that is involved from production to consumption. This is a side to geography I have never really come across in the UK, however it is one that is very interesting and relevant in the context of fears over the obesity crisis (Caballero, 2007) and the monopolisation and privatisation of foods by large companies like Monsanto (Hauter, 2012).

Figure 1. Nutritional facts for typical salad

Figure 2. Nutritional facts for fried chicken tenders

The past 3 weeks have been demanding, mid terms have come to their conclusion and attainment of high grades in all modules has left me very pleased. However, I feel that the way these exams are conducted does not permit the presentation of extensive knowledge over the debates of a certain topic area. Structured in the form of multiple choice, definitions and short essays, specific knowledge is expected, however there is no freedom to explore a subject area in depth and illustrate that one has completed in-depth reading. This is the key difference between the exams I have conducted at UCLA so far and those in the past at UCL.

In the approaching weeks, module selection for the upcoming winter quarter will take place. As with this current quarter there is a wide selection of courses available. A module I am particularly excited for is based on hydrology, taught by Professor Lettenmaier, whom I believe is a friend of one of my favourite lecturers Professor Taylor at UCL. Despite being a physical geographer by nature, I thoroughly enjoyed political geography modules taught in my first and second years at UCL. This upcoming quarter offers a class on political geography taught by John Agnew, a distinguished academic that has featured on many of my reading lists at UCL! My favourite work of his is his critique on International Relations with the ‘Territorial Trap’ (Agnew, 1994). Understandably, enrolling in this course will be difficult due to high demand and limited space however I will try my upmost to become enrolled.

In two weeks time I shall update this blog once more on my experiences of Geography at UCLA.

Agnew, J. (1994). ‘The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory,’ Review of International Political Economy, 1, 1: 53-80.

Caballero B (2007). ‘The global epidemic of obesity: An overview,’ Epidemiology Review 29: 1–5.

Hauter, W. (2012) Foodopoly, The News Press: New York.

Moss, M. (2013). Salt, Sugar and Fat, Random House: New York.

Paquette, M-C. (2005) ‘Perceptions of Healthy Eating: State of Knowledge and Research Gaps’, Canadian Journal of Public Health, 96, 3 15-19.

Day 42 - Settling In

Since the last time I updated this blog I have attended a few more lectures for each of my courses and I have been able to get a true grasp on the content covered. Thus far, all of my classes are proving stimulating, in particular ‘Food and Environment’ is proving fascinating. Led by Professor Carney, a distinguished professor whom is proving to be one of my favourite lecturers. Her presentations are incredibly thought provoking and she talks about her topic of interest with amazing enthusiasm and passion.

The content of the first half of this course reminds me very much of what is covered in the historical geographies aspect of my first year at UCL. Carney investigates both through her book ‘Black Rice’ and her lectures the lost geographies of the African slave trade and how the knowledge systems or ‘cultural funds of knowledge’ were essential for the establishment of functioning plantations in the Americas (Carney, 2002). With this she also critiques the well-documented ‘Colombian Exchange’ and how its rather narrow definition fails to include the elaborate movement of slaves across the Atlantic and their knowledge systems (Carney, 2001). Importantly she highlights it wasn’t just the seeds that enabled the transfer of food around the world and their integration into our diets (Carney, 2002). The racist view of the African as useless and just providing labour is rather emphatically nullified with Carney’s work.

With first midterm examinations in two weeks, the academic system here is fast paced; it encourages one to keep on top of work and reading, which I believe is important as it prevents individuals flying under the radar.

In terms of the differences between how geography is practiced in the US and UK, I wouldn’t at this point suggest that the experiences I’ve had in ‘Food and Environment’ have been particularly different to what I have experienced previously in the UK. After mid term examinations however I expect this to change due to the topic of study transitioning to more modern agricultural techniques and issues we face today like providing for a growing population in a world with limited carrying capacity (Langhelle, 2000), and dealing with ethical arguments about biotechnologies.

One aspect that struck me as really interesting occurred last Friday during my Applied Climatology class, the maps my professor decided to use to illustrate the spatial distribution of satellites and remote sensing technology were ‘American centric’. Showing North and South America at the centre of the map.  It will be interesting as I read more academic articles originating from the US whether this is a common occurrence.

Despite the third module I’m enrolled in this term not being related to geography, I think it would be good to highlight some key differences and adjustments I have had to make due to drastic differences in how the subject is studied in the UK. It was important to me to continue studying Spanish and maintain and improve on the fluency that I had built on at UCL. My first few lessons however have been challenging and there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, in the US, Latin American Spanish is what is taught, understandable when one considers its proximity to Latin America, however this means dialects and some grammar is very different to Spanish taught in the UK. Another key difference is the focus of classes away from grammar and onto speaking. In the UK, I was continuously learning new grammar and how to write but not so much how to communicate orally, something that is emphasised a lot here and which I feel will be beneficial.

Overall, since my last blog post there hasn’t ben much more information to report, the notes I am taking every lesson on differences are rather bare! I’m still very pleased with the progress I’m making as a student and person and with the quality of education I am receiving.

Until next time…

Carney, J. A. (2001) ‘African Rice in the Colombian Exchange’, The Journal of African History, 42, 3, 377-396.

Carney, J. A. (2002) Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas, Harvard: University Press.

Langhelle O. (2000) ‘Why ecological modernization and sustainable development should not be conflated,’ Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 2, 4: 303-322.