Week 1- Who is Mike Young?

That's a very good question, thanks for asking. My name is Mike Young and I spent most of my youth in Southern California. My own identity perplexed me as I grew up. My father is American of mixed European descent and my mother came to the US from El Salvador at age 17. I was born in Ensenada, Mexico, spent two and a half years in Puerto Rico when I was five years old, was blond with fair skin until I was about three years old, and English was the main language spoken at home. As difficult as that mental map is to follow it was equally difficult to identify with as a young child. So, this lead to my questioning of identity as a concept growing up.

Understanding and appreciating diversity are what guided me in the direction of Anthropology and Human Resource Management. These were the disciplines I double majored in while at California State University Long Beach. After spending time abroad in Latin America doing volunteer work with my wife I sought out schools that matched my interests and University of South Carolina was a great match. I want to be able to continually make contributions towards positive social change and feel that focusing on Cultural Anthropology with an environmental focus will have the greatest lasting impact. Technology and media arts are vital tools to empowering and connecting people around the world and I would like to sharpen my skills through this class to best put these skills to use. I also understand how important visual components to documentation are to creating histories and drawing in diverse audiences.