[Jayson Tirado]

A society is a group of people who live together in a certain region, who share customs,  laws, and organizations. Sociology is the study of said groups and how the social relationships within them help shape human behavior, and how those relationships change over time.

In my society I am a father, one of my main priorities is raising my child in such a way where he doesn’t have to live through the hardships I have. I work as a bartender in a local restaurant because even though you can make more money in bigger places I feel corporate jobs take away from providing your neighborhood with financial resources that can go back into the community. This job makes me feel grounded in my neighborhood, it gives me pride to be that friendly face people genuinely come to see.  Some people such as my co-workers see me as a leader. I help guide them and teach them how to work together cohesively so together we can provide the best service we can. My neighbors see me as a staple of my community. I attend many community board meetings and I am very involved in trying to keep my community the way it is and avoid it being gentrified.

Society and the communities I’ve lived in have shaped me in various ways. I’ve grown up in many low income neighborhoods of New York growing up so I’ve seen first hand how financial neglect toward communities can affect living situations, education, and social behavior . My High School, for example, was poorly funded which led to a high dropout rate and me and many of my friends were part of that statistics and dropped out before graduation . The media portrays neighborhoods similar to the ones I grew up in as deviant which led to a higher police presence . This in turn leads into a cycle where people were stereotyped and discriminated against because of the neighborhood they were associated with . I’ve experienced many of these examples firsthand.

This is a main reason why I’m a big advocate of community, with the way the media portrays certain neighborhoods as poor or of being an unsustainable income level some people tend to believe that creating big corporate structures to help create jobs will turn them around, when in fact it’s these same corporate structures that ruin communities .They drive out local businesses, they remove the personal aspect of it .It’s these personal aspects that help shape who we are in our society.

Society shapes who we are through the experiences we have in them and the roles that we play. For example, dropping out of high school at such a young age led me to start working sooner than I would have. Which made me see the value of an education and how it is a necessity in furthering one’s career. In turn helping me give back to my community and providing guidance for the youth to avoid the struggles I went through.

In conclusion society is structured in a way where communities and the cultures in them help shape an individual into who they are. While some societies are not perfect it is up to that individual to help maintain that society so future generations can in turn do the same and try to better it.

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