Yani Ye's Blog

  After hundreds of thousands of years of slavery in the U.S., our country finally voted to abolish slavery, after thousands of attempts from many citizens. At this time, the government decided to create new amendments to add the constitution, and finally declare the legal blocking to slavery in America. With this, many previous slaves were brought into states of worry and confusion, as being set free would leave the slaves all on their own, with no food, shelter, or general care at all. To help solve this issue, the government and the president at this time, Andrew Johnson, decided to help slaves transition back into freedom, by creating a period called the Reconstruction. The Reconstruction period assisted slaves, and gave them (limited) rights. Following the 13th amendment set earlier on, the 14th and 15th amendment were soon introduced, which allowed all born in the U.S. to be citizens, and allowed all citizens the right to vote.   To this day, this period of reconstructio...

 Recently, I competed for the second time this ice skating season. This time, I competed at the 19th Annual California Championships, located at my home rink, East West Ice Palace. After training and working on my program for a few months, my coaches and I decided it would be a good idea to get an estimate of my scores, and see what I need to improve on for the rest of the season. I would say this competition did not go as planned, but all in all, it was a good learning experience for me.

  Slave Trading from the 1600’s to the 1800’s still has impacts on our lives today, even if we do not want to admit it. A good amount of “habits” and thoughts have stayed the same about slaves and slave trading, the most notable being the invisible social hierarchy of races in our country. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, “In the Americas, a caste system based on race and color emerged…white supremacy and enshrine enslavement as a permanent and hereditary status.” Like stated, during the peak of slavery in the North, most people of color were viewed with very low standards and public status. In some cases, depending on both parties' sides, some of the colors were completely mistreated, being referred to as not even human, and being dehumanized. Unfortunately, though most will not want to admit it, this is still true to this day in some cases. The social hierarchy and overall judgment of those of color is still a huge issue in our country today, even after thousands of yea...

   Recently, in my history class, we have been learning about American travels to the West, and how they impacted America and the citizens as a whole. One of the topics we mainly focused on was the Manifest Destiny, and how moving to the West affected Americans. Simple beliefs about the Manifest Destiny as a topic can not only change the way a person feels towards it, but can slowly shift entire parties of people and their perspective on this topic. For example, if talking about the shift while America was constantly in evolution, the expansion of the Eastern territory not only led to many changes, both positive and negative, but also may have created troubles for already Western citizens. If many people from the East decide to move to the West, this sets up many troubles for overpopulation, and crowding issues.