This was the first time that I ever got to play with clay in this manner. However, the white/ Asian participants seemed to have a better grasp of the material and how to use it. Perhaps a function of socioeconomic status/ exposure to dominant culture values, these students were able to successful sculpt what they wanted to form out of the clay. While my friend and I alike (among other black/Hispanic individuals that I noticed) were having a harder time a) determining what they wanted to make and b) molding the clay into something “neat and perfect”.

There was a family there – a mother, a father, and a young boy that the father and mother took turns going around and showing the boy examples of the different sculptures that everyone was making. The parents praised the sculptures that were being done by other white/ Asian participants because, to be honest, they were a lot neater and more pronounced – they also exhibited things that dominant culture(s) value, such as head sculptures and bowls.

I’m not saying that all art pieces should be praised, but given perspective, ‘we’ didn’t have the cultural capital – the art classes from elementary/secondary schools, from private tutors, from museums, from our parents – to create something worthy of the gaze of the young.