Outside Reading Blog #4

I am still not finished with the novel, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. For this blog I read pages 120 to 150. It was about Jewish immigrants during the early 1900's. It talked about how when and where you were affected your success. For the jewish immigrants coming from Europe to America, living in New York would bring them great success. Having knowledge of clothes making from their homeland, they used their skill to become successful clothes sellers. Selling clothes was just being explored at the turn of the 19th century and that was the best time to get involved. Jewish immigrants had experience and knowledge needed at the time giving them a head start in the eary industry. Back then, most people didn't buy pre-clothes, they bought their own cloth and they then made their own clothes. Jewish people changed that by selling clothes on the side streets of New York. It marked the birth of the clothes industry. Since they were in New York, Jewish Immigrants, and it was the end of the 19th century, they were going to be successful. Thats how Gladwell show how who when and where tie into success.

I wanted to see another "success" story that I could seem to see if that worked for and it turns out the easiest one I could think of was the Z Boys of the 1970's in southern California. They started a new type of skateboarding and the reasons why are shown now. They were surfers, so they new how to control boards and they got ideas from surfing that they tried on skateboards. They lived in California, a place with hot climate which meant alot of backyard pools. They had access to pools so that they could try their new styles and tricks. So who is Z Boys, where is southern California, and when is the 1970's. In the 1970's skateboarding was just starting to be explored. HMMM!?! This makes me think when the jewish immigrants were successful in the clothing industry is when that was just starting to be explored. This looks like a pattern. Anyways, since skateboarding was just starting to be looked at and people were just starting to expirament with new tricks and be creative anybody could make something. If the Z boys lived now they would just be skateboarders and nothing special but they live when skateboarding was just a blank peice of paper and new ideas were easy to make yours. So that is why the Z boys were successful and it shows that success is not based on personal merit but everything else surrounding you. It is actually the opposite of what society sees, when someone is successful they were smart and new what to do. Maybe they did but if they weren't where they were, when they were there, then maybe success would have never reached their grasp.

-Jason