Review the initial posts of your peers and respond. Compare your reactions to the board with those of your peers. What are the similarities and differences in your reactions? After reading your peers' reactions, have any of your reactions changed? Explain.

There should be some increase in the number of members on this board in order that the many diverse issues that need to be addressed are actually done. There were some diverse responses as to the state of mind of each of the members regarding living in America and what this does for each. In my opinion, each member was actually speaking for their broader community. For example, when Smythe spoke of individual freedoms, she was speaking in terms of religious freedoms. After all, she is an Anglican Bishop. Guzman on the other hand spoke about hard work but added that there will take a little luck in securing success in America. The response to this was given by Jahangiri who stated that there was no need for hard work and that the hard work should suffice in an individuals’ quest to succeed. The exiled novelist only spoke of dignity and safety, something that she was wanting as desperately as she has fled one place to come to America to seek these things. Lastly, there is the African American professor who is adamant that this new land is only a place in order that we can have a decent life that this idea of a heaven only existed in the afterlife. There are other circumstances that prompt some immigrants to come to this country historically as well. For example, Olson and Beal (2010) state that millions of Irish Catholics fled to this country because their homeland experienced the potato famine. So aside from religious and economic reasons, some simply were looking to find a way to survive.

There are some very diverse thoughts concerning the reasons as to why they all feel the way they do about America. To place more diverse members on the board will only give the board more validation and will provide more insight into the needs of each community and assist them with their efforts to achieve the success they so dearly deserve. Not all of the members will have the same needs so it is important to understand the needs of each different group.