MARISOL SILVA'S DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
To what extent did I choose an issue that I genuinely care about?
I chose a topic that I genuinely care about because I am able to relate to it to some extent. I know and have a few family members that are migrants themselves and I was so interested in the struggles they go through everyday. The stories they have are so inspiring to me because they keep on going no matter how harsh the conditions get, they do it for their families. I noticed how different the Mexican culture is compared to the culture in the United States. A lot of people here are self centered and are money obsessed. Mexicans on the other hand are very family oriented. Once they migrate to America, family is all that they have in mind. They work really hard for them but they face so much discrimination and are treated unjustly. Now a days, they live in fear because the political atmosphere has been harsh on migration policies. I wanted to dig deeper into this topic and learn more about the history of migration to see how these policies formed. Not much justice has been served for how migrants are being treated, many citizens are at fault for violating their human rights.
How does my proposal align with my own strengths, interests, especially in light of what I’m thinking about doing for my action project for Senior Project?
My proposal aligns with what I want to do with senior project. I feel like not many people are aware with the issues that are going on with human rights being violated especially here in America. There hasn’t been much of it here because of white privilege. They have created an atmosphere that feels like they are the only ones that matter and as long as they are not affected, everything's ok. Once migrants are forced out of the country, they will be affected because no one will want to fill in the exhausting jobs migrants take. For senior project, I would like to make a documentary that shows what those jobs are like and how discrimination has an effect on their mental health. This issue needs to be exposed to the public so changes can be made.
What did I learn from this process that will help me with my senior project?
This project helped me improve me research skills. Once I found a piece of information, I would look at another source to confirm the credibility. I had to apply this skill when it came to historical events. Not all of the sources I used were from super reliable sites so double checking that the facts are right is something that I would like to practice for senior project. Going off of this, I think that having a balance between academic sources and non-academic sources helped with getting down the information but also connecting it back with something that one can relate to and understand. Having a reliable source strengthens your research but it doesn’t help the reader connect is it's just a bunch of facts and data. This project also helped me develop critical thinking skills. When I was coming up with a proposal, I wanted to come up with something that was realistic and impactful. Justice needs to be served and migrants should have the right to obtain that without being at risk of being sent back to their home land.
What was the most valuable/informative/interesting part of this assignment?
The most informative part for me was listening to the Throughline podcast about the border. It went through the history and I was amazed to see how policies against migrants accelerated to become the harsh environment it is today. I didn’t know that there was a program that invited Mexicans temporarily to work in mostly agriculture. This makes me wonder why presidents want to get rid of all migrants and immigrants when they are the building blocks of our economy. They take on rigorous jobs that many Americans wouldn’t take. Ever since I was little, I had no interest in politics or what the presidents were doing. It wasn’t until this year (2019) that I saw the big effects that President Trump was making on undocumented people. The podcast talked about what events went on in the world that caused migration and the policies and effects president Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump made to the United States.
What could it is one thing I could have done to improve this project the most?
I could have improved this project by looking more into how a migrants mental health is affected by discrimination and the challenged they face day to day. I did touch a bit on this but I would have liked to emphasize that more in my project. I think that this project would have been a bit more impactful if I had real life stories of migrants that talk about injustices they see are happening to them and how it affects their emotions. This is something that I would like to include in my senior project.
I chose a topic that I genuinely care about because I am able to relate to it to some extent. I know and have a few family members that are migrants themselves and I was so interested in the struggles they go through everyday. The stories they have are so inspiring to me because they keep on going no matter how harsh the conditions get, they do it for their families. I noticed how different the Mexican culture is compared to the culture in the United States. A lot of people here are self centered and are money obsessed. Mexicans on the other hand are very family oriented. Once they migrate to America, family is all that they have in mind. They work really hard for them but they face so much discrimination and are treated unjustly. Now a days, they live in fear because the political atmosphere has been harsh on migration policies. I wanted to dig deeper into this topic and learn more about the history of migration to see how these policies formed. Not much justice has been served for how migrants are being treated, many citizens are at fault for violating their human rights.
How does my proposal align with my own strengths, interests, especially in light of what I’m thinking about doing for my action project for Senior Project?
My proposal aligns with what I want to do with senior project. I feel like not many people are aware with the issues that are going on with human rights being violated especially here in America. There hasn’t been much of it here because of white privilege. They have created an atmosphere that feels like they are the only ones that matter and as long as they are not affected, everything's ok. Once migrants are forced out of the country, they will be affected because no one will want to fill in the exhausting jobs migrants take. For senior project, I would like to make a documentary that shows what those jobs are like and how discrimination has an effect on their mental health. This issue needs to be exposed to the public so changes can be made.
What did I learn from this process that will help me with my senior project?
This project helped me improve me research skills. Once I found a piece of information, I would look at another source to confirm the credibility. I had to apply this skill when it came to historical events. Not all of the sources I used were from super reliable sites so double checking that the facts are right is something that I would like to practice for senior project. Going off of this, I think that having a balance between academic sources and non-academic sources helped with getting down the information but also connecting it back with something that one can relate to and understand. Having a reliable source strengthens your research but it doesn’t help the reader connect is it's just a bunch of facts and data. This project also helped me develop critical thinking skills. When I was coming up with a proposal, I wanted to come up with something that was realistic and impactful. Justice needs to be served and migrants should have the right to obtain that without being at risk of being sent back to their home land.
What was the most valuable/informative/interesting part of this assignment?
The most informative part for me was listening to the Throughline podcast about the border. It went through the history and I was amazed to see how policies against migrants accelerated to become the harsh environment it is today. I didn’t know that there was a program that invited Mexicans temporarily to work in mostly agriculture. This makes me wonder why presidents want to get rid of all migrants and immigrants when they are the building blocks of our economy. They take on rigorous jobs that many Americans wouldn’t take. Ever since I was little, I had no interest in politics or what the presidents were doing. It wasn’t until this year (2019) that I saw the big effects that President Trump was making on undocumented people. The podcast talked about what events went on in the world that caused migration and the policies and effects president Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump made to the United States.
What could it is one thing I could have done to improve this project the most?
I could have improved this project by looking more into how a migrants mental health is affected by discrimination and the challenged they face day to day. I did touch a bit on this but I would have liked to emphasize that more in my project. I think that this project would have been a bit more impactful if I had real life stories of migrants that talk about injustices they see are happening to them and how it affects their emotions. This is something that I would like to include in my senior project.