Stories From the Field
A Student’s Reflection on the MAP
By Roxana De La O Cortez, Impact Academy
MAP Teacher: Joel Key
May 31, 2009
At the World Savvy Jam Session we explored the theme of immigration and identity with our teaching artists by sharing some experiences that our own families had gone through. We all went around and each person said what immigration and identity meant to him or her. I got the chance to look at immigration and identity differently. For our performance at the Jam Session we started off with stories that other students had written about identity and immigration. In between those stories me and two other girls did a step. After that some of the other students did a beat. Our performance had a lot to do with music and dance because everyone agreed that all races share those two things in common. For example you don’t have to be Latin to dance to merengue or salsa, any race can dance to that. Another example is you don’t have to be black to listen to rap or white to be able to listen to rock.
My experience at the Jam Session was great. I got to learn more about other people's opinions and how they felt about immigration and what identity meant to them. I learned that identity is not just about what you look like or your race; it's from the smallest things about who you are today to going back as far as your ancestors.
What I learned about myself is that me being a Latina, the fact that some of my family members immigrated to this country is part of my identity. What I learned about my community is that not only Latin people immigrate to the United States; so do other races. I don’t know why I just always thought it was Latinos that immigrated over here. I learned that other people’s experiences are similar to some of my family’s and friends' experiences.
The World Savvy survey workshop I participated in at Impact Academy was interesting because of what we learned about how we all identify people based just on what they look like. Katina and Nina asked about eight students to volunteer for the activity we did in class. They taped a piece of paper on our backs with different names of races and identities. Each student had to walk around the circle to show everyone who they were according to the label on their back. After that everyone said a stereotype that would first come to their mind about the label each person was wearing. At first I felt that no one was really taking it seriously, but then people started to get offended when it came to their race. I also noticed that most of the stereotypes we came up with were negative, not positive. A lot of the stuff we were coming up with was like name calling that different races made about other races. A lot of people realized how some stuff that we might think is funny could really offend people. Identity is a very strong word. A lot of people identify you by just looking at you. That is not right - we shouldn’t be able to label somebody when we are barely able to identify ourselves.
What I learned about immigration is that a lot of different races immigrate to this country wanting better lives for themselves and their family. I don’t think a lot of people usually see that. Some people leave their country and what they love most, their family, just to work here. They have to go through a lot just so that they can get a chance to work here. I don’t think it's wrong to want better for yourself and/or your family. People should get to know more about immigration and why it is that people will starve or even die on their way to go to a better country.
For our art project, my classmates and I spray painted shirts that had something to do with identity or immigration. We had to write a poem and from that poem we picked a quote that we would spray paint on to our shirts. Our shirts had to do with immigration and identity as well as with teenagers. We were expressing how we felt or what we thought about immigration and identity through the eyes of teenagers. The whole idea of our artwork was to let people see there’s more to us than what you see on the outside. We as teenagers have opinions too and can look at things even better than some adults. My quote on my shirt said, "I’m not an alien I’m ME". My topic was about both immigration and identity. I used “alien” because some people call Mexicans “illegal aliens” and I am not an alien: I am a human as well as any other race out there. I used the word “ME” instead of human because every human is different in their own way. People might have big things in common like their race or the neighborhood they live in, but everyone likes and does different things that make them unique. No one can really identify anyone but himself or herself.
Some of the students from my school went to the MAP festival celebration/exhibition where we had the chance to model a couple of the shirts my classmates had made. I really enjoyed everything that night from when the performances started until when they ended. When the little kids (MAP students from Oakland’s Roots International Middle School) went up there, it was one of the most powerful things I have seen in my life. It was amazing how strong they spoke their opinions and how they memorized everything and knew so much at their age. When I Go went up on stage I believe they made people see things differently about their neighborhood, Oakland. I would like for I Go to come to our school and perform because they as well were very strong.
My experience learning about global issues has been great. I learned a lot and hopefully will continue on learning more. Learning about the world is important because we live here. People should start being more positive about people different from them instead of being negative. For example, people should treat others the way you want to be treated. This has to do with identity because sometimes we treat people differently because of the way they look. We are identifying them on what their skin color looks like, on what they are wearing and by the way they speak. Then, some people start believing what other people think of them and they don’t stay true to themselves. People forget that every race immigrated to the place where they are now. They might have not immigrated, but their ancestors did. Why? For the same reason people immigrate to the United States now: for a better future.
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A Classroom Highlight
Educator Eric Chow is part of the Global Youth Media and Arts Program and he has an exciting vision for his ELL and Journalism students at Burton High School in San Francisco. With the support of World Savvy, Mr. Chow is finding new ways of teaching students to tell their stories and this year has decided to explore the theme of Immigration and Identity through one of his personal interests – comics!
SF Program Associate Katina Papson introduced Eric to Bay Area cartoonist, illustrator and independent art teacher, Betsy Streeter. Betsy generously volunteered to work with Eric, Katina and Burton High School students to learn how to tell these incredible stories of migration through comics.
Katina and Betsy recently visited Mr. Chow's classroom for their first workshop. With Katina and Eric addressing students' emerging global perspectives, and Betsy teaching storytelling and comic making methods, the details of each student's story began to take form. Betsy encouraged students to reflect carefully on specific moments that took place along their migration journey and to record those details.
Memorable details included the movie students watched on the plane to America, or what they were doing when they found out they were leaving their home country – or even what color their suitcase was! Albeit simple, these details helped make the students' stories come alive, both for them and for the viewers of their work. Eric, feeling better prepared to move forward on the MAP project with his students, said, "I wanted to say Thank You again for coming out to Burton yesterday! We really enjoyed the demonstration and talk about how to create a storyboard and use images to tell a story."
Many more thanks to teaching artist Betsy Streeter for her support of World Savvy's Global Youth Media & Arts Program! Through this World Savvy community connection and collaboration with Mrs. Streeter, MAP educator Eric Chow and his students were given the perfect tools for fashioning a creative new exploration of Immigration and Identity. To learn more about Betsy's work, visit www.betsystreeter.com.