We have one more release day; it's so sad... This means that senior project is ALMOST DONE! Woohoo! All that's left is writing the speech and presenting our projects to the board. Throughout this project, I have worked with many great people. The most valuable thing I have learned from this experience is listening to these people. Of course, I always try to listen; however, Maggie and Christian had some good stories and suggestions that enabled me to learn about immigrant education. This area is something that I had little experience in and is definitely a WIDE subject area. Writing my paper on the DREAM Act and conducting my project at the BLC helped me to understand the issue in the US much better. Through the DREAM Act, I looked at immigrant education through policy eyes. Through interviewing undocumented immigrants, reading books, and volunteering at the BLC, I learned the lives of these immigrants, documented or undocumented, and of their journey in education.
A skill that I have learned from this project is to apply what they give you for project in school to real life. Volunteering at the center, I was given instructions and then told to do what I felt best with that generic outline. Of course, Maggie would give suggestions, but I was really on my own and using my own judgment to create systems that I felt would benefit the students best. (I used this in organizing the library, the school supply boxes, and writing the manuals.) I became more and more comfortable in trusting myself and making suggestions along with Maggie and Christian as my logged hours increased, and I really feel like that is a valuable skill that I will take with me in every situation.
Throughout this entire experience, I have learned to look at US policy and even everyday experiences through different eyes - through immigrant eyes, maybe even through an undocumented immigrant's eyes. It is hard. It breaks my heart, but mostly, it makes me what to do something about it and be a friend in a country that has some harsh racism still imminent. The experience that sparked my interest in immigrant education was working with my two, assigned children from Mexico over the summer. Hearing their stories and working through that experience, language, and learning barrier to tutor them and get them to trust me was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. It was through this that I realized I could love easier and quicker and pour myself into something that I realized was bigger than me; I grew. This project has only cultivated that more. Now, I feel more knowledgeable of the issue and feel that I have a basis for where to target activism and volunteering.
After all, we are all people of this one world, and we must be there for one another; what would this world be without our brothers and sisters by our sides - through everything?
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