New Immigration Law

I decided to use my last journal post to write about the new immigration law that was signed into law in the state of Arizona, here is a link to more info - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html . I believe that this immigration law is the wrong thing to do. As soon as this bill was signed into law by Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer, political heavyweights including President Obama voiced their opposition of the bill. I feel that these illegal immigrants haven't done anything wrong, if I was in their situation I would also cross the boarder and try to earn a better living than staying in Mexico. I could not imagine the struggles that illegal immigrants go through already and I do not want them to go through more struggling with the passing of this bill. Arizona is not only hurting themselves they are also hurting the very foundation that this country was founded on, freedom.

Multimedia Essay Presentation

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Artist Statement

This semester I have had the privilege to work with the Vieau Elementary School in Walker’s Point on Milwaukee’s south side. With this multimedia essay we were asked to tell a story using pictures and as few words as possible.
To start the multimedia essay I wanted to talk about the history of Walker’s Point where the elementary school is located. In 1834 George Walker established a fur trading post and later in the 1920s this attracted the first Latin American immigrants to work in tanneries. This industry settled one of Wisconsin’s first Latin-American populations where it is still a very Latin community today.
I then described the city bus ride from the eastside down to the south side and the differences I encountered. I currently live on the east side of Milwaukee where there is a high population of white college students, then going down to the south side where there is a high population of Hispanics and African Americans. The school itself has a 97% Hispanic population giving the area and the school a completely new environment for me coming from a school with over 90% being white.
The school itself is also very different compared to the elementary school that I attended. Like I stated earlier the school has a 97% Hispanic population but more than that, a majority of the children in the school are bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English. I was not exposed to other languages until I was in seventh grade when our school offered different languages. I also had preconceived ideas about the attitude of the children and whether they would listen to me. After the first day working with the kids I knew this semester of service learning would be really fun because the kids would be easy to work with.
For this project I found it really hard to take the “right” picture that I could use to tell a story. I found it difficult because it was hard to include everything that I wanted to include in a picture and get different things in focus to improve the artistic view. Most of the pictures I did take turned out good but the low-light pictures I took did not turn out as well as I wanted to.
I feel incredibly lucky to be able to work with these kids this semester. For this semester I think I will learn a lot not only about myself with how well I can teach/help someone but I will also learn about other cultures.