WRITING Transformations
It has been fascinating and surprising to see the progress I've been able to make in my writing. English is my second language. Learning it has been a very long and painful journey, almost like walking on a bed of hot coals. You know it's going to hurt, and you'll probably be scared for the rest of your life, but you do it anyway because you've seen people do it before and it's the only way to make progress.
That journey started when I decided to repeat fifth grade to better my English and was humiliated at the time because of it. My whole classroom, including the teacher at times, used to laugh at me. It was mainly because I used to get called out to read, and my accent made it obvious that English wasn't my first language. I've had to correct my essays that have been marked bloody with red ink due to spelling mistakes and my not knowing how to properly write out lengthy paragraphs.
However, even after all the childhood pain, I'm still here. In high school, I had a love/hate relationship with grammar and citations, but when I started college and had no clue how to accurately cite references following the MLA format, I realized that was all child's play.
Below, I have posted two of my own research papers. The first one was written my sophomore year for Prof. Miller's class. This paper describes the events of a student massacre that happened in Mexico City. In it, I was able to correctly cite my sources, but they were very minimal and the narrative of my paper leaves a lot to be desired. Also, there are more quotes than actual analysis and research. It was very difficult for me back then to find the correct words in English that truly conveyed what I wanted to say. It is a good example of how my earlier work was shaping my skills at writing overall.
My senior thesis, with no doubt, shows how much I've improved my writing. By my senior year I had already been given the tools for citing and how to create a better overall academic paper. It was still intimidating because I had not written such a lengthy and developed academic paper before. I doubted myself a lot and even lost count of how many times I visited Prof. Vogele in his office to complain about how stuck I was. I spent weeks collecting books of all sorts and actually creating detailed outlines in order to put the pieces of my paper together. Luckily, I was able to finish my thesis on time and proved to myself that I can be a great researcher and scholar. I'm happy that my thesis is not as biased as my sophomore research paper and that I was able to add other points of view from history and sociology to prove my points.
Pine Manor has helped me not only learn how to cite my sources but also over time have helped me learn to be confident in my work and own my voice as a writer. Thanks to this I have been able to benefit from who I am and my voice. I successfully used the scholarships I won in order to learn how to write grants, which as a result helped me directly contribute more to the work I love doing.
That journey started when I decided to repeat fifth grade to better my English and was humiliated at the time because of it. My whole classroom, including the teacher at times, used to laugh at me. It was mainly because I used to get called out to read, and my accent made it obvious that English wasn't my first language. I've had to correct my essays that have been marked bloody with red ink due to spelling mistakes and my not knowing how to properly write out lengthy paragraphs.
However, even after all the childhood pain, I'm still here. In high school, I had a love/hate relationship with grammar and citations, but when I started college and had no clue how to accurately cite references following the MLA format, I realized that was all child's play.
Below, I have posted two of my own research papers. The first one was written my sophomore year for Prof. Miller's class. This paper describes the events of a student massacre that happened in Mexico City. In it, I was able to correctly cite my sources, but they were very minimal and the narrative of my paper leaves a lot to be desired. Also, there are more quotes than actual analysis and research. It was very difficult for me back then to find the correct words in English that truly conveyed what I wanted to say. It is a good example of how my earlier work was shaping my skills at writing overall.
My senior thesis, with no doubt, shows how much I've improved my writing. By my senior year I had already been given the tools for citing and how to create a better overall academic paper. It was still intimidating because I had not written such a lengthy and developed academic paper before. I doubted myself a lot and even lost count of how many times I visited Prof. Vogele in his office to complain about how stuck I was. I spent weeks collecting books of all sorts and actually creating detailed outlines in order to put the pieces of my paper together. Luckily, I was able to finish my thesis on time and proved to myself that I can be a great researcher and scholar. I'm happy that my thesis is not as biased as my sophomore research paper and that I was able to add other points of view from history and sociology to prove my points.
Pine Manor has helped me not only learn how to cite my sources but also over time have helped me learn to be confident in my work and own my voice as a writer. Thanks to this I have been able to benefit from who I am and my voice. I successfully used the scholarships I won in order to learn how to write grants, which as a result helped me directly contribute more to the work I love doing.
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Oral Communication: InterviewsDue to the frustration and the fear of having my parents face deportation, my mom, dad, younger brother and I decided to return to Mexico on June 12, 2012, just three days before Obama announced his Deferred Action program. Very soon afterwards, Mexico turned into a nightmare. It changed from a place where I believed I could attend a good university and pursue my dreams into a hostile place where I constantly had to watch my back in fear of getting robbed or a victim of sexual assault, in addition to having no time or money to attend school.
Luckily, the opportunity of becoming a member of the Dream 9 opened up and I took it without thinking twice. I decided to take the risk of being put in a detention center for a minimum of 6 months, not only because of my deep desperation to come back home to the United States, but to also expose how the broken immigration system affects people in both the United States and Mexico. Ultimately we need to create a new path for other people who, like myself, want to return home but have no other option than to risk their lives crossing the desert. Knowing we would be detained, the nine of us marched across the border on July 22nd, 2013 in Nogales, AZ. We presented ourselves to immigration authorities and ask to be allowed into the country. I was arrested and spent seventeen days in Eloy Detention Center. While we were detained, we rallied the women of Eloy. Lulú, another undocumented student, and I created a demonstration inside the cafeteria to provide the women with us with the support of an attorney and the strength that they needed in order to start standing up to the guards who had been humiliating them all this time. It cost Lulú and myself a week in solitary confinement, but I don't regret a single thing that I did that afternoon. Throughout the 17 days of detention, my amazing community organized on the outside to get us, the DREAM 9, released. On August 7th 2013, everyone's hard work paid off, and the nine of us were released. Now, I feel lucky to have this second opportunity to pick up where I left off. In my last semester as a senior in 2015, I had the honor of being a guest speaker in the NPR segment Latino USA hosted by Maria Hinojosa, a respected journalist who focuses exclusively on Latinos and issues we face as a whole in the US among other related things. You can listen to the interview below, evidence of my development in oral communication. The experience of being interviewed for NPR made me excited but uneasy. The thought of the interview happening first excited me but then as the interview date slowly approached, I got anxious. As some may listen to the actual broadcast, they may notice it was a very sensitive and difficult topic for me to speak about. By the end of the session, I was emotionally drained and exhausted. The toll of all the stress that comes when I tell my story is never fun to repeat because the feelings never really dissipate. It’s never easy returning to that state of mind to discuss what I’ve experienced and seen, but it’s the right step for me to continue healing and to spread my story to reach others in letting them know they are not alone. |
Grants
First LOI |
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Women Encouraging Empowerment is a very small nonprofit that I began interning for on March of 2015. Working with WEE has given me the opportunity to better my interpersonal skills by learning how to work and collaborate with Revere residents. Due to it's small size, I was the only staff until, April of 2016, the organization hired a new Executive Director. This gave me the opportunity to completely immerse myself in the nonprofit world and learn what is needed in order to keep an organization running.
With the support of the founder, Fatou, we spent months looking for grants and making sure our mission matched with each granting institution's funding priorities -- and that we did not miss a single deadline, since some organizations require different forms. This was also the first time I learned what a "letter of interest" or LOI meant and how it needs to be drafted. |
Grantee Progress Report |
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Aside from my community organizing and grant writing, I've also had to stay in touch with funders by frequently updating them on how we are implementing the money given to us to help the community, and present our month to month activities.
I had to also be prepared for site visits and have a clear vision of how to manage my time, set up goals in order to stay on track and submit progress reports that vividly illustrated our hard work and development. I've learned that the smaller the goals, the more realistic and doable they become. I've also realized the hard way, that organizing takes a lot of time and patience. People are hesitant to change, whether it's good or bad. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to learn what I love through my job. I know it's difficult to find work in my field of study, and I feel honored my work is located in the city that saw me grow up. |
Visual Communication
Research and essays play a structural role in the life of a college student, but it's highly important to not forget about the arts. Art helps us express our true feelings without having to give excuses. Anything from ballet to improvisational theater, to silk printing can be a different outlet you can use to find yourself and learn how to relieve some stress.
One piece of art I created for my printing class is a poster with my silhouette based on a photo that was taken when I was in prison, with my Alien Number next to it and a banner that says "Deport Me." I created the print by carving it from plastic blocks. I chose an image that made me feel strong and angry every time I thought about it in order to feel motivated to keep carving more. I used both nonverbal and verbal language. The look in my face is very serene, while everything else is in very bright patriotic colors. To me, the print I made represents a dare -- a dare to a system that profits from dividing families and detaining mothers and fathers like they are convicted mass murders.We are not afraid anymore. We are angry, and we are willing to fight to be reunited with our families. This project motivated me to take better care of myself. I had accomplished bringing my family back from Mexico safely, and at the same time my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms and anxiety were becoming more frequent. Creating this piece was a way to self-reflect and vent my frustration in a healthy manner. Now, that I've learned how much I enjoy expressing myself this way, I tend to paint more when I get really stressed. |