Being Human
When Lorena speaks of “My Job as a Human Being”, she speaks about her purpose in life. Which means that to her, her job is to help and educate others. This quote is a good example of why she feels that this is her job, “I’ve always reminded myself that the only reason why I’m in school and I have a good job is because my parents did backbreaking labor so that I could go to school.” In her internship she does this “job” by contributing to others and gaining an experience at both ends. These two quotes emphasize her experience. “So the organization I worked with helps farmworkers. They knew where to send you if you had legal trouble, if your boss was being bad to you, or if you needed food. We did food drives, too, distributing food baskets to farmworking families.”“It was really eye-opening, because a lot of these families, they didn’t even know what pesticides were.”
Lorena values the roll of college because she can take advantage of her opportunities compared to what her parents had before. Her parents never had the same opportunities as her so she feels the need to utilize it and get an education to make a difference and help others around her. “My experience at the internship opened my eyes to a lot of injustice that I didn’t want to know about before.”
In the beginning of the chapter there were multiple quotes from people who experienced problems because they were immigrants. “In Georgia, they confronted the Ku Klux Klan and dared a racist sheriff to arrest them. In town after town, they were joined by undocumented immigrants who “came out” and marched alongside them, revealing the depth and breadth of the immigrant community.” “That campaign really radicalized me because it was the first time that our organization ordered ‘Undocumented’ shirts to be able to conquer the fear that we had been living in.” “I don’t care if I survive or not,” shot back Rodriguez. Our people are disappearing. How many more until we’ve had enough? If there’s any sacrifice I can make to keep from losing any more people, I’ll do it.” With each different experience they learned to stand up for what’s right and speak up.
I believe everyone in class can strongly relate to this reading and what has happening this past week with DACA. And because we all can strongly relate our perceptions have shifted.
