Experience and Education
Lorena has developed a very specific vision for how she will use her education to advocate for social justice. She plans to go to medical school after college, and explains her dream perfectly when telling her story: “I have never once thought about wthat kind of house i’ll buy when I’m a doctor, or what kind of car I’m going to drive. It’s not about the money for me. It’s about helping people, especially the farmworkers, who are the ones that need it so much” (Sabrina Needs her Identity Back, 201). To Lorena, she will use her education to impact the farm workers and bring them justice. She later states how she plans to open her own mobile clinic so she can personally go to the camps in places like North Carolina and help the farmworkers there. Sabrina has acted on her values throughout her journey, like going to these camps, holding press conferences to bring awareness, and educating the farmworkers on their working conditions and how to avoid spreading pesticides to others and their families. She does this because she believes she should help in any way that she can, so before she can attend medical school, she uses her education to spread it to others. She also knows that she can use her education as a sense of power to better spread information: “because I don’t have very many tools to defend myself with, I know that knowledge is the only thing I can arm myself with. When you have an MD after your name, very few people are going to tell you no, for anything”(202). She knows that going to school will give her a better platform to spread awareness on social justice issues.
Juan Rodriguez’s story was particularly inspiring because his story is one of many examples as to why the US shouldn’t have such strict and cruel immigration policies. Juan Rodriguez came to the US with his family from Columbia because he was fleeing a dangerous environment. He worked incredibly hard and became valedictorian of his high school, and worked very hard to go to college and pursue his dreams. He was able to attend college and became an important part of his school. While in college, he not only focused on school, but became active with social justice issues on immigration. Rodriguez was able to contribute to this campaign using his personal experience as a background and as inspiration, and he also looked at past individuals who fought for immigrant rights. Rodriguez used this as well as experiences and knowledge from the others he was working with to fight current immigration issues.
Lorena’s story can relate to my mother’s experience in ways such as her starting school in kindergarten not knowing any english, as well as her coming from an immigrant family. The readings for this week remind me of why my grandparents decided to come here, as well as how many of the people’s stories we read are them using their education and personal experiences to fight for social justice issues. I can relate to them in the sense that I also plan to use my education to fight for social justice issues, just like Lorena and Juan are using their education to fight for immigration issues in our country. The current political climate is also very relevant to our readings, and some of the students at my community partner may be greatly affected by the recent DACA repeal, as well as the hate spread by our current administration. Reading stories like Juan’s will help me to gain a better perspective of these student’s lives, because their stories may be very similar.
