On Friday I was able to go out to a play with my Migration, Modernity, and Literacy class. I freaking love this class. The professor is so cool. He's actually created an environment where I feel comfortable speaking, which isn't often ha. We've been discussing what it means to be human, to have rights, and societal pressures. And immigration. I've really been interested by immigration and what it's like to be an immigrant, especially since Sammy's mom immigrated here, along with other relatives of his and all his awesome neighbors that are like family to me now.
So, when the opportunity to go to a play about these very issues came up, I jumped for it. I'm so glad that I went. The play is based on Helen Thorpe's book of the same name. Helen Thorpe just so happens to be the wife of John Hickenlooper. Yeah, go Colorado! Anyways. So, Helen followed around four Latina girls for five years to see what it was like for them transitioning from high school to college. Two of the girls had documents and two of them did not. They ran into so many obstacles and situations that I'd never have thought would have been an issue or could ever happen. Like going to college. I didn't realize, there is no way these people can pay for this. They're pretty much limited to private universities which charge a whoooole lot. They can't apply for federal aid, for school loans, for anything in fear of being deported. Moms went to jail, people died. It was crazy. But the thing was, they did happen. This was those girls lives.
A really interesting moment was when one of the girls was announcing she was pregnant. She'd just graduated from DU. Helen didn't seem very excited for her, and the two of them had a conversation about how there aren't American things and Mexican things and the two cultures forever clash, that we're all people and people are complicated. And that just because she was choosing to have a family didn't mean that she was going back to her Mexican culture and giving up the American one, and what is American anyways?
I really loved the play. Hopefully it'll show around the country and not just here. It was cool though because the entire play takes place in Colorado, so I really connected. I had no idea some of the messed up things people were saying and doing, and the reasons why immigration is so complicated especially now.
There's one thing I really took away from the play. Every person is a person, and every person is complicated. We aren't just good or bad, we're a mixture. People do whatever they need to to survive and try to make a better way for their families, and who are we to judge those people when we ourselves have rights and things at our fingertips they couldn't even dream of having, and still don't have even if they risk their lives to get here.
I'm so thankful that we have art and plays like this, that are able to open your eyes in such moving ways that reading an article can't.
So, when the opportunity to go to a play about these very issues came up, I jumped for it. I'm so glad that I went. The play is based on Helen Thorpe's book of the same name. Helen Thorpe just so happens to be the wife of John Hickenlooper. Yeah, go Colorado! Anyways. So, Helen followed around four Latina girls for five years to see what it was like for them transitioning from high school to college. Two of the girls had documents and two of them did not. They ran into so many obstacles and situations that I'd never have thought would have been an issue or could ever happen. Like going to college. I didn't realize, there is no way these people can pay for this. They're pretty much limited to private universities which charge a whoooole lot. They can't apply for federal aid, for school loans, for anything in fear of being deported. Moms went to jail, people died. It was crazy. But the thing was, they did happen. This was those girls lives.
A really interesting moment was when one of the girls was announcing she was pregnant. She'd just graduated from DU. Helen didn't seem very excited for her, and the two of them had a conversation about how there aren't American things and Mexican things and the two cultures forever clash, that we're all people and people are complicated. And that just because she was choosing to have a family didn't mean that she was going back to her Mexican culture and giving up the American one, and what is American anyways?
I really loved the play. Hopefully it'll show around the country and not just here. It was cool though because the entire play takes place in Colorado, so I really connected. I had no idea some of the messed up things people were saying and doing, and the reasons why immigration is so complicated especially now.
There's one thing I really took away from the play. Every person is a person, and every person is complicated. We aren't just good or bad, we're a mixture. People do whatever they need to to survive and try to make a better way for their families, and who are we to judge those people when we ourselves have rights and things at our fingertips they couldn't even dream of having, and still don't have even if they risk their lives to get here.
I'm so thankful that we have art and plays like this, that are able to open your eyes in such moving ways that reading an article can't.
I think the culture thing you're talking about in this play is really interesting. I took a class last year, I think, called Psychology of Group Prejudice. If you need a multicultural credit still, I recommend it. It was super interesting. But Intro to Psych might be a prereq. Anyway, we talked a lot about what it means to be American and about minority groups and how they view their culture vs how Americans view their culture. It was really fascinating to see how I fit into the mix, and why the view I had (which I thought was a lovely view and very equality-oriented) was actually part of the problem. It was really interesting.
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