Post a video, article, poem, visual, podcast, original art (drawings, photographs, poems, etc.) that relates to the readings and conversation from Monday’s reading assignments.
Part 1: You Post. By 1pm MST on that Wednesday 3/3, write a post where you include your chosen rhetorical act (video, article, etc.) with a brief summary (1 paragraph, 3-4 sentences). Then write 1-2 paragraphs about why this rhetorical act made you “wind it back” and reflect deeper on the conversation from Monday. What did the act remind you of from our conversation? How did seeing this rhetorical act help you understand the content and/or context more? How does the piece relate (or not relate) to your personal experiences? What questions came up for you that you want to continue dialogically talking about? You can post anytime after our Monday class, but please do not wait until Wednesday morning to post Part 1. That is when it’s due, but try to turn this in while Monday’s class is still fresh.
Part 2: You Respond to 2 Other Posts. Take a moment and respond to two rhetorical acts by Friday 3/12. In your response, use dialogue as a way to engage with what your peers wrote by writing a 1-2 paragraph response of how their rhetorical act (and your classmate’s response to it) made you think about the topic differently. You can also share how this rhetorical act impacted you personally, and/or how themes mentioned relate to your personal lived experiences.
Other post 1:
Link: https://www.wuwm.com/post/living-undocumented-wisconsin-mothers-story#stream/0 (链接到外部网站。)
For my WIBW post, I decided to do more research into the illegal immigrant status in Wisconsin. I dug into a three-piece documentary WUWM did about living undocumented in Wisconsin. The section I linked above is a story about Monica Ayala Gonzalez, her husband, and son Daniel. She shares about her and her husband’s experience getting across the border, working for two years straight to earn enough money to get their son Daniel across the board, and the struggles with being an illegal immigrant but compares them to being in Mexico.
The part that really drew me into this documentary was when Monica was talking to her sister. Her sister was saying how she regrets not trying to make it to the United States but Monica responds “you do not imagine what is the United States,”. The United States for a long time has had this “ideal” imagine. But Monica is right, it’s not as cracked up as it uses to be or looks like to the outside world. Another aspect of this story that was interesting was her son’s Daniels process. It’s hard to believe how much the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has control over his life.
Questions:
What has been you’re experienced with DACA?
I learned that over 86,000 illegal immigrants live in Wisconsin, are you aware of that knowledge in your state?
Other post 2:
This article from the American Bar Association describes the intersection of immigration policy and racial prejudice, specifically towards immigrants of African descent. In examining this topic, the author aims to demonstrate “how the law can amplify social norms and create a system that perpetuates tiered personhood—and how permitting discriminatory anti-immigrant laws and policies reinforces dangerous and divisive systems of oppression.”
For this week’s WIBW, in reflecting on our discussion from Monday, I thought about our family friends who live with us, Ruth and Julianne. They are economic refugees that fled South Africa in the wake of Apartheid and the ensuing financial crisis. They have lived in the US for years with green cards, however were finally able to obtain citizenship this past fall. In thinking about our conversations, I was reminded of them, and the intersection of race and immigration issues. They are both white women, and although their immigration process was not easy, they didn’t experience the level of prejudice faced by many. I can’t help but wonder if their identity as white South African’s helped them obtain documentation to stay, or at the very least diminished their risk of deportation comparatively to non-white African immigrants. This lead me to an article published by the American Bar Association titled, Immigration and Blackness: What’s Race Got to Do With It?.
I particularly enjoyed this piece because of the way it defined the issue, provided a history of the intersection of race and immigration policy, and then a comprehensive history of legal proceedings on this issue which occurred during the Trump administration. One quote from the author states, “Immigration laws have operated in a manner to maintain homogeneity to the exclusion of immigrants of color. Immigration laws throughout America’s history have traditionally utilized fear and exclusion to define what America should look like and have privileged some immigrant’s over others.” I loved the way this piece framed the topic, and by providing a multitude of examples of racial prejudice in immigration policy, it is clear to see how extensive this problem is. The ways in which our immigration system prioritizes white immigrants over immigrants of color is detrimental not only on an individual level to those involved, but to the progress of the ongoing civil rights movement at large. From this, one dialogic question I wanted to pose from was to: describe one way in which you have witnessed the American immigration system upholding and perpetuating racial prejudice.
