Current Spring Break Plans

This week spring break begins

I am honestly really glad for this spring break week. This past quarter has been stressful to say the least, and I definitly need some time to relax. During this week, I will be busy though, because I am going to see my prospective colleges I may commit too. It has been challenging to figure out where to go, because of my broad range of interests. From an academic perspective, I have taken multiple STEM oriented and humanities oriented courses, and have done decently in both. Therefore, it can be difficult to pick a university, based on what they specialize in. Therefore, I wanted to get a first- hand experience at the university and understand the curriculum of some of my intended majors, in order to make the best decision about my future. In terms of the media studies project, I will not be able to work on it as often as usual. I am hoping to find time to finish up our script and start recording during this time. I really hope I can do it. 

Reflection on Interview #3

 I also interviewed another person a couple of days ago

She is a good friend of mine, and has participated in one of our previous class documentary projects. I had asked her a couple of weeks ago if she wanted to do this, and she was happy to do it. After completing two interviews, I felt comfortable with our prepared questions, and knew they were constructed well. As the interview went on, some of the answers she brought up were extremely relatable to my multi- cultural experience. She brought up experiences that were relevant in my life, which made the interview so meaningful and impactful. As recommended by a peer in our group meetings, I had asked her to bring a prized possession to our Zoom call, and explain the sentiments behind it, if she felt comfortable. The object that she had brought was something special to her, and influenced her success in many standardized tests and exams. I also carry a similar object like that, that brings me confidence and strength in important events in my life. It was so interesting to see how similar the application of our cultural heritage could be, and how it has dictated our lives thus far. Overall, the interview went well, and I gained a lot of knowledge and understanding about culture in that time. 

I will be going over the footage, and picking parts that we want to include. Colin and I are working to get these interviews done, in order to start formulating and recording the other two parts of our project. 

We interviewed more people today!

 We interviewed more people today!

Colin and I interviewed our friend Chelsea, who is also in our Media Studies class. She has a unique cultural heritage, and has a developed sense of her identity. When presenting her with this opportunity, she was very willing to do it. Colin was in- person interviewing her, as I was recording from another angle through Zoom. We had sent her the questions beforehand, so she would be prepared during the interview. She was very prepared, and had thorough answers to all the questions we had. The experience of interviewing her gave us another validation that our questions were correctly worded. Also, we were happy with the result of our questions, and did not make too many changes to its wording. We were thinking about asking her to explain one of her prized possession, but we decided not to because she answered all the questions very well. We were both really happy with the result, and cannot wait to see how our various interviews work in our final product. 

Group Meetings

 We had our second group meeting recently

In this meeting, I was able to ask more specific questions about by project, because many parts of it were more developed than last time. Two things I asked about were how to keep interviews informative and engaging, and how to keep the documentary engaging. In terms of the interviews, sometimes interviewees may not answer the question as in depth as desired, which makes it hard to cover the necessary parts of the documentary. Also, because our questions relate to the culture of a person, which is a pretty personal topic, it is not always appropriate to ask the interviewee to elaborate more. Therefore, one of the solutions that a group member recommended, is for the interviewee to explain about 1-2 of their prized possessions. This can be ones related to culture or not, because the meaning of it can still relate to the piece. When explaining this object, it can help an interviewee to elaborate more, because this possession is something that they know very well. It is easy to talk about something that one cherishes, and using this question would provide an opportunity to learn more about the identity of the interviewee, as well as cultural components behind it. 

The second question was in regards about how to keep the documentary engaging. Colin and I wanted the documentary to be educational, but have a tone that is more positive and upbeat, to a certain extent. One of my group members recommended animation. Sadly, I do not have a great talent of drawing, and even tried to attempt it at the beginning of the project. The process did not work well, which is why animation was not the best option. I told the group that my partner and I were thinking about using stop motion. The response about the idea was great. One group member said they liked the idea, and it would make the documentary more engaging and organized. The rest of the group agreed. They also pointed out that it was important for Colin and I to create good representations of our voiceovers, and explain them through stop motion in a way that makes the most sense. We will work on incorporating 2-3 scenes of stop motion, to make our overall excerpt as engaging as possible. 

2nd Part of the History of Immigration

Here is the second part of the history of migration to America

1956-1962: Refuges from the Cold War immigrated to America, such as people from Hungary. Operation Peter Pan involved 14,000 Cuban children coming to the U.S. 

1965- The Quota System ended, increasing the migration of people in various parts of Aisa

1980: 125,000 Cuban people seek refuge in Florida, and traveled via boat. 

1986: Ronald Reagan grants amnesty to 3 million people, using the Simpson- Mazzoli Act

2017: President Trump signed executives orders, that restricted immigration from 6 majority Muslim countries. Also, he signed executive order to limit people from North Korea and Venezuela from coming to the U.S 

The above events are more recent, and currently affect the collective identity of specific groups of people. With all events that are included in the history section of the documentary, it will be paired with specific interviews relevant to the event. This would provide a vast understanding of how cultural identity can change, due to factors unrelated to the specific person. In terms of the script, featuring 1-2 events from this list would give us a broad overview of immigration history, and the current state of the collective identities of all cultural/ethic groups in the U.S. We are continuing to write the script, and record our voiceovers. This will give us a good outline to base our graphics and videos on. We are working to get more interviewees, and have scheduled another person to be interviewed after spring break. 

Finalizing the Script

We have so much to do, but lets get to it 

We discussed the structure of our script, and decided it would chronologically cover the history of immigration. We wanted to introduce how and when major culture and ethnic groups came to America. Therefore, we could establish how collective identities of people were formed, that influences the culture learned from people who migrate later to America. Our script would include 5 major events, that include when all the major continents of people came to America. Therefore, we can get a broad understanding of how representation of culture and identify for groups of people formed. We will continue to write the script, and hopefully record the voiceovers this week. Since we are a bit behind schedule, we need to work fast to catch up and make the due date. 

Also, we are planning to schedule more interviews this week. We are working with two of our friends, to interview them before spring break starts. From the last interview, I realized that our questions worked well done, and covered the topics that were necessary to co- inside with the documentary. Also, we decided to have these interviews over Zoom, to keep consistent with the first interview that we did. I will have another blog post featuring those interviews. In terms of what we will complete during spring break, Colin and I decided to finish the script, and work on the magazine and social media component of the project. Since both of us will be out of town, it will be the easiest thing to complete, and will allows us to spend time on the documentary component. 

I interviewed someone!

 I interviewed someone today, and it went really well!

I interviewed my friend Danielle, who is from the Dominican Republic. She had a unique experiences regarding her culture, and establishing the duality between her Hispanic and American/ Western culture. We touched on aspects of religion, assimilation, and family. Her perspective on these topics is definitly something we can highlight in our analysis and relation to human connection. 

This was the first interview I did, and I was not completely sure how good our questions were. But based on her responses, I felt that our questions were specific and general enough, so she was able to answer the questions correctly, without any vagueness. Therefore, we will keep our questions the same. 

My partner and I decided to interview individually, but try to be present for the interviews through a Zoom call. We thought this would make the interviewing process easier, and we would get the interviews done in the next week. Our spring break starts on Thursday, so we want to make sure we can interview as many as possible and start editing the project.