Almost anyone can tell you what the American Dream means to them. But can anyone obtain this dream? We propose that now a days the American Dream is unrealistic for immigrants. The way American society and government are makes it more difficult for immigrants. Immigrant families are being separated from one another once entering America and are not given a fair chance at reaching their goals.
The inspiration came from the novel Americanah and the current news on immigration. Our goal is to create an experience similar to Americanahs chapter 9 when Ifemelu’s comes to America for the first time. Ifemelu arrives in America and Aunty Ujupicks her up from the airport in New York. Uju seems tense and unhappy, different from how Ifemelu remembers her. Ifemelu also relizes that when speaking on the phone Uju pronounces her name differently because that’s what people call her here in America. Ifemelu has to sleep on the floor, as Aunty Ujuand Dike share the single bed. Ifemelu expected everything to be more glamorous than it is, and she can’t fall asleep, overcome by the newness of it all. She looks out the window and notices how different the street looks from the one on The Cosby Show (Adichie).Everything since her arrival seems disappointing and even unfriendly to Ifemelu, and Aunty Uju provides an example of how the pressures of immigrant life can “subdue” and change someone (Adichie).
LATimesjournalist Angelica Quintero wrote anarticle titled America’s love-hate relationship with immigrants.This article is about how even though America is made up of immigrants it has a history of having problems with immigration. The articles stated “The poor, the sick and those espousing certain political beliefs were barred from entry into the U.S. under other new laws. Laws discouraging immigration from Southern Europe — mainly from Italy — reflected widespread anti-Catholic sentiment (Quintero).” This article also stated “President Trump ordered an overhaul of immigration law enforcement, stripping away most restrictions on who should be deported. Under the new guidelines, up to 8 million people in the country illegally could be targeted for deportation (Quintero).”
The platform we chose to use is power point. The experience we are trying to create an adventure game where the user/ player is an immigrant entering America and what you go through once in the “Dream Land.” We want to impact your experience as an immigrant to create a unique and memorable experience. Our users will make their own choices and each choice will have a different or similar outcome. This will put the user in an immigrant’s shoes and bring out different emotions ones you wouldn’t get from just watching T.V or reading.
QUINTERO, y ANGELICA. “America’s Love-Hate Relationship with Immigrants.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 13 Jan. 2018, www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-immigration-trends/.
This article analyses how Western societies have hostile attitudes and feelings of anger toward refugees and asylum seekers. Western societies also have a mistrust toward these refugees and it may have a negative impact on their general well-being. These fears Western have toward refugees and asylum seekers have had an effect on the laws immigration laws and policies. This peer review studies published work done between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2015. Westerns have been know to have mistrust toward refugees and asylum seekers in the past and a lot of events have happened in the world cause these miscued feelings toward refugees and asylum seekers.
One of the biggest event that caused these feelings is the September 11 attacks on the world trade center, the pentagon and flight 93. This was a coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda. These attacks and the wars that followed caused a chain reaction of fear throughout Western society toward immigrants. Numerous authors have demonstrated how experiences of discrimination and racism are strongly related with growing feelings of anger, hostility, fear, and mistrust in victims. This is not just in America but in European countries, Canada and Australia.
The peer review gives three recommendation to that could help with these issues. (a)”Helping professionals should have greater involvement in advocacy matters, especially regarding the impact of government laws, policies, and practices related to RASI. (b) Governments and policymakers should be more cautious when passing immigration laws and policies, because these often have a much stronger effect on society’s negative views of RASI than may be anticipated. (c) More studies should be conducted to investigate the relationship between harsh immigration laws and societies’ negative attitudes and feelings toward RASI, and the possible impact of social media in inflaming those negative views and feelings.”
The article “Trump heads to US-Mexico border after a week of confusing threats” is about how President Trump went to the US-Mexico boarder following a week of confusing comments over whether he’s would shut it down. The author of the article is Maegan Vazquez a CNN White House reporter. CNN is known to have a bias toward the left and being critical towards the right.
In the article is states Trump said “the immigration system is full, regardless of whether the individuals seeking to come into the US are seeking asylum or not.” The article shows how President Trump is standing firm on his decision to not allow anyone else in regardless of the reason why. He also repeated his claim asylum seekers were perpetrating a hoax on the US. Throughout the article there are key words that pop out to make the reader angry it seems. The word “threat” comes up consistently. The article seems to written for people who are against Trump. The article does not mentions any statistics about how many immigrants are currently trying to cross the boarder. The phrase “fake news” was mention in the article. This term has been mentioned in the news a lot lately and seems to trigger people. The fact that the article mentioned President Trump saying “fake news” makes me think the author wants people feeling a certain way.
The other article “Trump declares ‘country is full’ in Fox News interview, says US can no longer accept illegal immigrants” is about the same topic but from the Fox News stand point. Fox News has an overall strong right bias. The author of the articles is Lukas Mikelionis a reporter for Fox News. This article only mentions the word threat once and does not have the term “fake news” in it. The quotes in this article are also much softer on President Trump “the U.S. immigration system can no longer absorb a mass influx of illegal immigrants, but praised Mexico for stopping border crossings after his threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border.” This articles potential manipulation presents is evident with the word choice and quotes the author decided to use. “There’s never been so many people coming up and that’s because they’re gaming the system and the system is changed for the worse because of what happened with Democrats and what they’ve done in terms of Congress,” Trump said. These two articles are on the same topic but have a very different outlook.
I found the section in chapter 4 where Obinze transfers into the new school and is quickly admitted into the clan of the “Big guys” most interesting. Obinze was forced to transfer schools after his mother fought another professor. Rumors quickly spread about his mother and what happened. Obinze, with all this going on still had a calm air and inwardness which made him even more intriguing. The “Big guys” are the most popular guys in the school. They never tucked in their shirts which always got them into trouble until Obinze did. “Obinze came to school every day with his shirt neatly tucked in and soon all the Big Guys tucked in, too, even, Kayode DaSilva, the coolest of them all.” (Adichie 66). I found this quote interesting because I feel this situation would be very different here in the United States. For the new guy in school to come in and not only to be part of the popular group but change the things they do by just being himself is something you don’t see all the time. Most of the time we see that individual change to fit in, for example, Obinze would go in to school with his shirt untucked.
Do you think Obinze would be accepted by the most popular guys in the school and change their bad habits if he was in America?
My idea for the grant proposal is to have a high school work program with LIRS and offer a scholarship to an individual in the program. The scholarship would help pay for classes and books which are very expensive now a days. High School students would learn leadership skills, open their eyes to all walks of life. LIRS works with refugees, children, and migrants to ensure they are protected and welcomed into local communities throughout the United States. Targeting high school students would benefit the LIRS by growing the brand to the youth of America. High school students are already looking to build their resume for colleges what better than to help people in their local community. LIRS works with immigrants who are children, high school student maybe able to relate and communicate with them in different ways than adults.
This past Friday I went into the career services office here at Stevenson and sat down with three of the counselors to discuss my future goals. We discussed what I wanted to when I graduated which is to be a salesman. They were very kind and helpful, they asked me to print out my resume, so we could go over it and see what improvements could be made. This is one of many ways career services helps Stevenson students. They gave me an example of a resume, resume buzz words which are key words employers look for when hiring, and they edited and wrote down changes I need to make on my own resume. Since I want to be a salesman, they told me to use words like facilitate and corresponded on my resume.
resume buzz wordsexample resumecounselors edits to my resume
Also, when editing my resume, they were showing me how to make it more organized and where certain things like being a collegiate athlete should go. I must have edited my resume 100 times and I thought it was great, but they were showing and telling me all these small improvements that could to help it standout over others. One of the small improvements was changing my major from just Business Communication to Bachelor of Science, Business Communication. I was shocked about just how good they were. The counselors told me to look over everything they gave me, make the necessary changed and to come back whenever I need help.
What is it about a website that makes a user want to donate or volunteer? Catholic Charities is a website that influences users to donate money or volunteer their time by telling the user their message. To see if this website is effectively or ineffectively getting their message across to the user I have examined the website in depth. I analyzed the audience, purpose, genre, author and context of the website. I found some great things the site is doing and some things they need to improve on. I do believe they are effectively getting the message across to the user.
When looking at the website catholiccharities-md.org the first thing I noticed was that donate, volunteer, advocate, find help and careers taps. I think this works well because it shows the user right away what they are looking for and what they offer. When I clicked on the donate tap it showed two more taps which are donate now and more ways to give.
I liked this a lot because it allows those users who may not have the money to donate still be a part of their mission. The other ways people can donate are sponsorship opportunities, partners in hope, ect. This shows you don’t need money to donate to help those in need which I really liked. When scrolling down the site I saw “Donate Now” and “Volunteer Now” again which I like because while scrolling down the user will see more of the site is about and this may make them want to donate or volunteer.
The main target audience for this site is anyone of faith willing to give to immigrants and those in need since the site is not just asking for money. Since the site is called Catholic Charities it will attract people who are religious or faithful.
A secondary audience would be immigrants themselves. The site offers Adult Spanish Classes and some of the text is in Spanish and there is a video that is in Spanish. This is different than other sites I have looked at which everything is in English for example Maryland Immigration Rights Coalition (MIRC).
text in spanish- catholiccharities-md.orgevents offered-catholiccharities-md.org
The type of medium is web which makes it easy access for just about everyone. People are on their smartphones, tablets and computers all the time on the go so having a website allows user to access it whenever they want. If Catholic charities just handed out pabnflits they would be behind everyone else for example Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). People want thing to be simple and available to them at all time which Catholic Charities is. The site is exactly the same if used on a smartphone or computer which makes it easy to use and understand.
After examining the website, the purpose is to serve, inform, and persuade the users. When scrolling down the site I saw this statement “Our dedicated staff and volunteers provide services related to education, healthcare, immigration legal matters, family reunification, anti-trafficking, and general community support to thousands of immigrants each year.” This site serves the community by persuading the user to help those in need with words like “Donate Now” and “Volunteer Now”. The blogs that are written by the volunteers serve to inform the community about what is going on. Some of these blogs are about immigration facts, families being reunited, and what’s going on right here in Baltimore.
blogs from catholiccharities-md.orgblogs from catholiccharities-md.org
I think these is a great move on their part because this could be another reason a user donates or volunteers. Lastly in the about us page there is this statement “I hope you will use this website to learn more about our work. We would love to have you join us in service. You can contact us atinfo@cc-md.orgor call (667) 600-2000.” This is great because it shows they want you and how the user can get in contact with them.
The genre of the Catholic Charities website is that it’s a “non-profit” organizations helping those in need. Catholic Charities follows what most “non-profit” sites platform to make it easier for users to understand. There are images at the top of the page and it is broken down into three columns. When looking at a “non-profit” website I expect to see what they are looking for right away. The site should be flow and not be all over the place, this is crucial to a good “non-profit” website. Catholic Charities does a great job with this. If you go onMaryland Immigration Rights Coalition (MIRC) you will see that they are very similar.
home page- catholiccharities-md.orghome page of MIRC
The website has lots of images which help draw people in and could influence them to donate or volunteer.
These three images can attract a wide variety of people. Images can be more powerful than words so having powerful images is key to a good “non-profit” website. The website was lacking in videos which they need to improve on. The only video I found was in Spanish which is not helpful to all.
Spanish video from- catholiccharities-md.org
The website should also change the font from Lato to Sans-Serif, this font is easy for people with dyslexia and learning disabilities to read. Being a website looking for donations and volunteers they need to make it as easy as possible for everyone.
After looking through the site I have determined the author of the website is Catholic Charities. In the about us page of the site you can see all who are involved with this organization. “We are a family of more than 2,000 talented and dedicated colleagues, supported by nearly 8,000 selfless volunteers and more than 10,000 generous donors.” This organization was established in Baltimore in 1972 and has been helping the community ever since. Some notable names I found on the site are Reverend William E. LoriChair, Catholic Charities Board of Trustees,and William J. McCarthyExecutive Director. When googling the site to find out more information about them. I found reviews from people that have worked with this organization and the responses were mixed. The overall recommendation to a friend to work there was on 48% I wish this was I hire because it makes me question why more than half would not. The experience was 56% positive which could be higher but 70% approve of the CEO which I think is great because a good CEO means there can be improvements.
2018 uses of operating funds from catholic charities
I do trust the team behind this website maybe I would not work for them, but I would donate because the site is ligament and I know they will do good. Another reason I trust this is because they show the uses of operating funds, so I know where the money is being used.
Overall I feel this website is effecitve and I feel they are trustworthy. There does need to be a few changes like the font to Sans-Serif and more videos but these are easy fixes. One big problem was the review about recommending a friend that needs to go up. Users may donate but not volunteer because of that. Catholic Charities does get their massage across clearly and the site is user friendly. After analyzing the website I feel overall it is effective.
Citation
“Esperanza Center.” Catholic Charities of Baltimore, www.catholiccharities-md.org/services/esperanza-center/.
“Working at Catholic Charities of Baltimore.” Glassdoor, www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Catholic-Charities-of-Baltimore-EI_IE833039.11,42.htm.
This comic shows the different ways refugees are viewed when entering the U.S.
