Author: aisrael

Asylum Seeker comic

I happen to have found this comic very interesting and appealing, as it gives a lot of emotion behind asylum seekers transporting to another country. Looking at this comic makes me feel very sorry for these asylum seekers, who look scared and nervous to go onto the boat to travel and start a new life.

Sources:

Macfarlane, E. (13 February, 2014). The Medium and the message:comics about asylum seekers. Retrieved from

http://theconversation.com/the-medium-and-the-message-comics-about-asylum-seekers-23168

 

“Salvini Law” in Italy

In Gostoli’s article, “‘Salvini Law’ could make thousands of refugees homeless”, it talks about how this new law pass, could effect vulnerable immigrants in a bad way. The “Salving Law” is basically a law, (named after Matteo Salvini), that abolishes humanitarian protection. In other words, it means it abolishes a stay permit issued to those who do not qualify for refugee status or subsidiary protection, but were recognized in being in a vulnerable state or situation.  This means immigrants that are minors, victims of trafficking, families with young children, and people with mental or physical vulnerabilities won’t be guaranteed protection to stay anymore.

The article explains Soumayla’s story, a migrant from Libya, and how he sought to move to Rome for a better life, having no money in his wallet. Being in Italy, he wanted to adapt to the Italian culture, as he went to Italian language school, worked at a summer camp for children, and is now studying to obtain a high school diploma. He explains that once he gets his documents, his dream is to play football professionally; while he is currently able to stay at an apartment through the “Refugees Welcome” organization.

Since this law passed, more critics begin to argue that it will end up condemning asylum seekers, who are already in Italy, (like Soumayla), to basically live a life without basic rights. This will wind up making these immigrants more prone to labor exploitation and easier prey to crime. This leaves many immigrants who arrive to Italy as minors having no sense of support when they reach 18. It also is predicted by Matteo Villa, immigration researcher, that next two years 70,000 more people living in Italy, will become undocumented.

This article overall truly reflects how important humanitarian protection rights are to immigrants in Italy, and how this law can leave many vulnerable people already living in Italy, unsupported and undocumented.

Sources:

Gostoli, Ylenia. (17 December, 2018.) ‘Salvini Law’ could make thousands of refugees homeless. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/law-thousands-refugees-homeless-181215133410672.html

 

Cons of Immigration Travel Loans

Westcott’s article, “A Brief History of Refugees Paying Back the U.S Government for their Travel”, focuses more on the negative effects these travel loans have on immigrants. She starts out the article by explaining that not all immigrants who have resettled in United States, are able to afford the cost of travel to their new home country. Not only that, but most immigrants don’t even know English well enough when they first get here, for them to get an American job right away.

The article continues to explain that before refugees even arrive in this country, they already have to face one of the most stringent background checks. This idea makes you already believe that the immigration process to come to America is already overwhelming enough for these immigrants.

We than get to look at the perspective of Syrian refugee, father of four, who lives currently in south Florida. He is struggling with his debt of $2,174, and states to Newsweek, that “he had no choice to agree to it, (travel loan agreement), because that’s the only way to get a flight over here.”. This shows that immigrants, especially ones with big families, constantly feeling overwhelmed with payments, as they were forced to agree with the loan, even when its unaffordable to the new coming immigrants.

The article then goes on to announce that Canada had recently made it so that the government will not only cover the cost of Syrian immigrants traveling to their country, yet cover their medical exams as well. This statement is basically implying that America should do more to welcome immigrants into their country.

Sources:

Westcott, Lucy. (12 December 2015). A Brief History of Refugees Paying Back the U.S Government for their travel. Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-refugees-paying-back-us-government-their-travel-403241

Pros of Immigrants Paying back travel loans

Robinet’s article, “Welcome, Refugees. Now Pay Back Your Travel Loans.”,  focuses on the statistics on how much money immigrants owe the government to pay back their travel loans, and tells stories in which these people who work for United States immigrant departments understand immigrants struggles; yet still feel that travel loans should be paid back.

The article claims that the average loan per immigrant is roughly around $1,100 dollars. This fee that the immigrants aren’t able to pay, gets sort out with the Intentional Organization for Migration and winds up going to resettlement agencies, such as World Relief, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the International Rescue committee; which none of the have nothing to do with granting them the loan to begin with. These resettlement agencies are claimed to have retain up to 25 percent of the total payments for these loans.

According to a spokeswoman for the State Department, her belief is that having refugees pay for their travel expenses, helps defray resettlement costs and can help with the newcomer’s resolve for a successful migration.

This article feels that its more than necessary for immigrants to pay back their travel loans. Even though some immigrants feel overwhelmed by the amount of payments due, state departments claim that the department’s loans are designed to encourage repayments without placing hardship on refugees. They claim that they make the payments more than reasonable, by having interest free deferments and reduced monthly payments, depending on the situation. In the long run, these payments allows newcomers to be given an opportunity to build up their credit history and be financially literate in America.

Sources:

Robinet, Fabrice. (15 March, 2019). Welcome, Refugees. Now Pay Back Your Travel Loans. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/nyregion/refugees-travel-loans.html

Amanda Israel’s Hernandez Reflection

When Carlos Hernandez had the opportunity to visit our class, he inspired me to fulfil my own dreams with his story. I thought it was very interesting his story on what was able to inspire him to write this novel, he contracted with Disney, and how it truly affected his life and career. I also was able to pick up tips on how to become a better reader and writer, by not only reading your writing out loud, but reading out loud with someone else to make sure the words your saying are translating well out loud. Hernandez also had made insightful remarks on how essential it is to find a place to read and write where you feel most comfortable and to constantly keep getting inspired to write.

Elevator Pitch Grant Idea

I believe that there is a need for immigrants and refugees to make a better life here in America, by obtaining good paying jobs. This is why I would like to team up with the non profit organization, “Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”, so that we can get a fashion stylist that specializes in nice, affordable, professional clothes. Having a stylist that specializes in business clothes would help immigrants boost their confidence to feel like they can grab any position they want in an interview. 1,500 dollars can go a long way with obtaining stylists and affordable business wear. This organization already has a lot of power to have this coordinated easily, by recently making Krish O’Mara, former policy director of Michelle Obama, being president and chief executive officer. Give millions of jobless immigrants a chance of a future in America, by making them feel confident and professional with new business clothes for their interviews.

How Publishing can help my Career

Amanda Israel

Professor Licastro

ENG 256

18 February 2019

 

I was able to get a chance to meet up with my advisor, and discuss how publishing of all sorts, can greatly benefit my career path. Since I am graduating with a degree in fashion design, we discussed all the potential opportunities I can have with this class. I explained that with my degree, I wanted to go into designing solely shoes. Me and my advisor talked about how I will need to know basic publishing to just present my portfolio of all my work to future employers. I will need to know a basic template on how to present all of my work, whether it be through a website or in a booklet, in a way that is visually appealing and attractive to the viewer.

To further my career with becoming a shoe designer, I will need to learn how to make certain designs, that would overall look good in fashion catalogs. For example, what color to make a certain shoe; that would stand out to a viewer looking digitally, or on paper. Having this talk with my advisor really made me aware on how viewers opinion is everything, and is only thing that can lead me to become successful with clients purchasing my designs. Everything when it comes to designing of any kind, has to be visually pleasing; which is why publishing is very important for my career specifically.

Amanda Israel’s Rhetorical Analysis Assignment

Amanda Israel
Professor Licastro
English 256
9 February 2019
Rhetorical Analysis Assignment
No matter what form of text we read, speech we listen to, or show we watch; there is always an underlying message. In a rhetorical analysis, it focuses on how the author communicates their message to their audience (Arola, Sheppard, Ball, 22). There are five different types of modes to communicate an author’s message, such as: spatial, visual, gestural, aurol, and linguistic mode. The non profit website, “Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”, shows their true message with these modes, as I examined the audience, purpose, context, genre and author of this website.

In order to really discover even the purpose of the LIRS website, one must examine the type of audience this content is for. The LIRS website clearly demonstrates that their intended audience is for donors and volunteers. The author of this website uses visual modes to make the color of the donate button in a rusty red, catching the audience’s eyes; while being contrasted to the blue color pallet. (screenshot of https://www.lirs.org)
When examining a secondary audience, it can be intended for political activists who are powerful enough to make the change, and even religious Lutheran adults. One can see that it might lean towards religious Lutheran adults, due to tabs that give information on how religion helps. It even just flat out states on one of the tabs, an option to become a foster parent for these children, which follows that idea of it being more directed towards adults as whole. To persuade the audience even more so, the website has videos on the foster child’s perspective, and how they have been forever grateful cause of foster care. The author uses gestural and aural modes, by having the person that was in foster care looking sad, shaking their head explaining their past on how it was like for them to first come to America. Then, the mood changes, as they nod their head up and down with a smile on their face, explaining how living in foster care helped them live a better life.  (Screenshot of LIRS video on Quicktime). (https://www.lirs.org/be-prepared-to-cry-these-videos-capture-the-real-relationship-between-foster-children-and-foster-parents/ ) 

The author wants to make sure that this audience plays into their ideal purpose.

A clear, self explanatory purpose of this website when examining it, is to educate people enough about Lutheran immigrants and refugees, so it can persuade them to want to be more involved; keeping these refugees protected. A purpose of this website that might not be so obvious, would be shedding light to Lutheran work. This website uses the linguistic mode by using the words like “God” a lot, and having a section under the resources button called “Faith on the Move”; insinuating that the audience has a belief system. Within this tab, they have the words, “Bible, First and Foremost”, in the boldest,and biggest font across the page, to visually capture the audience. The author wanted to make sure it catches the reader’s eye spatially as well. When reading further, the author breaks up the information in small sections so it’s not overwhelming to reader, and has links on the bottom that direct you to certain Bible passages. 

(screenshot of https://www.lirs.org/faith-on-the-move/ )  

This website not only wants their audience to participate in helping these refugees and immigrants; yet wants people to join their religious beliefs.

Context of the website is key, when deciphering why the author used this certain platform to communicate with the audience. The main reason the author probably used an online website as their way of communicating, simply because it’s the easiest access. No matter where you are, anyone can go on their mobile device and access the website. Websites are also a go to, when it comes to easily being able to share on the lower bottom page, to the Instagram, Twitter and Linked-in icons. With websites, it’s also easy to link to different tabs and create a format that manipulates the audience to feel, or look a certain way. For example, the author already creates a certain mood from the moment you click on the page; by having the distinct color pallete blue. Ever hear the phrase, “I’ve got the blues.”? The color blue is a color that directly correlates to the feeling of sadness. The author of this website wants the audience feeling emotionally sad for these refugees, making them more than willing to donate to their cause. Websites also allow the author to display huge imagery behind their text. With this picture below, the author really wanted to use imagery to get the point across that their website provides liberty, as the statue of liberty shows major symbolism, having that image be behind the words “about us” .

(screenshot of https://www.lirs.org/about/)

The context of this message being displayed through a website is most ideal for a non profit website.

This website would be categorized as a non- profit genre, just because it reports facts and information around their cause, in hopes of gaining profit. The author wants everyone to make sure of their goal, by stating the fact of 22.5 million refugees, underneath the “our work” tab. The author uses large imagery of people huddled close together, over the information about refugees, in hopes more people come together.

(screenshot from https://www.lirs.org/our-work/)

Lastly, the author behind this website finally gives us definitive confirmation on all this information, as it agrees to our argument on why the layout is the way it is. Danielle Bernard is the so called marketing and communications director, when clicking staff leadership. Since there aren’t enough facts on the author itself, I wanted to learn more about the contributors as a whole to get more of an idea. While scrolling through the “about us” tab, you can see that the majority of members are religious Lutherans, as some of the member’s names has the name of the church their affiliated with next to it. This organization is also run by powerful people, such as doctors, judging by their prefix on their name as well.

(screenshot of https://www.lirs.org/our-leadership/)

What all these authors have in common is a general bias, in which they all believe heavily in the Lutheran religion, and general persuasion for the saving of all of these immigrants and refugees.

Modes, such as linguistic, aural, gestural, visual and spatial, all help deliver the author’s main purpose. The non-profit website, “Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service”, clearly demonstrates the author’s main point through a series of different modes to try and forever change the audience’s point of view.

 

References

Arola, Sheppard, & Ball. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Boston,

Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.

Bernard, Danielle. (2019). Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Retrieved from

https://www.lirs.org/