mbiemesderfer – Introduction to Digital Publishing

Proposal

For the final project of the semester our group, Megan, Madi, and Ariana have decided to create a comic. We believe that it is a medium that people can connect too deeply with an option for color use and simplicity that draws the eyes and catches the mind. Also, Madi is a visual communication design major, therefore she has experience and a unique eye to lend to the project as our point person on design.

Our inspiration comes from Ifemelu’s interactions and reactions to the women in the hair salon. The way immigrants both support, judge, and compete with each other creates a fascinating dynamic that few native born Americans are aware exists. The interactions and views are different between fellow African immigrants, who are from different countries, then between immigrants and born Americans. It caught our attention and made us think in a new way, that we would like to highlight and share. The root of all these interactions can be summarized by a quote from the Migration Policy Institute, “Immigrants display an appreciation of the U.S. and a commitment to making it their home, but they also maintain a strong connection to their country of origin” (Farkas). The interaction differences show almost immediately when Ifemelu’s origins are made known, “Aisha did not look up, Halima smiled at Ifemelu, a smile that, in its warm knowingness, said welcome to a fellow African, she would not smile at an American in the same way” (Adichie 9). This interplay and differing reactions of the hair stylists to Ifemelu, as well as the difference between her greeting and that which a native born American might receive, are contrasting. The exchanges between immigrants are not all positive and supportive like this though. Instead some are rather dismissive and mean, like the time Ifemelu spoke to her aunt’s friend about how long she’d been in the US, “The jeer on the Nigerian’s face had taught her that, to earn the prize of being taken seriously among Nigerians in American, among Africans in America, she needed more years“ (Adichie 15). Rather than giving this new woman (Ifemelu) supporting advice she sneered and acted dismissive and rude. Instead of supporting or congratulating a fellow Nigerian woman on her American journey there was spite given. This dichotomy is fascinating and we want to show it and highlight it in our comic.

Adichie, Chimamanda N. “Chapter 1.” Americanah, Knopf Canada, 2013, p. 9.

Adichie, Chimamanda N. “Chapter 1.” Americanah, Knopf Canada, 2013, p. 15.

Farkas, Steve. “What Immigrants Say About Life in the United States.” Migrationpolicy.org, 1 May 2003, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/what-immigrants-say-about-life-united-states.

Media Representation

This image is powerful, more so than a simple report of the event would be. The looks on thier faces, the size of the sign, the sheer volume of people, it all speaks so clearly of how many and how deeply people are affected by asylum seekers and refugees or are one themselves. It shows the humans in this human issue.

Aslyum Article- Academic

My article was on LGBT asylum claims. It begins by pointing out that many of the people searching for asylum here in the USA are doing so to avoid persecution for their sexual orientation. It also makes sure to note the prejudice against people doing so, and the difficulty that comes in when attempting to prove it. Inappropriate questions and bullying often occur in the process of questioning and the article argues that this should be stopped and the asylum seekers be given the same assumptions that religious persecution asylum claims are given. The article explains the basics of the Immigration Judge (IJ) role and how they can either be an empathetic and informed helper, or an uniformed or prejudiced wall to entry. Either way they may end up asking questions that are uncomfortable or full on inappropriate, and often they are off-base due to stereotypes, during attempts to substantiate the asylum claim. The article also explains the basics of the asylum system here in the US, and what constitutes eligibility. It goes on to describe how some lawyers encourage clients to play up on and dress in a western stereotype of an LGB person, and how there have been criticisms for both this and the IJ’s relying on stereotypes and judging based on them. It further details the account of a young woman seeking asylum as an LGB person and the struggles she went through. The article continues on in this manner providing information from various sources to give a full picture of the law and its issues regarding LGB asylum.

This article seems left to left center to me, there is some empathetic language but also a strong basis in law. It reports with logic and facts but also engenders some sympathy for those going through the asylum process, particularly those doing so for LGB reasons.

Topel, Kimberly D. “‘So, What Should I Ask Him to Prove That He’s Gay?’: How Sincerity, and Not Stereotype, Should Dictate the Outcome of an LGB Asylum Claim in the United States.” Iowa Law Review, vol. 102, no. 5, July 2017, pp. 2357–2384. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=124842621&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Media Bias Article Immigration 2

https://search.proquest.com/wallstreetjournal/docview/2167822643/51928694915247D1PQ/9?accountid=36772#

Also found @

https://www.wsj.com/articles/thousands-more-children-separated-from-parents-by-u-s-authorities-than-generally-known-watchdog-says-11547742532?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

This article came out in January and tells about the lack of proper paperwork and oversight in the family separation program. It also talks about the measures being put into place to fix the issues. These measures are presented positively, however, it does not solve the issue at hand. The article states that it is unlikely that we will ever know the full and total amount of children separated from their families, and further that the process of reuniting them will be difficult. It also points out that any sort of compensation is unlikely to ever happen. The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services said that the federal systems tracking system to track these families and thier separations was inadequate and informal. No one knows or will ever know the exact number of children separated from thier guardians. The count has been estimated to be off by the thousand. There was also very little contact between the HHS and the children, for whom they were responsible, and with the DHS which had the adults’ information. The fact that files were not kept of the full family unit, but rather of the children and adults separately by separate entities is problematic and a bit disturbing. There is no integrated system in place to track the family as a whole and allow proper and easy reunification to happen. One man stated that there wasn’t anything in place to plan for reunification to occur.

Immigration Article 1

This article posted on March 9, 2019, reports on the continued separations of families seeking asylum. It covers the basics of the family separation policy, it’s dissolution, and it’s continued existence despite the policy having been officially rescinded. The article lists the number of families separated, the growing numbers, the ramifications on both children and parents, and the political ramifications. This program worked largely without proper oversight and has been proven to be traumatic to the children. The article continues, giving detailed mini-chronicles of some of these family’s stories. The Customs and Border Protection officials claim all current separations are legal under current law, though in fact they are separating families for minor and often outdated crimes that have been resolved already. Many of the separations are done without any justification to the point where the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement has started trying to refuse to take the children separated by the policy. Records have been kept so poorly that there are many accounts of parents being told that no one knew where thier kids were, children have been separated from parents and sent all over the country with little to no proper records or oversight. Children from newborns to teens have been relocated, with little explanation and are scared, confused, and lost in a strange country with strange people and no adults that they trust. One young woman, age 18 was so distraught by the separation of herself and her two younger siblings from thier mother that she had to be hospitalized for threatening suicide. It has gotten so bad that the American Civil Liberties Union have had to intervene, demanding that the missing and children be found. This situation has not been resolved as of this article’s publishing.

Carlos Hernandez

Mr. Hernandez’s Visit was wonderful!

His poetry really caught my attention due to the interesting subjects he took inspiratoin from. As someone who writes as a hobby and tends to be drawn in many directions of interest like mythology, history, and artwork, it was wonderful to hear from someone who holds many interests and channels all of them into his work. Games, Books, Poetry, he happily tries his hand at all of them all from different inspirations. A takeaway from that for me was to not worry about focusing on only one thing, but to rather embrace all my interests and try to use them to my advantage. Maybe they will lead to something new for me.

Another take away was his advice on networking. It has always felt wrong to me to use friends as leverage in business or making friends for that purpose. His advice that it isnt just networking, it is making meaningful friendships with similar interests makes it feel less disingenuous to me.

He was an Interesting speaker, I’m glad he came to our class!

Grant Proposal, Community Meet and Greet

LRIS has a focus on the acceptance and safe integration of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees into communities; they make sure to point out the humanity and need for compassion these people hold and deserve to have recognized. I believe that to that end a community meet and greet day would be useful. A simple event at which there would be light refreshments, possibly from varied cultures (budget and feasibility dependent), with information boards on both US culture and the cultures of those LIRS serves (the predominant ones at least). These would each have a snack or drink near them, and people could go to them to sample the food, learn/be inspired by the info boards, and speak to each other to better understand their differences and similarities. The event would host advocates and LIRS members, those they serve, and community members who want to learn about these people. It would be a chance to dispel some of the negativity or dehumanizing rhetoric or assumptions people may have about immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. This would also give an opportunity to forge friendships and community ties to make the transition easier for those entering the US. It could also be made into a yearly event fairly easily.

Career Services Visit

I went to career services and met with some peer counselors during drop-in hours. The specialist for my major (Human Services) was not in, however, we were able to have a conversation about job paths and internships I could take. Human Services is a degree that allows you to enter many different forms of helping professions. Experience in digital publishing, particularly what we will learn in this class as far as website design, terminology, and grant writing could be of immense use in this field. Jobs like event/program planning, website design and upkeep, and even managerial positions could benefit from this knowledge just to name a few. We also spoke about how the ability to effectively communicate is so important in my field, and digital publishing is just another way I can learn to do so. Competency with technology is also something companies look for, as more and more work is being done electronically, even in HSR.

Recently I’ve been interested in program and event planning positions in the helping industries. I’m even in an internship at the moment that is letting me get a better feel for it. Already I can see the places where the skills I’ll learn in Digital Publishing could be of use. My supervisor and her co-workers have to make flyers, send out e-vites, and advertise their events. They also need to get grants for some projects. Knowing how to effectively use multimodal web-based publishing would be helpful for a good deal of the work that needs to be done in later stages of planning. Grant writing, one of the reasons I took the course will be a HUGE benefit to me in my career as basically every organization in the Human Services field needs people who know how to write grants. It is a major advantage to be able to put that on your resume.

An Analysis of the Esperanza Center Website By Meg Biemesderfer

The following paper is a rhetorical analysis of the Catholic Charities’ Esperanza Center Webpage. To begin, some context is needed. The Esperanza Center is a charitable organization that aids immigrants, who need to learn English, find homes, jobs, and adjust to the US, as well as get legal help. There is an increasing prejudice against and fear of immigrants today and it has become even more important as can be seen by the population Esperanza serves and how it has grown over the years. This page of the Catholic Charities website is meant to gain volunteers and workers to provide these services for low cost or for free. It also directs those in need of the services to the center in Spanish. It was originally created in the early 1960s by a determined community activist, Nancy Conrad, who had returned to Baltimore from Latin America where she was serving with the Young Christian Workers with newfound inspiration to help immigrants and Spanish speakers in the U.S. Her endeavor was supported by the Catholic Church, and later adopted in 1980s by Catholic Charities the Esperanza Center has been through several names and locations as it grew to accommodate the growing need for it.

The Esperanza Center’s page portion of the Catholic Charities Website puts emphasis on the Catholic Charities Logo, being nearly as big as the images placed in close proximity to the topmost part of the screen. It draws the eye and ensure the reader knows who runs the site, and instantly defines a possible bias in favor of Catholics. This logo gives legitimacy to the website, and in turn to the Esperanza Center, with Catholic Charities being a well known and well established charitabl e Non-Profit organization that has operated for decades. It is clear from this logo, the company’s reputation, and from the layout of the navigation bar that the site targets religious people with money as it’s primary audience. The logo includes below it the words “Inspired by the Gospel Mandates” and “Cherishing the Divine Within All” (“Esperanza Center.”), which respectively is the tagline of the Baltimore Catholic Charities Branch and the Catholic Charities overall. The Navigation bar gives further insight, with Donate coming first, followed by Volunteer and Advocate. It is clear that those with time and/or funds to spend on Catholic Charities, in this case the Esperanza Center in particular, are the Primary Audience the webpage is created for. All over the website there are Volunteer and Donate Buttons, practically on every section of the website. Its purpose is clearly to gain the resources needed to run the Center and better help immigrants. The name of the Center is also highly emphasized, the words Esperanza Center appear all over the website, in various colors and sizes, as well as in images to ensure the name is prominent and easily remembered. The most important information, such as name, location, and contact options of the represented Esperanza Center are all placed above the fold and in close proximity to each other, in text that draws emphasis to them in English and Spanish. This use of both languages points to the secondary audience, though the site seems to be shifting them more towards a primary audience role: immigrants. It is clear that they are currently secondary as the bulk of the website is geared towards recruiting volunteers and donors and is in English. However, there are videos and important text in Spanish and intent stated that more will be offered in Spanish. There are also various links that lead services and their contact information that Esperanza offers and options to get the information in Spanish.

As you continue past the Navigation bar it is notable that important text is emphasized by color, bolding, capitalization, or a combination of the three. Urgent messages are in red, important parts that aren’t as vital as well as text links in blue, and addresses and bolded. Other important information or things that the site wants attention drawn to are caps locked and written in black as you continue down below the fold. Back above the fold, on the right side, a rotating box of images showing various immigrants utilizing the offered services as well as the building that houses Esperanza center is shown prominently. The dots under the rotating picture box indicates the option to shift the images, and hovering over them produces arrows on either side of the images that also indicate an option for lateral movement. And past this on the far right is a scroll bar, notifying users that there is more to the website than the initial view. As the consumer scrolls down through the site, they will notice that the linguistics were carefully planned with clear and simple language with text of a fair size and non-seriffed font, lending to easier reading. There are also prominent translations in Spanish for more vital or useful information being provided. Though it is not yet in place, there is intent stated to translate more of the website into Spanish in the near future, which makes it more accessible to the large Spanish speaking immigrant population. There doesn’t seem to be any option for text to voice on this site, and there isn’t much Spanish. The midsection of the page contains button in green for upcoming events, and below it are tabs with more in depth information about the Esperanza Center and its’ history, its’ goals, and its’ services. Each has a plus sign next to them in black and white signifying that more information can be accessed by clicking it and less can be seen by clicking the minus sign that appears once you’ve clicked the plus sign. Most of the options are written in English; though one is in Spanish and provides a phone number to call for information on education for both adults and children, presumably also given in Spanish. For the most part this list of services are meant to garner pro-bono workers and volunteers to provide the services, rather than to explain them to immigrants.

Under the services and about us tabs, there is a video in Spanish with an option for subtitles in dozens of languages in the middle row of the page. This video explains some basic rights and legal tips for immigrants, various services that the center offers, and how to access them. There isn’t much sound on the site beyond the video. The video is an affordance for those who speak other languages or are hearing impaired in some way. This allows for another means of communication, but it should have an option for translation on site or for text to speech. There is a lot of gesturing, facial expression, and body language in the video, as well as friendly interaction and explanation from both a male and a female. There is a scroll bar on the site’s right side to indicate the option to scroll down. The images above the options directly below the video are gestural and are not the most common but common enough to help signify what the buttons do. The checked box for example is something seen on various sites to denote mail or email. Both the text and buttons use contrast to stand out from the colors of the buttons against the plain white background. The brightly colored and emphasized text contrast is used to great effect to pull the eye to the most relevant, beneficial, and important information or points for the company’s goals. Just below this, it is again made clear the website’s main goal of gaining donors and volunteers with far larger size than the buttons above them and opposite color patterning with buttons “Donate Now”, “Our Wishlist”, and “Volunteer Now” (“Esperanza Center.”). Finally at the bottom of the page, there are testimonials and more links to get involved in Catholic charities.

The Esperanza Center site is online, and thus is easy to access for anyone, be it via personal devices or free ones that can be utilized at libraries and other public spaces. This platform provides a direct route through which to donate or to sign up to volunteer. It is on Catholic Charities’ site, as one of their many projects, giving it a better chance of being noticed than it would have on its’ own. It has a mobile version as well, which contains more Spanish text on the homepage than the desktop site does. I am not entirely sure why. However, it is possible that it could be because people are likely to have a phone, or access to one, than a laptop or other personal computer, and so more people will be able to use it and find information on the Esperanza Center in an easy to consume manner. Note that the mobile site has a major flaw, in that the mission statement and logo of Catholic Charities covers about a third of the page once you scroll below the fold. This is annoying and unhelpful at best, and detrimental to user’s ability to read the text at worst. It is distracting and a poor design choice that limits the site’s usefulness.

The Esperanza Center has a good web page with a clear focus on Donors and Volunteers and a strong secondary focus on immigrants. It provides a streamlined way to research the Center and donate and volunteer for it. It also provides useful information and routes to information for Spanish speaking immigrants. It’s mobile site is useful, but has issues in regards to set up, with a large portion of the site being covered by the Catholic Charities’ Logo and mission statements rather than displaying the relevant information for which the site exists. The desktop site has its own issues, in the lack of text to voice capability and the fact that it does not apply a translation option. Overall, it is a focused and useful website in any form so long as you can get around the minor inconveniences.

Works Cited

“Esperanza Center.” Catholic Charities of Baltimore, www.catholiccharities-md.org/services/esperanza-center/.

“I pledge on my honor that I have neither given nor received

unauthorized assistance on this assignment/exam.”

-Megan Biemesderfer