Communicate in a second language at the introductory college level
Spanish minor
As a Spanish minor, I have taken 18 credits of Spanish at the college level. Most of these classes were full immersion experiences. All of the classes required that I attended four to six conversation tables in Spanish and one or two cultural experiences on campus. I have read many readings and watched movies ("La misma luna," "Como aqua para chocolate," Guantanamera," "María llena eres de gracia," "Todo sobre mi madre," "Casa de mi padre") and television shows ("El internado," "La hipocondríaca") in Spanish. In Conversational Medical Spanish, I had to create and perform a skit between a doctor and patient in Spanish. In my final class of the minor, Conversation and Phonetics, I had to interview a native Spanish speaker. I conducted a ten minute interview with José who worked in Lowe Dining Hall. I asked him what he thought about the United States of America and of immigration. I also had three conversations with Felix, a professor who lives in Spain, the conversations being ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes long.
While at Seton Hill University, along with Spanish, I took classes in French, Arabic, and Italian.
Assess privilege and oppression from the perspective of culture, race, class, and gender
Telenovelas
In Spring 2018, I took a class titled Topics: Class/Race Latin American Telenovelas. In this class, we studied how the telenovela came to be and how it is breaking social boundaries. Telenovelas tend to be associated with a female audience, the women being the ones who are at home during the day while the men work. Telenovelas are very emotional. Both of these facts lend to why telenovelas are seen as an inferior form of entertainment. But, telenovelas are very accessible and are beloved by many today. This leads to them being able to change cultural minds on social issues. They have been used to raise LGBT+ issues and create acceptance. They have also been used to decrease the stigma against adults going back to school.
New Voices
In Topics in Creative Writing: New Voices: Borders, we have been focusing all semester on immigrant and refugee voices, stories, and art. We read four books: Persepolis, which focuses on the life of Marji Satrapi
during the Islamic Regime in Iran and living in Austria alone, Call Me American, which follows Abdi as he struggled during the Somali Civil War and the process of coming to America, Americanah, following the fictional characters of Ifemelu and Obinze immigrating to America and the UK, and They Called Us Enemy, following George Takei and his youth in the Japanese imprisonment camps. I created a Milanote page on Viet Thanh Nguyen, an author and immigrant from Vietnam. His most popular work, The Sympathizer, follows a communist spy fleeing Vietnam to America with the democratic side. It discusses many topics, including love, loyalty, and identity. We also worked with Project KIND, who has collected quotes from parents and children at the U.S. and Mexican border. I recorded three and posted them on Twitter to raise awareness for the inhumane situations going on currently. The climax of the semester was a Narrative 4 Story Exchange put on by our class. We invited Seton Hill students and immigrants and refugees in the area to this night of radical empathy. I was a part of the Guest Committee, sending out invitations to the event, keeping track of the responses, and greeting and directing guests at the door.