Mini Sagas and Immigration Panel

Last week I had to attend to another conference from the Student Conference titled: “Student Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary projects and creative initiatives” presented by the faculty of General Studies. This one was about the Mini Sagas: My creativity process. What is a Mini Saga? Well, they explained to the audience that Brian Aldiss originally created Mini-sagas. These sagas consist in a short piece of writing that contents only 50 words. What I found interesting and hard to do was to write something good, special and emotional in just 50 words. One of the students wrote about eating disorders and she read it to the audience like it was a poem. I loved it because it was straight to the point but at the same time with a pure message. Other was about racist and what women expect to find in a husband. This panel was definitely fun and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Another panel that was presented was about the Immigration of Dominicans in Puerto Rico.    This one called my attention immediately because the girls that were presented are Dominicans. They started to explain their perspective of the topic and their personal experience. What called my attention was that for Dominicans it’s really difficult to adapt in this island, and it’s not because of the island conditions, but Puerto Ricans as civilization make this process harder than I thought. The racism in Puerto Rico is a fact and while I was listening to these brilliant girls, I thought that every Puerto Rican should have been listening to their panel. Without question this panel was very emotional and educational as well. As a Puerto Rican we face this issues in other countries and it’s unreasonable that these things still happening at this time. We all are humans and where we belong can’t be a reason to discrimination.

Conference Day One

As part of my assignments to this course the professor invite us to attend at the Student Conference titled: “Student Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary projects and creative initiatives” presented by the faculty of General Studies. There some of my classmates presented their work to the audience about the topics of our course. First, Laura presented her paper making an introduction of what it was our course about. She explained very well the journey that we were doing in this class from difference perspectives and papers. We’ve been able to experience two types of journeys, the internal and external. According to Laura the external was the experiences based on interactions with the external social world and the internal was based on your internal interactions. This definition that I agree with them because gives the essence of the course. Later she started to talk about how the world see Puerto Rico and how important is the global view of it. Also she mentioned that the political status of Puerto Rico is an issue that people don’t understand very well.  In second place, Carla talked about the helping method and communication from the Cooper’s essays. She mentioned that this method was wrong and to be able to succeed we had to put it away.  Also she said that in a professional world this method couldn’t be used. In third place, Lorna talked about Small place and Peter Roberts.  Then Sylvette show us her paper, about the communication between tourists and travelers. This one was my favorite because she explained through all the conference the point of view of tourists and travelers. Finally, in my opinion this conference was a good source to every student that want to expand their knowledge about the identity of each country and how outsiders perceive them.

The adventure of being a tourist

            How to be a tourist, when you’re not a tourist? Well, that’s a really good question and my task to do last week when I had to pretend I was a tourist. Where I decided to go? As a tourist besides of the rainforest one amazing place to be is the Old San Juan, that perfect place with a lot of history, restaurants and a lot of walking during the day. So I decided to go there and pretend to be I was a tourist during my first visit to “La isla del encanto”. I woke up and I called some friends and then I thought: How should I dressed if I’m playing a tourist”? The stereotypical thing is to put on a short, a shirt with a tropical print and a hat, but I decided to go as my own way as a tourist, I wore a short, a tank top, my favorite snap bag and a pair of vans. 

    After that we left home, and started our trip to Old San Juan.   We got there and found out there was a huge cruise ship, so I had the idea that I wanted to be not just only a tourist but a tourist that came from that perfect cruise ship. We parked at the Doña Fela parking and the journey began. We started walking and I decided to go “Bahia Urbana” because that’s where the cruise ship was and I wanted to start it of the right way. We walked around there and took a lot of pictures in that kind of new place in San Juan. Then I decided to go to“El morro” that monumental fort that everyone talk about and shows in every Puerto Rican postcard and even in some vehicle’s registration panel. I had to admit that I’ve been there like a hundred times, but every time I got the view is just breathtaking a kind of view that makes you feel like it’s your first time there. I bought a “piragua” and just sat in one of the walls to just admire and see the island from a different perspective. Since we’re on a drought period the weather was perfect (a little too hot) but just perfect, with the sun, blue skies and the wind directly from the sea refreshing your body. Basically all we did was talk and have fun while watching the amazing view. We spent a few hours there, and then we decided to take a walk and go through all the streets from “Viejo San Juan”.  

At the end of the day I was really tired of walking and I decided to return to the “Bahia Urbana” when all the people goes to sit and watch the cruisers come and go. As local I’ve always visited this old city to escape from my life routine, but even though, I always get impressed by all the good things, people and views that this city gives us as a part of our history and culture.

Perception( A Room With a View)

A Room with a view is a story about the love of a young  English-woman named Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson. This love story takes place in Italy, specifically in the city of Florence at the times of 1900’s. Lucy and her chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, visited Florence for the first time. Once they arrive to Florence they stay at hotel when they meet the Emerson’s. After many situations between Lucy and George she had to go back to England an face her reality of marrying another man named Cecil.

The name “A Room with a View” symbolizes the perfect image that every tourist have when they travel to other countries. Here, we can see desire of having a view from their room that look like a magazine cover picture. This is a similarity that Jamaica Kincaid exposed in her essays of the differences of being an insider and being a tourist. The fact that Lucy and Charlotte wanted a room with a window that shows a great view, reminds us what Jamaica Kincaid was talking about of tourists in Antigua.

In the movie when Mr. Emerson was talking during the first scene he said one quote that explain the vision of the locals; “I don't care what I see outside. My vision is within! Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!.” Words that literally describe the point of view of the local people have of their country. Also we can see this in Kincaid’s essays when she describes the reality of the Antigua residents.  Other quote that support that point of view is when the Reverend said; "We residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little...handed about like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, Florence to Rome, quite unconscious of anything outside Baedeker. Their one anxiety to get done and flew and go on elsewhere else." This quote also shows what residents think about tourists.

            Other thing that I found interesting is the fact that tourists and residents have the same perception that turns to be what we called, stereotype. There was a part when Mr. Emerson mentioned that; “Women like looking at a view. Men don't.” Quote that for me result of a stereotype example. Also there was a moment after the fight at the plaza, when Lucy said; “I mean, Italians are so kind, so lovable, and yet at the same time, so violent.”, showing us another example of how people tend to stereotype by one impression.

           

            For me this movie was the perfect representation of what Jamaica Kincaid tried to explain in her essays. Also we can see a lot of aspects from Peter Roberts essay; “Identity”.