Citizens!

No, climate change is not fake news. While the Earth does have a natural recycling process of Carbon Dioxide, the amount of carbon present in today’s atmosphere is too much for Earth to recycle it as an efficient rate. Climate change is causing draughts, wildfires, melting glaciers, colder winders, and animals are migrating to the north more. Our actions are preventing the environment from remaining sustainable in the long run. My stance on climate change is that it is our duty to ensure that people work more or do what they can to create a better environment. The smallest little bit helps and it will likely take-off if more people decide to follow your example. If a community is stronger and works together to create a safer, more clean way to keep the environment healthy. Our communities are able to promote the idea that nature is also an important factor, and being a good citizen means taking care of it. I want more people to challenge information about false climate change t

What you see is a WordCloud of KeyTerms I used throughout my time in the Citizens! course. The colors, as you can most likely tell, are a connection to the American Flag and the colors we associate with the United States. I wanted to use a gray background for this image because I believe words can be defined by each person a little differently, and each word means something different depending on the person hearing or saying it. The gray represents the gray area created by how words have different effects on people, but I also want it to represent the gray area that’s been created when you try to answer “What does an American look like?” Americans don’t have a specific “look” to us, but we have our freedoms and equalities, but also struggles and painful pasts. Those experiences are what make us American, but since each person has different experiences, the area is still gray. You’re probably wondering why I chose to use the gavel as my shape. Well, I really wanted to incorporate

After already being so passionate about a topic, it’s probably hard to think that I could get more involved in asylum. Well, you’re wrong. While I had followed asylum closely in regards to how it has affected Syrians specifically, I never really followed the path of asylum seekers from Central and South America. After doing more research during Unit 3, my eyes were opened to the fact that Hispanic and Latino/a asylum seekers are being treated the same way as Syrian asylum seekers. After learning about this, I decided I would more closely follow what’s happening to the asylum system. As of a few weeks ago, President Trump decided to order for more restrictions on asylum seekers, like making them pay for the application process and preventing work permits. This gives me a lot of frustration because, as global citizens and fellow human  beings, it should be our job to help asylum seekers find safety and aid while their homes are too dangerous to live in. However, there is not a desire

You read the title. I’m sure your first witty response will be “Which one, considering there were two in one month.” And yes, there were two blackface incidents, and yes there was eventually Neo-Nazi vandalism which fueled racial slurs and hatred later this semester, but I don’t want to talk about what specifically happened, because I’m sure you know. I want to talk about the responses from the community, and my own personal experiences after the blackface incident in particular. After the blackface video was posted to Twitter and I saw it for the first time, I felt shocked, disgusted, and repulsed that there were two young women who believed this was a good idea, or that they wouldn’t get in trouble or found out. Growing up in the Chicago area, my parents taught me very quickly that not everyone will look like me, but that’s okay. I was taught to embrace the fact that I grew up with diversity around me, because a lot of children in America don’t see this amount of diversity. I didn

Something that I thoroughly enjoy looking at is a political cartoon. Is it because they can be funny and make caricatures out of political figures? Is it because they’re short and easy to understand? Well, no and no. I like political cartoons because I think it’s a good way for people to speak their opinions about political issues, and it also has the look of being simple, but is likely more complex. For example, Thomas Nast drew his cartoons to look realistic and reflect his political opinions and how they would be in a realistic world. A specific cartoon about Chinese Exclusion Act shows Columbia, a symbol of America, defending a Chinese man who is on the ground shriveled up away from an angry mob of white men. Behind Columbia and the Chinese man are derogatory phrases about the Chinese that media had published. While it seems self explanatory as to what Nast is trying to convey, he plants a lot information in the background of the cartoon. This cartoon in particular shows a colore

As I have grown up, I noticed more and more that my maternal side of the family is very different than my paternal side, at least politically. I realized I had to be much more careful about what I would say in regards to politics at the risk of making one of my Uncles or my Grandma upset. I also noticed how uncomfortable visits were when my parents and I visited my dad’s parents during the Presidential Election. There, of course, was news about politics all over and naturally there were comments, but I never much realized until then how much I had to be careful about what I would say next. While I dreaded those moments originally, it helped me develop the skill of talking about different points of view respectfully. Learning how to talk tension through rather than run away from different opinions in fear of arguing has also helped me recognize that we as a society must continue to have those difficult discussions to make communities feel stronger. Because there had always been so m

My junior year of high school was during the 2016-2017 school year, which meant I was learning about American history while the 2016 election was occurring. I had learned about most of American history growing up in grade schools, but since my peers and I were older, we learned more about the horrors minorities faced during the course of American history. Before then, I had also never considered voting as such a big priority in my life, considering I wasn’t able to vote until the summer of 2018. When we learned more about how much discrimination was present and the duration of discrimination, I began to realize that voting is much more important that what I’d thought. Fighting for and eventually receiving voting rights for women and eventually men and women of color to better voice their opinions and introduce more views about an issue which may be more inclusive and better for multiple groups within the United States rather than the one group being represented. My classmates and I

People ask me a lot about how I got to be interested in international relations and the global community, and I really have my senior year of high school to thank. My senior year history class covered topics about contemporary world issues, or CWI as we called it. We discussed western Europe first and spoke about Brexit specifically, then we learned about the Middle East and the Arab Spring, then spoke about Russia and their politics. When we learning about Western Europe, we first watched a video that interviewed British and French people on the street about how they viewed Americans, and how stereotypes affected their views. There was also a segment of the video which showed Poland and that Polish citizens often celebrate America by dressing up as cowboys and cowgirls. I was very shocked at the time to see how far stereotypes could reach, and how much people’s perspectives are really affected by stereotypes. When learning about the Arab Spring, we discovered the reasoning behind Moh

Why was I here? Well, I was originally here because it was a requirement for my major, but when the first day of class came around and I got to learn more about what topics this course would cover, I understood I was here to become more educated about being a citizen and what citizenship truly is. I was here to gain understanding that being a citizen means giving people equal chances and treatment to enforce the strength in our communities. In terms of what was expected for my writing, I was a little nervous that I would have to work much harder and that the expectations would be a lot higher as well, which was true, but I ended up becoming a better writer who could be more complex and use strategical techniques to better support my stance and claims.  I also learned about writing and how each strategy affects the overall tone of the essay and the credibility of the writer. This class has also helped me learn how to better develop my stance about arguments and defend my reasons for wh

Where have I been while writing my research essay about asylum? Well, first of all, I’ve been to Stress Street, Anxiety-ville, Sleep Deprived City, and All-Nighter Alley. This paper was my first research paper that wasn’t a literary analysis, and it was a difficult journey. Finding credible sources and looking through each one for evidence that supports my claims, my desire to incorporate too many ideas, which then lead to the difficulty of narrowing my thesis made this essay all the more tricky. No matter how much I didn’t want to, I had to take a step back and ask myself what I really wanted to focus on and what my stance was. While doing research, I took a trip back to high school and revisited databases to find those credible  sources I needed. And, with the help of Dr. Mintler, I looked at newspaper articles too that really helped me decide what I would narrow my thesis to.  During this long journey, I’ve been working towards the destination of proving that the asylum system h

I chose my research topic because asylum has been a topic I have learned about for quite some time, and it has always been a topic of interest as an International Studies major. This issue is important to me because my heart always goes out to people fleeing from war stricken or genocidal countries, who endure even more hardships and face death because they have hope for a better quality of life elsewhere. Yet, those people who leave almost everything behind are turned away and stripped of any hope they may have had before they decided to leave. I think this is an important issue because it challenges what it means to be a global citizen, but more specifically what it means to be a U.S. citizen. As a U.S. citizen I have grown up with many freedoms and opportunities that others haven’t, and it makes me upset to see refugees turned away. I also recently attended an Association Friends of Venezuela event about immigration and the difficulty their people are facing. Venezuela had opened i

Answer: Yes Now, I'm sure many people would disagree that it's everyone's obligation to be environmentally just, but let me explain to you why it's so crucial to being a citizen. But first, let me tell you about what environmental justice is. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency: environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies ("Environmental Justice", par. 1). So many communities are being affected by the lack of environmental justice, and there aren’t enough people standing up to make a change. Those being affected by environmental injustice are unable to make their struggles known, because they are not valued as citizens. This is likely due to the fact that those struggling are colored communities and the discriminati

During Expo class, this freewrite question was asked to us: “ How does the decision of the Dred Scott v Sandford case parallel that of the decision of Elk v Wilkins?” When looking at both court cases, there are clear parallels between them. The most obvious is that two minorities in the United States, African Americans and Native Americans, were declared not citizens of the United States and denied any rights the Constitution grants white citizens of the United States. Elk was denied the right to vote because it was ruled that his allegiance was to his tribe, not the United States, despite being born in the US. He was denied the Constitutional right to vote just because he was Native American. When Dred Scott went to court to claim he was free from slavery because the Louisiana territory at the time, where his slave owners moved him, was mostly considered “free”, it was ruled that African Americans will never have the rights stated in the Constitution because it was not meant for them

“Why are you here” is a question I get asked a lot, especially when people find out I’m from Chicago. Because my mom was an Air Force brat, she grew up all over the United States, and lived in Oklahoma twice. She was a Sooner fan ever since she was a little girl, and she encouraged both my sister and I to look at OU, even if it wasn’t our initial first choice. When I spent the day at OU visiting, getting my tour, speaking to the Head of the Italian Department, as well as study abroad advisors, and even just seeing the students on campus and having some interactions with them assured me that OU would be my home. The Italian Department was outstanding, and I was so excited by the idea that I would be with them the next four years. I was also amazed by the international presence that former president Boren established. However, I knew that I wasn’t going to be studying only Italian and International Studies. Like any major, there are requirements outside of just learning Italian or Int

Over the weekend on March 2, 2019, I participated in the University of Oklahoma's dance marathon, called Soonerhton, to support the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. It was twelve long hours of standing, dancing, competing, and working towards donations. However, I  was nervous that being at the event would make no difference. I  was doubtful that I could raise donations for the children. But I  realized how wrong I  was when I got to Soonerthon.  I recognized how lucky I was to be there the more time passed. Even if I couldn't raise as much as others, and even though I'm losing my entire Saturday to sleep and relax, I realized that I was part of something larger than myself. Just having the opportunity to raise money for the kids was an amazing experience because every dollar made a difference. Thinking back on Soonerhton and how every small donation contributed to a larger goal, it has also made me think about citizenship and the ability that citizens have to make