Citizens!

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 fo...

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...

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...