Brightman: Service Learning
As a student graduating with a double major in both Spanish and Human Communications, I completed my upper-division Service Learning in the HCOM 350S course called Oral History and Community Memory. The Chinatown Renewal Project in Salinas California has been working with the staff and students of CSUMB over the past four years, making plans for a multicultural historical museum on Soledad Street, a street known to have a reputation for drugs, homelessness, and illegal activity. In this course students use oral history discourses to document the lives of Latinos living in these neighborhoods. Many Latinos were brought from Mexico with the Bracero program from 1942-1964. Others have families who have migrated and built lives on American soil.
These Hispanic and Latino individuals have unique experiences and stories to tell, therefore the students of this HCOM class were commissioned to record histories and analyze the importance to each interviewer to be saved in historical archives, to one day be displayed through audio and visual artifacts in the multicultural museum for Chinatown. I interviewed Tony Barrera, the District 2 City Counsel leader. Identity was one of the first things I talked about in my reflective responses at the beginning of the semester. “I think all of my social identities impact how I’ll be able to relate to, not only to the interviewers but to this project as a whole. Its just a matter of figuring out how I can be open and available to learn about their identities”, I said before taking the class. My expectations were to compare and contrast where our identities aligned and where they parted company.
I first saw myself as a student and I was able to articulate how my younger age and lower level of education might be a hindrance to the overall completion of a good interview. Now that I can reflect on the interview itself and my overall experience, I see that my interview with Tony Barerra did not produce a feeling of inequality and even less prevalent was a power struggle. Although optimistic in essence, my original response does not fully represent the fears I had about underlying unequal level of power there might be between us. The conversation with Tony gave me the chance to connect with him on a professional level—still student to adult but by being an active listener to his thoughts and experiences I was taking part in learning about him which broke down many of the opinions and stereotypes we had of one another.
The analysis of Mr. Barrera’s stories was an opportunity to see a convergence of my education in history and journalism, and Mr. Barrera’s Mexican culture, and the Spanish language. This Service Learning course was directly connected to my interests and education in both Human Communications and Spanish. For having studied Mexican history and learning the Spanish language I was better prepared for this interview and Mr. Barrera and I were able to work together in a professional manner to record important milestones and stories relevant to the Latino culture as a whole. Through this class I was able to demonstrate and in depth understanding of oral history techniques as well as analyze and become more open to different cultures—Latino cultures that I continue to learn more about each day.
These Hispanic and Latino individuals have unique experiences and stories to tell, therefore the students of this HCOM class were commissioned to record histories and analyze the importance to each interviewer to be saved in historical archives, to one day be displayed through audio and visual artifacts in the multicultural museum for Chinatown. I interviewed Tony Barrera, the District 2 City Counsel leader. Identity was one of the first things I talked about in my reflective responses at the beginning of the semester. “I think all of my social identities impact how I’ll be able to relate to, not only to the interviewers but to this project as a whole. Its just a matter of figuring out how I can be open and available to learn about their identities”, I said before taking the class. My expectations were to compare and contrast where our identities aligned and where they parted company.
I first saw myself as a student and I was able to articulate how my younger age and lower level of education might be a hindrance to the overall completion of a good interview. Now that I can reflect on the interview itself and my overall experience, I see that my interview with Tony Barerra did not produce a feeling of inequality and even less prevalent was a power struggle. Although optimistic in essence, my original response does not fully represent the fears I had about underlying unequal level of power there might be between us. The conversation with Tony gave me the chance to connect with him on a professional level—still student to adult but by being an active listener to his thoughts and experiences I was taking part in learning about him which broke down many of the opinions and stereotypes we had of one another.
The analysis of Mr. Barrera’s stories was an opportunity to see a convergence of my education in history and journalism, and Mr. Barrera’s Mexican culture, and the Spanish language. This Service Learning course was directly connected to my interests and education in both Human Communications and Spanish. For having studied Mexican history and learning the Spanish language I was better prepared for this interview and Mr. Barrera and I were able to work together in a professional manner to record important milestones and stories relevant to the Latino culture as a whole. Through this class I was able to demonstrate and in depth understanding of oral history techniques as well as analyze and become more open to different cultures—Latino cultures that I continue to learn more about each day.