I am grateful for my further exposure to immigration in this class, but I still do not feel as though the work at AMIS was very beneficial. Most of the mentees seemed to be stable and adapted to life in the US, with established cultural identities either as Americans or Hispanic/ African Americans. My mentee already had a cell phone at the age of 8, whereas I did not receive one until I was sixteen. She described a "typical" American youth's lifestyle, watching television regularly, living with two working parents and one sibling, celebrating Easter with egg hunts and candy, and hanging out with friends at and after school. She is a happy, though shy, kid, but her shyness seemed more related to an introverted personality than to her status as an immigrant, as she remembers very little of Mexico anyway, identifying primarily as an American who happened to have been born in Mexico.
I feel that children of immigration are definitely affected psychologically by the uprooting, but Sara (and from my conversations with other mentors, many of the other AMIS students) did not seem to follow the case of an immigrant child needing any more support and embracing than the average American youth. Regardless, I found the material engaging and educational, and it has led me to want to show more support for the immigrant community both in Cincinnati and my hometown of Chicago.
This class also reminded me of my own background and the fact that my family still practices Irish traditions as we still have a lot of family in Ireland and Irish American immigrant relatives. Included are pictures from a family trip to Ireland in 2005, where we stayed with relatives in County Monaghan, listened to stories, ate meals in their home, and lived as they do.
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