Week 10 -- Learnings/Summary -- Sarah Arriola

The time I have spent over the last 10 weeks, both in the classroom and at AMIS, have been much more enriching than I ever thought they would be. I thought I was signing up for yet other class that would require lots of reading and out-of-the-box assignments that would ultimately leave me with little more than another grade at the end of the quarter. I couldn't have been more wrong. 

Spending time with my mentee, Hawa, at AMIS was really enjoyable, and it never felt like a class assignment. I was learning from her and we were having fun together, whether that meant coloring, playing games on her Nintendo DS, or running around on the playground. I didn't dread that time that we spent at AMIS. Rather, I looked forward to it. In fact, I have found that, although I don't really miss the time spent driving back and forth, I do miss seeing the mentees. 

I have learned a lot about immigration this quarter, both from the readings, the AMIS students, and the time spent in the classroom. One of the biggest things I have learned is that all immigrants are not the same. They all have different stories and have had different experiences. Trying to lump all immigrants into one neat group is like trying to say that all college students are the same; that they act the same, believe the same things, or have the same goals. It's simply not true. It's actually quite insulting to try and say that all immigrants are the same. If we, as a society, try to look at immigrants as individuals with different needs and different stories, we would all get along better and would be better able to relate to one another. We would realize that we actually may have a lot in common with many of the immigrants that we feel as though we are so different from. I realized this fact through my mentee, Hawa.

When we showed up at AMIS on that first day, I was sure that I was going to end up paired with some student that I may not be able to communicate with, and surely wouldn't have anything in common with. I was quite wrong. Hawa spoke exellent English, owned a Nintendo DS, and talked about the same things I would expect any other fourth grade girl to talk about. Over the weeks that we met, I realized that we had several things in common. We both had experienced moving to different schools, both had brothers that we fought with a lot, and both had family in far away places (although hers is quite a bit farther than mine). I came to like Hawa a lot, and hope to stay in contact with her in the future.

Hawa and I with her picture and certificate.

What this class has taught me is to always remain open-minded about the new people I meet, especially immigrants. The people that I will encounter throughout my life will all have different backgrounds and different stories. They will most likely all desire the same things -- understanding, support, and respect. I believe that the things that I learned in this class will definitely help me for many years to come. 

Everyone in line for all the delicious food we brought!

The students grabbing for candy after they broke the pinata!

Week 7 -- Culture and Relationships -- Sarah Arriola

Hawa and I -- I wasn't brave enough to hang upside down!

This week was our last week of doing actual work with our mentees. Hawa had a little bit of homework to do, and after we finished that, we talked a little bit about how she felt about our time together these last few weeks. She said that she liked meeting with me and working on homework together. She thinks that it helped her on the test that she had to take. She just really liked getting to know me and really liked how every week we would get to talk about all sorts of things. After we were finished talking, we went outside for a few minutes because it was so nice out. We played around on the playground and she liked showing off her abilities on the monkey bars and the climbing wall.

While we were outside, she kept running up to one of her friends, ironically also named Hawa, and wanted to play on the slides and run races with her. They seemed to be enjoying running around outside together. Plus my mentee Hawa was getting help from her friend Hawa on how to climb up on top of the monkey bars. Her friend was very willing to show her exactly what the best way to flip upside down on the bars was, as well as the easiest way to climb up the bars. I was reminded of a statement from Vaughn's book while watching the two Hawa's help each other. "Friendship in  the Western world seems to serve the purposes of enhancing self-esteem and fulfilling individual psychological needs such as the development of self-identity and enhancement of feelings about self-worth whereas in other cultures, friendship is more about the socialization of cooperative and compliant behavior with others" (Vaughn p.113). I think their friendship is probably about developing self-identity, and that is because from what I can tell, both girls (or at least my mentee) seem to be fairly Westernized and so it makes sense that they would develop more Western-like friendships.

Hawa waiting at the top for her friend so they can go down the slide!

Watching Hawa run around with her friends reminded me a lot of my elementary school days. I loved being out on the playground with my friends, running from the monkey bars to the swings to the slides, always trying to make sure we had time to play on everything. Looking at both my experience and Hawa's experience I would say that a statement made it Vaughn's book is definitely true: "The relationship of friendship is found across virtually all cultures" (Vaughn p.112). Even if friendships are formed for different reasons, they are still formed.

I moved before starting my fourth grade year. I made some friends fairly quickly when I moved here to Ohio, and even though I didn't realize it at the time, there were some reasons that I formed those friendships. They are probably the same reasons Hawa made friends when she moved to the United States. As stated in Vaughn's book, "Friendship seems to serve the purpose of socialization and enculturation within society in terms of learning about culturally appropriate negotiation, reciprocity, cooperation, and interpersonal sensitivity" (Vaughn p.112). I know that by watching my friends, I learned what was and wasn't acceptable at my new school. Hawa most likely did the same thing when she first came to AMIS.

My brother, Kevin, and I dressed up for Halloween.

Having friends in a new environment is invaluable. As Vaughn says, "Friendships may also serve as a buffer that protects children during adjustment to life events" (Vaughn p.113). Although we never talked about it, I'm sure the friends that Hawa made when first moving to the U.S. made the whole experience easier for her. Something that Hawa does talk about is her twin brother. Although she says that they fight, I would almost guarantee that just like my brother and I, they lean on each other when dealing with new situations. My brother and I have always fought, but when something tough happens in our life, like moving to a new school or losing our grandfather, we are always there for each other. I bet Hawa and her brother are the same way. She once told me about a time when she and her brother flew by themselves to visit their father in Africa. She told me that it was cool to have her brother on the plane because that meant she knew someone else on the plane and wasn't by herself.

Hawa has been such an interesting girl to get to know. I am really glad I have gotten to know her over the last few weeks and hope that our paths somehow cross in the future. I hope that I have helped her in some small way, because I know she has taught me way more than I ever thought I could learn from a fourth grader.

Week 6 - Intercultural interactions - Sarah Arriola

Intercultural interactions can go smoothly, or they can be very awkward. To make an intercultural interaction go as smoothly as possible, people should be aware that the person they are interacting with may look the same and speak the same language as they do, but they may come from a completely different culture. Little things, like a handshake or eye contact, can make someone from a different culture very uncomfortable, and may even offend them. What people must always be aware of is that, "During intercultural interactions, individuals can feel lonely, alienated, and isolated; which may result in feelings of homesickness or stress or in daily life, a longing for the way things used to be" (Vaughn p. 101). Being aware of this can help an intercultural interaction go better on both sides, and hopefully can help lessen some of those feelings of loneliness and homesickness.

At a UC football game!!

When I first went to college, although I was in the same state and only about an hour away from home, it still felt like a completely different culture. My high school only had about four hundred people in it, whereas the University of Cincinnati has about forty thousand. I went from having my own room to having to share one with another person. I had been in class with maybe twenty five people at most when in high school, and suddenly I had classes with over one hundred people in them. I went to football games in high school, but they weren't a big deal (we weren't very good), but coming here, football games were extremely exciting and definitely a big deal. Those are only some of the many differences that I encountered in my first few months as a Bearcat. Thankfully I met other people who were going through the same thing I was, or had gone through it a year or two before me, and talking to them made my transition from high school to college much smoother. I can imagine that if someone was moving to a whole new country or culture, it would also help to them to interact with others who had at some point in their lives had been through a similar experience. I think that's one of the reasons AMIS is such a good school. It gives newly immigrated students other people their own age to talk to about their moves, as well as gives them people who can help them understand their new culture.

My sister Amber and I playing "crazy golf."

My older sister was born in the United States but has lived in Britain for most of her life. I met her for the first time in 2005 when she came to the U.S. to visit my family. Although she spoke English, it was obvious that she came from a different culture. I was only fourteen at the time, but I still remember some of the little differences that I noticed while my sister was here. One example is that we went putt-putting, but she referred to it as crazy golf. Another example is that my mom let her drive while she was here, but we all gave her a hard time because we were "afraid" that she was going to drive on the wrong side of the road. A final example that at the time I found quite funny was that she always referred to the trunk of the car as the boot. These are all little things that probably don't seem to have much importance. However, they all allowed me to see that even though she is my sister and we spoke (basically) the same language, we both come from fairly different cultures.

"Cultural competence is the ability to apply knowledge of your own and others' cultures" (Vaughn p. 105). I don't think I am as culturally as competent as I should be. I do not know enough about most other cultures to really be able to apply knowledge of them to an intercultural interaction. I can say, however, that I have become much more culturally competent since coming to UC two years ago and I plan on becoming even more culturally competent in my next two years here, because I do believe that it is important to know more than just what food a culture eats or what holidays they might celebrate. It's important to be able to go deeper and make someone feel as though you care about who they are and where they come from.