Integrative Narrative:
I was born and raised in Morelia Michoacán, Mexico for 13 years. When I was 13, my dad brought my family and I to the “American Dream” country. I was an “alien” in the United States, and I understand now why immigrants are referred as “aliens”, it’s because we are “different” and we can’t fit in this country. When I started middle school, I felt the same way as an alien, I felt judged for my skin color, my black hair, my language and my identity. However, I found a safe place where I felt welcomed, it was at my English Language Development (ELD) classroom, where I met students who had the same experience. The ELD classroom was a comunidad, not only of Mexicanos, but also Japanese and Filipino.
Throughout my middle school career, I really admired my ELD maestra, she was very supportive and knowledgeable about her student’s needs. Her support and persistence to teach us English, just for the sake of a curriculum, made me want to pursue a career in the educational system. So, when I started high school, my middle school consejera encouraged me to study Spanish because it would help me to not forget about my culture and language. That’s how I decided to study Spanish. During my 4 years in high school I took Spanish classes, I even took the AP Spanish classes and test where we learned linguistics and the beauty of literature. In all, I chose Spanish as a way of resisting to be colonized and to avoid my identity of Mexicano to be taken away.
When I was in my junior-senior year of high school, I was thinking about CSU Monterey Bay as a potential university to attend. I realized that it was my opportunity to continue to learn Spanish and go through the system to become a maestro to help future immigrant students and mi comunidad. During my career at CSUMB I could help mi comunidad through my service learning course by completing volunteer hours at Central Coast Citizenship Project. In the service learning site, I could help Latino people to study for their naturalization test and at the same time I was able to teach them English. Besides helping them with the test and English, I also interacted with them and escuchar their stories about struggles coming and living in the United States.
During my Spanish career, I took classes that would help me with my fluency in Spanish in terms of grammar, reading, listening and comprehensive. Through MLO 1, 2, 3 and 5, I learned how to communicate properly in different settings, (professional, cultural, educational, interpersonal), I learned about linguistics and experience different perspectives through studying abroad in Seville, Spain. Moreover, I practiced my language proficiency while I was studying abroad, doing community hours in Salinas and giving presentations for my courses. All the courses related to grammar and linguistics were helpful to learn how write better and have the least amount of grammar errors.
In the Spanish major I really enjoyed the readings, even though they were historically and sometimes the vocabulary was hard to understand. Also, I liked the readings assigned because some of them were modern and I could easily relate to them. My learning abilities allowed me understand and interpret what I was asked to do with the readings. Nonetheless, my experience with a Spanish major was challenging because it was hard to get a hold of my advisors. However, my upper Spanish classmates advised me to always keep insisting because that would be the only way they will take me serious. I must admit that this is the most challenging process in the transition of a Spanish major, maybe in other departments too, but at the end I figured most of my answers from doing in depth research and asking my upper classmates who had already met with a Spanish advisor.
Finally, to conclude with my Spanish major, I’m required to write a 20-page research paper on a topic that is interested to me. However, I would argue that it is not about what the student want, it is more whether the people in the Spanish department are happy with or not. Also, when I was planning my research and writing my proposal, I didn’t like how the professors questioned my abilities to conduct the project. At the end, I feel that professors prepared us for the capstone project to demonstrate our abilities learned through the courses they taught. Additionally, I feel that students feel limited to a topic and they also feel like their wings are being cut to stop them from exploring beyond what is being asked.
I was born and raised in Morelia Michoacán, Mexico for 13 years. When I was 13, my dad brought my family and I to the “American Dream” country. I was an “alien” in the United States, and I understand now why immigrants are referred as “aliens”, it’s because we are “different” and we can’t fit in this country. When I started middle school, I felt the same way as an alien, I felt judged for my skin color, my black hair, my language and my identity. However, I found a safe place where I felt welcomed, it was at my English Language Development (ELD) classroom, where I met students who had the same experience. The ELD classroom was a comunidad, not only of Mexicanos, but also Japanese and Filipino.
Throughout my middle school career, I really admired my ELD maestra, she was very supportive and knowledgeable about her student’s needs. Her support and persistence to teach us English, just for the sake of a curriculum, made me want to pursue a career in the educational system. So, when I started high school, my middle school consejera encouraged me to study Spanish because it would help me to not forget about my culture and language. That’s how I decided to study Spanish. During my 4 years in high school I took Spanish classes, I even took the AP Spanish classes and test where we learned linguistics and the beauty of literature. In all, I chose Spanish as a way of resisting to be colonized and to avoid my identity of Mexicano to be taken away.
When I was in my junior-senior year of high school, I was thinking about CSU Monterey Bay as a potential university to attend. I realized that it was my opportunity to continue to learn Spanish and go through the system to become a maestro to help future immigrant students and mi comunidad. During my career at CSUMB I could help mi comunidad through my service learning course by completing volunteer hours at Central Coast Citizenship Project. In the service learning site, I could help Latino people to study for their naturalization test and at the same time I was able to teach them English. Besides helping them with the test and English, I also interacted with them and escuchar their stories about struggles coming and living in the United States.
During my Spanish career, I took classes that would help me with my fluency in Spanish in terms of grammar, reading, listening and comprehensive. Through MLO 1, 2, 3 and 5, I learned how to communicate properly in different settings, (professional, cultural, educational, interpersonal), I learned about linguistics and experience different perspectives through studying abroad in Seville, Spain. Moreover, I practiced my language proficiency while I was studying abroad, doing community hours in Salinas and giving presentations for my courses. All the courses related to grammar and linguistics were helpful to learn how write better and have the least amount of grammar errors.
In the Spanish major I really enjoyed the readings, even though they were historically and sometimes the vocabulary was hard to understand. Also, I liked the readings assigned because some of them were modern and I could easily relate to them. My learning abilities allowed me understand and interpret what I was asked to do with the readings. Nonetheless, my experience with a Spanish major was challenging because it was hard to get a hold of my advisors. However, my upper Spanish classmates advised me to always keep insisting because that would be the only way they will take me serious. I must admit that this is the most challenging process in the transition of a Spanish major, maybe in other departments too, but at the end I figured most of my answers from doing in depth research and asking my upper classmates who had already met with a Spanish advisor.
Finally, to conclude with my Spanish major, I’m required to write a 20-page research paper on a topic that is interested to me. However, I would argue that it is not about what the student want, it is more whether the people in the Spanish department are happy with or not. Also, when I was planning my research and writing my proposal, I didn’t like how the professors questioned my abilities to conduct the project. At the end, I feel that professors prepared us for the capstone project to demonstrate our abilities learned through the courses they taught. Additionally, I feel that students feel limited to a topic and they also feel like their wings are being cut to stop them from exploring beyond what is being asked.