Connections to Garcia's Translanguaging

When I started reading "Theorizing Translanguaging for Educators" by Ofelia Garcia I started to immediately think about my father's side of the family as they are full blooded Guatemalan. I think about the times at Christmas when the entire family is gathered at my aunt Sandra's house, in my mind I can hear the different languages being spoken to different groups of people. All of my aunts and uncles are at the dining room table chatting and gossiping in Spanish while my older cousins and I are sitting at another table, eating food and talking In English about how everyone has been doing since the last time we saw each other no matter how long ago it was and the younger kids to be in front of the television playing on whatever new game system that had received as a present and chatting away in both English and Spanish about the game. After reading the article I can now recognize this as "translanguaging". Now whenever my aunts talk to each other in Spanish and then switch to talking English when they are trying to have a conversation with me about how my life is going I know why they do it and the purpose behind it.

I wouldn't necessarily say that this relates to me directly but rather to apart of me that's also part of my heritage which is being half Spanish . It also kinda inspires me to want to actually learn Spanish more and helps me understand part of the reason why it's always been so important to my father for me to learn to speak Spanish more fluently.

My cousin Alex and I from Christmas 2018

Journal #1: 2/15/19

I was placed at an Elementary School through Inspiring Minds. Going into on the first day I was extremely excited but a little nervous. In my senior year of high school I had an internship with preschoolers but I haven't worked with children in the first grade. I had planned on taking the RIPTA bus there because that's my main form of transportation at the moment but my cousin had offered to give me a ride so I accepted. I thought she knew where she was going but turns out there's two schools with the name Feinstein, Alan Shawn and Lillian so we went to the wrong place and she had to drive me to the right one so I ended up being a little late for the first day. Once I got there, I went straight to the main office ans signed in and a woman had told me where the classroom was. I get to the classroom and introduce myself to the teacher and wait at the table where she was attending to students. She kept apologizing saying that the class isn't usually this crazy and she explained that another teacher is out so the students were split and put into different classes for the day. After she was done with the students, she gave me a few things to do with the group of kids that she had wanted me to work with. She gave me these spinner wheels that have word families and blend words on them, cards to work on sounding out what the letters sound like and two different books to read. When working with a few of the kids, I had found out that they are not in first grade rather second grade I believe. Time was cut a little short because the kids had their lunchtime at eleven so I had went down to the cafeteria and helped out a little until it was time to go. I'm excited to go back next Friday and work with the children some more, I can already tell I'm going to create amazing bonds with the kids while I'm volunteering there.

Kozol's Argument

          In the article "Amazing Grace", the author Jonathan Kozol argues that the reason why the people Mott Haven live in such poverty is because they do not have the power to change their situation.

          The imbalance of power has gotten real bad in our country, I never realized how much until reading this article. The neighborhoods in New York that are considered the ghettos are so run down and broken because the city doesn't care to do anything about it because they look at the people as lost causes and waste of resources. Practically everyone in St. Ann's has some sort of illness to cope with on their own. Heroin ravages across across the town, taking countless with it. The children also often suffer from things such as depression and anxiety. The most common one is asthma which is so bad in Mott Haven that some moms have to keep breathing machines next to their child's bed. The neighborhood isn't nice by anyway means, there's always adults and kids both being shot and killed. the times magazine referred to it as "the deadliest blocks" The people that live in the town have given up any hope because they know that they can't do anything to change the horror happening in their city. Kozol's main point with sharing all the detailed descriptions was to show the true misfortune that people that live in poor communities  have to endure because there is really nothing they can do about because no matter what anyone says they do not have the POWER to change it unless the country is willing to give them some power.

Kristof - Quotes

Three quotes that I feel express that main idea of this article are: “A child born in the bottom quintile of incomes in the United States has only a 4 percent chance of rising to the top quintile.” This quote is relevant because its from a Pew Study that supports the idea of hard work not being enough sometimes. Another great quote is “The chance of a person who was born to a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution rising to the top 10 percent as an adult is about the same as the chance that a dad who is 5 feet 6 inches tall having a son who grows up to be over six feet 1 inch tall. It happens, but not often.” this second quote from Alan Kruger is relevant because it basically explains that in this economic world sometimes the only way people can escape their social class is by getting lucky somehow which the chances of that are slim. One last quote that ties together the point of the article is “talent is universal but opportunity is not” The reason why I believe this quote is relevant to the text is because in just seven words it tells you that you can be very talented in this country but that’s not what matters. The thing that matters a good amount of time is if your social class has let you have the opportunity to break through the social statistics.

A comment I would to raise about this article is depending on the person it possibly discourage them a little if they themselves are going through a rough patch  is that no matter how hard things are, or if not everyone believes you can be successful you can't just give in to what people might expect. You have to keep fighting for yourself. If you’re going to live life then it’s probably going to be better if you constantly have to fight to make it the best on possible no matter how hard or daunting it might get. Just because you might not be the MOST successful doesn’t mean you can’t better your life as much as possible. Afterall, it is the only one you’re going to get.

Who I Am

               I am a daughter. This is one of the hundreds of pictures I have with my mother.

I am the youngest sister. This is a picture of when my sister, brother and I went on a walk with my mom one morning.

  I am rat mom to an adorable rat named Apollo. 

When I'm not at class or working I''m usually annoying my rat, cleaning his cage or just enjoying his company.

I have a big family so another thing I usually do often is spend time with my family. This picture is me and my cousin's five month baby boy Jamie.