#Breakfree
In our second semesters as Juniors in history class we learned about the world and all it's horrible stereotypes, discrimination and etc."This project is a MOVEMENT that we are naming #BreakFree. This project is about creating something VIRAL that encourages our viewers to “BreakFree” from the misconceptions, to BreakFree from societal judgments, to BreakFree from history’s abuses, and more importantly to BreakFree from the threats of stereotyping. Our Dream Goal is to become VIRAL in the world of the media" (Joanne). One of the things that really got us started on this project was a class activity we did where there were four posters hung around with Mexican, Black, Asian, and White written on each separate paper. Our assignment was to go around and list down as many possible stereotypes we could of think that associated with the racial group. The results were shocking, we had written down stereotypes such as Asian are bad drovers to calling Mexicans wet backs, and somewhere when we were reading all the stereotypes out loud our whole class came to a realization that we are so familiar with these stereotypes because we are constantly surrounded by it. It is put into our daily life by social media, friends, family, media, etc. It was everywhere and we needed to help bring awareness to this. This was our first step into our project BreakFree.
My That Card
It never came to my attention that children were more aware of the world than most adults gave credit for. I, from a very young age realized that there was someone always missing from my childhood; one of my mothers. She was always present at home, but she missed all my weekend soccer games, school events and important family events. Which eventually created a gap between our relationship. We were missing that important bond to the point where she barely knew what my interests were. Then, things took a turn when she was laid off. She started spending more time at home, cooking dinners (Which were awful), dropped and picked us up from school and basically became a house mother, while my other mother worked to support us. One night, my mother tried to enforce a boundary on my sister and I because we had crossed the line. However my sister and I were not used to her giving us rules, so we did what children do best; we questioned and resisted her. Our resistance had come from her missing out in our childhood. She was never there, so we never learned her way of parenting. Furthermore, it got worse as I entered high school. My mother and I started fighting about little and big things. My mother would throw the fights way out of proportion, and would not leave me alone when I would cry. She would insist on “talking”, which only led to me resisting her more. The fights never got resolved and stayed as bad memories. While being in high school, I became more aware of the world and learned how to read people better. I started realizing that my mother needed a lot of attention from my other mother. The conversations were always about her, what was wrong with her next. She would fight with me for attention. I started making excuses for her; I blamed it on her mental illness, that it wasn’t her fault and that she couldn’t help it. However she could help it. She took medicine and still acted like a child. It almost seemed that she was a better mother when she wasn’t there for me then now that she is all the time. My mother became a sibling who needed 100% attention from everyone she was surrounded by. Now that I am older and more mature, I am understanding how to deal with my mother. Although, the problem of needing attention all the time still exists, and I have learned how to work around it. I know when to go away when she is having one her episodes from lack of medicine. While I still struggle everyday with my mother acting like a child, I am learning day by day how to live with a person who has a mental illness. Personal Piece
The next step for this project was to a personal piece. This portion of the project was to help explore our selves and find a moment or something in our life that we wanted to breakfree from. From this we were assigned to create paintings, ted talks, spoken words or anything that was possible. I did a painting of my struggles of finding my ethnicity in America, I also wrote an artist statement to explain my painting. |
That Card
Another thing we did to warm us up for this project was that every morning in class we were asked very personal questions to open up our vulnerability. There were questions from,"Is there anything you would take back in your life" to "Have you ever been discriminated or have discriminated someone else and why." Then we built off those questions and wrote a personal piece where somewhere in our life we had a moment where we broke free from something in our life. Something that we went through, whether it was being discriminated by or having family issues. I chose to wrote about my struggles of growing up with a parent who had mental illness. I also decorated my card with a picture and few words that summarize my card. Then every morning in class our teacher would read two everyday to start our class. The activity helped all our class to become closer and to understand that everyone goes through some kind of struggle. This was another major step for our project. |
Group Project
This was my favorite and least favorite part of the project. I enjoyed working with my three other peers but it was very hard to get things done. The first thing we had to do was create a project proposal to get approved by the teacher. We then presented our proposal and got critiques from the teacher and students, following a week of filming and editing. We then got critiqued on our video again to polish it. The hardest part of filming was having the courage to talk to strangers, because my whole group was shy. Our video was different from other ones because we talked about an issue that doesn't get a lot of attention from. Overall I had lots of fun doing this with my teammates and would re-do it if given the option. I enjoyed being part of the movement of breakfree of bringing awareness to stereotypes and discrimination and stopping it. It feels good to help others to become aware of this, makes me feel like I did something right. Project ProposalPresentation |
“American Girl”
By Priya Gilbert Growing up as an adoptee from India I always struggled with my ethnicity. I was surrounded by white people everywhere, including home, I tried extremely hard to fit in with the “white” culture and become as American as I could. I pushed down my birth language, tried to imitate the American accent and in less than 6 months I was fluent in English. When my parents tried to take me to celebrate my ethnic holidays and put traditional Indian clothes on me, I would object and cry, because I wanted to fit in, be the “American” girl. However as I pushed down my ethnicity and culture, I drowned in the American culture which resulted in consequences. I forgot my birth language, lost interest in my ethnicity and lost a lot of memories from my birth country. My art represents my younger self on the left becoming American, while India is still being on my mind and on the right side is my 17 year old self finally accepting my culture and being proud of it, while America lays behind me. I finally came to the realization that my ethnicity is beautiful and there is much I need to relearn and discover about my culture. One thing that really helped me accept my ethnicity was last winter break my family and I traveled to India and I discovered there is so much beauty in the Indian culture from foods, music and traditional holidays. I also saw there was an immense amount of poverty and realized how grateful I was to live in the US. It took 17 long years to finally accept my race, come out of my shell and unbox my memories and accept my past. I became a fusion of both cultures, and I couldn’t be happier. Final VideoProject ReflectionThis project made me very aware of all the ugly in the world but it also gave me hope because I saw what we were doing and that it was making a difference. Even though the impact was only in our school, family and friends community it will eventually spread out. I know these lessons will stay in peoples mind and hearts and will help to make a difference. Breakfree means to not let stereotypes, or society's view of life define who you are. You are you because of your personal characteristics not because of how you appear or what society labels you as. Be proud of whom you've become and learn to accept yourself because only your opinion matters. The most challenging part of this project was talking to strangers. I was very shy and afraid of rejection, I had my peers give me a pep talk to over come this fear and it went well. My interview was a success and helped to the persons mind on my topic. I have learned that stereotypes are institutionalized in our heads from our childhood. That we grow up with everywhere, it is portrayed on the media constantly and spread through family and friends. By doing this project we were trying to achieve how stereotypes are spread but with a twist, we were bringing awareness to these issues by using media, family and friends. I have learned to be more open minded and stand up when certain issues occur in the real world. Everyone needs to breakfree from all the ugly in the world to make this place better.
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