During my sophomore year of college, I took an honors seminar course titled “Exploring Personal Leadership Through Social Change” (HONR 401) where we talked about social movements around the world and how they caused change in society. After weeks of analyzing historical movements and discussing this topic, we put our newly acquired knowledge into practice by researching issues affecting our local community and organizations that are fighting to address them. Once we had compiled a list of organizations, we chose one that we were unfamiliar with but wanted to learn more about and volunteered at this organization for the rest of the semester. I chose to volunteer for the YWCA Ready to Learn program in Mankato which provides English tutoring for children of immigrant and refugee families ages 0-5. During my time volunteering at this organization, I co-tutored two children of a Guatemalan family: Luis (2 years old) and Selena (1 years old).

 

My involvement with this class allowed me to meet Levels 3 and 4 of the Knowledge and Understanding section of the Global Citizenship competency, because it helped me develop and sustain interactions with people from another culture. As an English tutor of the YWCA Ready to Learn program, I met with this Guatemalan family once every week for 1.5 hours in their home, a small trailer in St Peter, Minnesota. During our time together, we went over activities that followed the Growing Great Kids, Inc. curriculum which focused on teaching parents and children self-care skills, understanding social and emotional development, cues and communication, and physical and brain development. Communicating with this family was a challenge because we did not speak the same language. Although they spoke a little bit of Spanish (which both my partner and I spoke), their main language was Quiché, a Mayan language from the central highlands of Guatemala. This made it hard to know more about their background and views of the program. However, our daily interactions with them gave us enough context to understand their family roles and level of involvement in their children’s education. Becoming involved with this family gave me an insider perspective on an immigrant’s life as they assimilate to American culture. The research that I did as part of my “Change Project” for HONR 401 also gave me a deeper understanding of the social and political structures that influence and affect them in this process. For example, I learned that Minnesota has become the top destination for refugees who have already settled in larger cities of the United States, something known as Secondary Refugee Migration. This helped me understand our states’ demographics and the growing number of programs for immigrants in Mankato since 30% of these immigrants move directly to Blue Earth and Nicollet county. 

 

Although I am aware that the immigration process looks differently for every cultural group based on their background, the knowledge I obtained from this experience will allow me to be more understanding of immigrant families as they assimilate into our society, especially when working with them and their children as a music teacher. 

 

Below is the essay and presentation I wrote for my HONR 401 class where I continue talking about my involvement with this organization, its history, and how I plan to continue creating positive change within my community even after my participation in this class is over.