Week 14: And the Countdown Begins....

By Leanna Millan

With our time in Mexico quickly coming to an end, SJGELA took time this week to start thinking about the bigger picture – what each of us would like to see for the world after everything we have learned and experienced this semester. As you can see in the picture, the exercise was presented as a puzzle with each of our hopes making up one of the pieces. One of us would like to see the reduction of poverty, one of us would like to see water become a basic human right, one of us would like to see the reduction of waste and the list goes on with the end result being this beautiful array of hopes for the world. The puzzle became a beautiful representation of each of us doing our part to better the world, proving that its only in working together, in each of us doing our a little bit, that the world becomes the place that we all hope to see.

But with endings not only must we look to the future, to our actions upon our return to the United States, but we must also, unfortunately, look back. After four weeks of being taken-in, fed, taught, etcetera we had to, at last, say good-bye to our home-stay families. In a three hour ‘despedida’ [a good-bye], each student and family member had the opportunity to express their experience in one of three named groups: Learning, Support, and Joys. The groups could either write a song or make up skits and much to all of our joys, each artistic piece hilariously yet truthfully reflected the experiences of the group as a whole. It was a sad to see such a challenging and wonderful experience come to an end but we were all happy, families included, to have had each other in one another’s lives even if it was for such a short time.

Our time together as SJGELA and Social Work students, as marked by the end of home-stays, is rapidly coming to an end and with that we are doing our best to take every minute in, to make every moment count. Much like we did with each of our families, we have created a family with one another and much like the ‘despidida’ we hate that it is ending but love that we have had each other for this long. But, hey, the end is not here yet….

Week 13: Looking through the Camera

SJGELA students had the opportunity to visit public television and radio channel, Canal 3, right in our own city of Cuernavaca.

By Leanna Millan

This week SJGELA students had the opportunity to focus more intently on the affects and power of Mexico’s mass media. It has been a topic touched on throughout our semester with several of the groups that we have met commenting on their lack of visibility in government controlled media outlets but it was only this week that we had the opportunity to personally meet with ‘Canal 3’, a non-governmental television and radio station. After hearing all semester about the governments control on published points of view, current events, public opinion, etc. it was refreshing to finally hear from a media source whose end goal was to give space to those voices that have been silenced.

Ivonne Velasco, Assistant Director of ‘Canal 3,’ took time out of her busy schedule to not only provide us with technical explanations of the different studios but more importantly with personal testimony. It was in that, in her personal experiences and the experiences of other journalists that we gained the most – gained useful knowledge of the extent to which the Mexican government has been guilty of censuring its people. An interesting fact: Mexico has recently topped the list of one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work.

This visit coupled with an analysis of historical Mexican movies in this one week allowed us to fully understand the impact of media on not only public opinion of social movements and communities but also gender roles and relations. Los medios de communincacion [mass media/media sources] so intrinsically continue the cycle of discrimination that it is hard to see or even analyze without the extra push from our professors and visits.