Artist Statement

A Foto of Escuela
For my final project I wanted to focus on becoming a part of Escuela and the community since, for my first project, I focused on being welcomed. I tried capturing pictures that would relate to Escuela’s values and what they teach the students there. The pictures that I took for this project were taken over three weeks and I would ask the kids to pose for me or either take just candid shots of them.
The reason I chose the title “A Foto of Escuela” is because I felt that my project portrayed just a glimpse of Escuela. I also chose to use the Spanish version of “picture” because my project is all about the language barrier between students, teachers, volunteers, and parents. Throughout the video, I used a Spanish phrase to describe a picture and then switch to the English translation. This is how I experienced my time at Escuela. Since the woman I worked with didn’t speak a lot of English, I would ask the students to translate for me to find out what they were supposed to be doing. For example, the picture of the paper star was a team activity and each student made one point of the star. This was extremely difficult because the directions were only in Spanish and I had a hard time helping them. That day I learned a lot about patience and the intelligence of the students.
The biggest roadblock throughout making my project was my relationship with a volunteer I worked with every week, Ms. Valdivia. It took many weeks for me to break the ice with her, but when I finally did, I found out that she speaks mainly Spanish and was learning English. I started noticing in the later weeks that she was incorporating more English into her instructions for the kids which helped our relationship. The picture I have of her in my project says a great deal about her personality in that she is very mature for her age. In the end I feel like with more time, we could have bonded on a much higher level.
I decided to end my project with an open ended question because I feel that it lets my audience decide whether or not there is a solution to the language barrier. I personally felt alienated at times when the volunteers would only speak Spanish around me. I determined that is how the Hispanic community must feel around people who primarily speak English. I picked the song “One Tribe” by the Black Eyed Peas because I felt the message of the song related to the main theme in my project; although there is a language barrier, we still can communicate on some level with one another.
Ultimately, I feel that my project depicted my time spent at Escuela and the impact I made there. Not only did I make an impact, but the students made an impact on me and opened my eyes to “la communidad”.

Final Blog Post!

As this is my final blog post, I would just like to start out by saying how much I appreciated my time with the kids at Escuela and am really going to miss some of them. I feel that I did make a difference in some of the kids' lives and that they will remember the times I spent with them. For example my favorite person I worked with was Jonathan. Every week he always put a smile on my face and was really the only one who remembered my name. When we said goodbye, he gave me a huge hug and said he was really going to miss me. Also, I feel like I did make a connection with Ms. Valdivia in the end, even though she didn’t speak a lot of English. I could tell she was really trying towards the end to include me in what she was doing and I truly appreciated that and I knew the kids did as well. I think the most challenging thing I faced over the course of my time there was the language barrier. At the beginning, I didn’t talk at all to Ms. Valdivia but at the end I managed to talk to her and get to know her. Also, the kids would switch more into Spanish at the beginning, but towards the end they talked in mostly English around me and interpreted for me Spanish if I didn’t know what was going on. Overall, I feel like I gained a better understanding of the school as well as the Latino community.

This is my little buddy Jonathan singing me a song about brushing his teeth! They were working on making faces with healthy teeth and then a picture of unbrushed teeth and he started singing this. He was my favorite :)

B&GCoGM Decade of Hope Intiative

This is a video of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee and the Vice President explaining the intiative of the club and showing pictures from some of the schools involved with the club.

Los Mextizoz- El Respeto De Las Calles

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This is a group from the south side of Milwaukee
You can check out their MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/losmextizoz

FInal Project Thoughts

For my final project, I am thinking about exploring my relationship with the woman I work with (I finally found out her name) and possibly working on capturing the language barrier between me and the staff and students. I have some ideas of how I am going to approach the project and have taken a few pictures. The kids are really excited when I take their picture so I feel like I shouldn't have any problems finding pictures of them to put in my project. Next week I will be concentrating on taking pictures of Ms. Valdivia and her interaction with the students.

Welcome to Escuela

Welcome to Escuela
Being welcomed into a community makes any experience feel more comfortable and reassuring. From my short time volunteering at Escuela Vieau I can say that Escuela makes any person, no matter who they are, feel welcomed and part of the school. By taking pictures of places around the community and school that welcome people of all shapes and colors, I have put together an “essay” that shows this welcoming environment.
The camera acted as a tool to capture the atmosphere of school for me. I tried to capture moments and angles that accentuated my theme. By enhancing the details, I enhanced my overall message and theme of feeling welcomed by the city, to the front doors, all over the school, and additionally, in the classroom. My last picture I feel is the deepest in that it shows how the school is a community within itself and the children create the future of our society. The overall project focuses on welcoming outsiders into the community by capturing signs and places throughout the school that act as a sign of comfort. I chose, however, to not include any staff or children in my project because I wanted to show that even though I still feel welcome to be there, I still feel a little like an outsider at the same time. My pictures also mostly have a colored focal point where I want the audience to be drawn to and think about more. By focusing on the welcome signs in addition to highlighting aspects of pride in their diversity, I wanted to point out the details that might be missed but are important.
The communication between the staff and I may be weak but I have had some great conversations with the children so far. They not only talk to me and want to hear what I have to say, but when I get a chance to ask them questions, they aren’t afraid to answer me. I would have taken pictures of the all the children I help out with every week but it didn’t work out due to the restrictions made by the school. So far I have learned about the school and the activities they offer for the children. I believe that by keeping them in structured activities that they want to take part in, then that will help them make healthy decisions in everyday life. They have also been teaching me a little bit of Spanish so that I can communicate with them better. One of my favorite parts about the school is that everything in the classrooms is in English and Spanish. Even though it is frustrating for me when the children interchange from English to Spanish, I find it fascinating that they can do it. I feel like the children welcome and treat visitors and volunteers better than the staff does.
My goal for the last half of the semester is to get to know the staff better and communicate with them. I want to be able to communicate more with than staff by getting past just a formal greeting and move on to getting to know them on a first name basis and have actual conversations with them.

Post #2

Over the past two weeks at Escuela Vieau I still haven’t really seen a change in my relationship with the staff but I feel like I have really started to connect with the kids. A lot of them like to approach me and talk to me as much as possible. For example, they like when I teach them common French words and phrases and they teach me some Spanish. However the woman I work with never allows them to talk but rather makes them do their work in silence and when she does speak it is always in Spanish even though she knows I can’t speak any and does not ever tell me what she is doing or what she needs help with. The kids have actually told me that they don’t like her and really like when I come. It makes me feel good that they like when I am there but I don’t feel comfortable working with someone who won’t talk to me. My goal is to still try and get her to talk and be more open with me.

Journal Entry #1

On my first day at Escuela Vieau I was very nervous because I was worried that most of the kids would speak mainly Spanish and not want to speak to me at all; however they surprised me right away when they all started talking to me and telling me about themselves and asking questions about me as well. I really enjoyed getting to know them and learn about their school lives as well as their personal ones. At the school, I work with students who are in sixth through eighth grade and help them learn about their health and help them make good life choices as well as work on healthy character development. The one thing that I am hoping to improve on during my time at Escuela Vieau though is my relationship with the staff. I felt that I did not have a very good connection with the volunteer I work with and I cannot even recall her name. I was very surprised when she left me alone with the kids on my first day for a significant amount of time even though I had no idea what I was doing or what the kids were working on. I hope that by the end of my experience the volunteers will be more open with me and I will be able to communicate better with the staff. Overall, my first experience was very positive and I feel like I made a good first impression on the kids and they all were all sad that I wasn’t going to be there every day, and truthfully, I am sad too. I am really looking forward to next week and to the surprises that await me.