Grace Shefcik
In the immigrant project, I read the book Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat. I didn't get a chance to really learn about other books, but I think this book was a good one for me. I didn't feel like it was easy but sometimes we did have to read a lot. I liked the story and a lot of things I agreed or I felt like I could relate to as a experience or could agree too. This book changed how I looked and my perspective at some things in life.

Something that what significant that I got from this book was how differently people look at life and death. A story was told in the book when the Angel of Death and God both asked an old lady for water who was running low. She refused to give God water, claiming he played favorites. She said that he made some beautiful, some ugly. Some rich and some poor, some sick and some healthy – but the Angel of Death takes everyone. The Angel of Death received water from the old lady. I think some people might disagree with this part of the book because they believe that someones life is in their hands and their fate, not God's. A quote that stood out to me talked about how life is just an hourglass and death is just a journey. It says the moment you are born an hourglass is turned, and you start your journey towards death. If people realized this there would be mourning and births, and people should rejoice over death because it is what happens at birth. Death is simply the other side of the hourglass, and if you cry over death it is because you do not understand it. I agree with this quote and I think it changed my outlook on life. It made me look at life as if even if there is no afterlife than it's okay because no matter what comes after it's simply the other side and life and death have to come together.

I think that I worked as well as I could on keeping posted on lit circle meetings. I had all of my posts up but one, which was on a day where I was very busy. I didn't find it to be a problem for the most part to be able to post it by the time deadline. I liked being able to do discussions online instead of in person. I felt like I could write more instead of at school and having limited time to speak. I felt like my group members had to pay more attention to what I said because they had to respond to what I said which didn't always happen in discussions in person.

I noticed that some of my group members picked quotes that I almost did and some I didn't think to respond to at all but they had a response behind it which I would not have seen before. That changed the way I looked at the book in some parts and the way I read. They helped me really understand some confusing parts in the book. I really enjoyed the new way of lit circles because it made me more aware of the book compared to before. I also really liked the book that I read.
I decided to do a book cover art piece because the original one was very plain to me. I wanted to keep it simple but put more significance in it. I think that it was easy to incorporate into an artwork for me . I think my final piece came out very nice and I am proud what I did. After fixing my minor mistakes I think that there is nothing I would change if I could at this point.

I had the opportunity to interview Antonio Morales, who is an immigrant from Mexico. I think that everything went well though our three interview. I felt comfortable having a conversation with him. Some of my questions were unclear to him so I had to restate them which were difficult for some of them so I had to restate them which was hard for me with some of the questions. I liked being able to interview him in different ways as I gradually learned and developed more questions about his life and journey to America.

During out first interview I learned that he has three daughters, his youngest is still in school. He came to American mainly because of their education and so that they could have a successful life. The second interview I learned that his way to America was easy. He had already been to America for work and his parents worked in America, so he had already somewhat adapted to the culture. At the third interview, I really learned the differences between the cultures of America and Mexico, even down to the small things like he never saw a corndog until he came to America. They had more parties and comfortability with neighbors in Mexico. He noticed Mexico had more plants and America had more industries and technology. It helped me understand how hard a new country can be to get used to even if you've already been partly familiar with it.

I made Antonio a painting as his gift. It is a painting of the two countries he lived in, titled Cultural Differences. On one side is Mexico, with more people around each other and having fun and parties. There is a mango tree because it is one of their main grown fruits. There is a younger him with a soccer ball on his schools dirt field. In America, he is in the grass fields that the schools here have. When he saw them he thought that he must be in Heaven. There is a different tree to show the difference, and no people outside. His wife, who misses Mexico a lot even though they visit around once a week is reaching for a mango in the tree of Mexico to show that she loves it there. Although there are things that separate his life between Mexico and America, a lot of things are the same. To represent this I show a joining sun and the joining road.

This project was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It opened my eyes about views on life and showed me an immigrants process to America. I would defiantly do this project again if I had the chance because I was very interested in everything I learned.