Immigration Project Reflection

The literature circle book I read was called Once Upon A Quinceanera. I'm glad I chose this book because I wanted to know more about Latina immigration because they are a lot of the United States population. Something important I learned from this book was that Quinceaneras are a huge part of the Latin culture and they always keep their traditions and even if the family doesn't have a lot of money or it is hard for them to be able to give their daughter a Quinceanera they will find a way to no matter what because it is very important to them. I think the process we had in our literature groups was really good but I think maybe we could have done a couple vocabulary words for every post. I liked blogging a lot better than sharing in a group because it's a lot easier because we can focus better and we have more time to work on them. I didn't have any problems with blogging and by my peers responding I think it helped because I got to see different perspectives about the book and it let me have more ideas too.
I chose to redo a book cover because I thought the book cover was kind of boring because it was just a girl in a dress sitting down. I think people wouldn't know what the book was about if it wasn't for the title and I wanted to make something that showed what the book was about without having to read the title and making it more colorful. On my painting I put a big Quinceanera cake as the center of the painting because they have big cakes just like weddings and it's a big part of the party. In the background I put a high heel shoe because during Quince's they start off wearing flats the when they become a women they put a high heel onto her to represent becoming a women. I also put a crown in the background with a number 15 on it because they wear crowns at their Quince's and they have Quince's when they turn 15. I think my painting turned out really nice and I like the colors in it and I think it really represents a Quinceanera. I think for my painting I could have worked better on the little details and the outline of the objects. I learned that by making a painting for literature circles can help people and myself see the book in a different perspective and it is was really fun and a good way to learn about the book and how to think in different views.
When I interviewed Pau Pau my immigrant, she was very friendly and liked the idea of getting interviewed but for me it was very difficult to understand what she was saying, I got by pretty good but I had a lot of troubles with that. Although other than that I was able to get a lot of information from her and it was easy to talk to her, we also got a long very well. I interviewed my immigrant at the IRC, so we only had to do two in person interviews but I liked being able to see them twice and it was easy to connect better. From the first in person interview I learned a lot about her life here in California but after seeing her once then going back she was more comfortable and answered a lot more questions from her life in Thailand then when I asked her in the first interview. Interviewing an actual immigrant helped me understand a lot more about immigration and knowing what they've gone through and it makes you want to learn more in depth about immigration because everyone had their own special personal connection. I made my immigrant a painting about her immigration and her favorite things. I drew the Thailand flag as the background, and then I drew Thailand as the center of the painting. On the side I drew the beach because her favorite thing to do in California is go to the beach.
Overall I really liked this project and I learned a lot more about immigration then I thought I would. I liked this project because we got to learn one person's personal story and all about immigration from all over the world.