The Immigrant Experience Turns 1 Year Old!!
Last year I committed myself to creating a blog. I made a contract with myself that only I would see. It stated that on November 19th, 2017 I would post my first blog post. It went on to say that I would post one blog post a week for a year until November of 2018, no matter what. I planned to publish once a week on Sunday. My aim was to facilitate understanding of the challenges being faced by the immigrant community today in addition to fostering the important dialogue needed to help solve some of our most difficult and worrisome problems. The intention was to serve as a supportive and knowledgeable voice in and for this community.
Growing up first generation to parents who worked hard to provide for me the best way they knew how, I embraced the culture of my new homeland while always returning to the essence of my parents’ birthplace. Early on I was able to recognize the fact that as strangers in a new land with so many opportunities and pitfalls available, it can be difficult to know exactly what rules affect the lives of yourself and your loved ones. For people trying to attain the best for the generations to come, taking time to educate or advocate can be a rarity.
“It can be difficult to know exactly what rules affect the lives of yourself and your loved ones”
Through my writing and research my hope has been to provide the knowledge and space to gain an understanding of how changing laws and policies are affecting the day to day lives of immigrants. Starting from just where I sat with limited knowledge of technology and how to best use the tools available to me to my advantage, I made the leap into existence. I have researched and written on topics from increased wait times to attain citizenship to gaining a green card through marriage to homeland security staking out school parking lots in an effort to detain undocumented family members.
In my grassroots effort to get the word out about this blog I have been growing organically, I have happily stumbled upon a fun and viable platform to enlighten folks to its existence. COMEDY!! Stand Up comedy in fact. Although many of the things I write about in this blog are of a serious nature and are taken as such;
through comedy and humor people can begin to see and feel how they relate to this growing and ever important community.
In the past year I have performed stand up several times culminating after one year with a performance on Broadway this coming December 6that the Broadway Comedy Club in New York City.
Going forward I intend to work with professionals from many disciplines to improve the quality and content available on this site. While my lack of tech savvy has not been a complete hindrance as I began this journey, much more can be made available in this space. From this vantage point the focus is on what will provide the largest impact and provide the most useful information. If you feel you have skills and knowledge that would prove helpful in pushing this mission onward do not hesitate to reach out to me and let me know what you wish to bring to the table.
After a year of writing and focusing on how to improve this blog and my mission, I have to be honest and say that I fell short of the mark I set. Of the last 52 weeks I have only posted 29 blog entries. However, I did also complete a 5k Refugee Run in support of resettling refugees in Connecticut. I have taken to the stage on three separate occasions to tell jokes and enlighten people about this blog and the many challenges faced by this community. In addition I have attended to a small business workshop with New York City Business solutions which met for several weeks culminating in a business plan presentation in front of a panel of judges and a class about digital marketing from the same outfit. As I end this love letter and update on the journey I leave you with this… One person acting from their heart can build something magical with their hands for the whole world to appreciate. Stay strong, keep pushing forward and know that you are loved with all my heart.
