Thursday, March 4, 2010
Journal 3, Darine El-Sourady
My APPLES assignment is helping with ESL for 8th graders at McDougle Middle School. I honestly haven't seen much difference in the value system of the students I work with and my own value system. However when the students work in groups together, it is often really difficult to motivate them to take the assignments seriously. I think a lot of the problem has to do with social expectations and the way that young people in the Latino community are conditioned by American society to believe that their "culture" does not value education as much as American culture does. There are countless media images and stereotypes in American films and television programs of young Latinos who do not care about their schooling and instead place emphasis elsewhere. The image of young Latino males who get into "trouble" rather than study is a common notion in the minds of many Americans. And I wonder how these images are then projected back onto the Latino community and fulfill this racist prophecy disguised as culture.
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In my APPLES assignment, I have noticed differences between my own value system and that of the volunteers and the people I am serving. The Bread Ministry requests food from area grocery stores that would normally be thrown away and/or taken off of the shelf because of the expiration date, shelf life or condition of food that paying customers would refuse to buy. As the old anecdote states, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I find that when the food arrives from the grocers, many of the volunteers would rather take the crates off of the trucks but I would rather be on the receiving end to organize the food. Mostly I want to make sure that the people being served the groceries are getting food that is still in decent shape. One way that I differ from those served at the Bread Ministry is that they come to get as much food as possible to feed their families and supplement what little they can afford. On the other hand I support the Ministry by organizing the food and making sure that the food is fairly distributed to all who need it for that day.
ReplyDeleteWhen I encounter the issue with my fellow volunteers I feel a bit lonely because it seems I am the only one who seems to pay very close attention to the quality, organization and presentation of the food items. This is not something that I have dealt with alone as many of the women at St. Joseph have pick up on this quality and help the work along with getting the food place out for the people who need it. Additionally this is not too great of a problem because I am sure some of the other volunteers may feel like I am not much a part of their normal duties. In the end, we all work together to make sure that the day’s work is done. As far as the people who need the food, I have grown to be frustrated with their behavior. For example, I may be asked how many vegetable they can have and then they still take more than instructed. I am tolerant sometime of their behavior because I know that the Bread Ministry stands to help those who need it and to feed the hungry; therefore, I allow sometimes for people to get more if they do it in a different way. Another reason why I am tolerant but stern is because I really believe that everyone should have the opportunity to feed themselves and their families by any moral means available to them.
One very important way in which this related to our class is in the connection between types of food products (organic, fair trade, etc.). Amazingly the Ministry does get some food items (mainly fruits and vegetable) from fair trade grocers such as Trader Joe's. I find it very meaningful that corporations who have many efforts toward making food availability, trade and consumption better for people around them still exercise their service efforts to support fairness in food for all people despite their way or walk in life. While they could be doing their very best to make money, they also value the giving of food and fellowship in a sense.
Anika Fisher