San Diego’s High Tech High tenth grade students developed friendships with sophomores at Tijuana’s Instituto México Americano del Noroeste (IMAN), discussing and researching shared issues of injustice and opportunities for hope in our two cities along the US-Mexico border, finding common ground and connection in their weekly Skype video chats and shared photo posts via Instagram. Students interviewed experts and leaders connected to the research issues, and created visual stories about their research through cut paper art, a twist on traditional Mexican folk art, papel picado. Students will meet at Friendship Park and exhibit their art and research to the public at the border on December 9th, and at High Tech High on December 14th.
Injustices Against Women Along the Border Region Research Introduction: For our project, Proyecto ComUNIDAD, I have chosen the topic of women’s rights. I chose this topic because I wanted to bring light to how women are discriminated against in society, both in Tijuana and San Diego. I also wanted to learn more about how women try to fight the injustices they face. I started off knowing that women get harassed sexually and physically more than men, and that women get paid less than men. Also that women in politics get discriminated against and get threatened because people believe they’re not fit for the job. Coming into this topic, some of the big questions I had were: how are women threatened or disempowered both in San Diego and in Tijuana? How do women in Tijuana fight against discrimination?. I chose this topic because I wanted to learn more about the injustices, and what I can do to help women in need. I wanted to learn about the different ways women deal with discrimination and harassment. On social media and the news I’ve seen cases where women were sexually assaulted or threatened based on their job position. I’ve also heard many times that women shouldn’t be allowed in politics since women are too sensitive and their emotions will get in the way. I’ve always been interested on how to bring empowerment to women and young girls, I want to be a part of a community that inspires these young girls. For my group’s product, we thought about painting a mural. We wanted to do a mural because art pieces can impact others and bring light onto injustices and things that are complex and emotional to discuss. In our group we all like art, and wanted to make the mural for our final product since it combines our interests and a way to show empowerment for all women. For our mural we hoped to find a space on a wall in a public space, or in an organization that supports girls and women to be leaders, therefore anybody can look at it. I hoped that our art piece would be thoughtful and that it could impact other women and/or young girls to stand up for their rights. Before I started researching about women’s rights, I had known the gist of women’s rights. It wasn’t until this project that I started researching deeper into this subject. I already knew that women get discriminated against more than men, and there have been many protests in communities fighting for women’s rights. I also didn’t know any statistics on certain subjects for example, sexual assault against women or how much women get paid less than men. Though I barely started researching, I felt that later on I would receive better sources from the help of other people. When thinking about the topic of women’s rights I mostly wondered about the statistics about sexual assault and harassment or how many protests there have been in support of women’s rights. I also wondered how many women are in politics worldwide and if they get threatened a lot. I’ve heard a lot about how women are too emotional and sensitive to have a higher position in a job. I also wanted to research deeper into the ways women get discriminated against. I hoped that I would get to interview women that have experienced discrimination (if possible) or women that have been in protests, that can help give us ideas about our final product, and inspire us on how we can bring women’s issues more into the light.
Search Process-Women’s Rights In my research, there have been a lot of successes and trial and error. It had a lot of high points because it was easier to find sources in English, but low points because it was difficult to find sources in Spanish. I also researched murals and a possible women’s march, since they were two of our final products that we wanted to do. Still, while doing my research, I also struggled with finding good sources. I have always struggled with finding reliable websites or articles that I can use. This has been my research journey.
In the beginning of the research process, I knew that I wanted to know more about women’s rights after reading Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. When reading this novel, I noticed that there was a lot of women in leadership and empowerment, even though the general society didn’t think they should have those positions. I was very interested with finding out more within women in politics and activism.
When actually researching on the internet, I first googled the basic words, for example, women’s rights, discrimination against women, or women organizations in the border region. I didn’t get good sources without help from my teachers. I have had many conversations with both of my teachers, Lisa Griffin and Andrea Adams, over the past weeks regarding finding reliable sources. Everything I looked into was either years ago or not what I was looking for. It took me a while to find sources that I understood or that related to my topic. My first breakthrough that I had was when I found an organization, Global Fund for Women, as they help fund other women-led and women-serving organizations globally. Looking around their website I found an organization that they support, called Semillas. Semillas is in organization based in Mexico. Semillas’ website helped me find articles about women and discrimination in Mexico and around the San Diego / Tijuana border region. This helped me very much with my research.
Another thing that helped me with my research was interviewing Kelsey Wadman. She was a coordinator for the Women’s march that took place in San Diego. My teacher, Lisa, helped us contact her. We emailed Kelsey and she got back to us quickly. We were able to interview her over Skype and ask her questions about how she got inspired to involve herself with women’s rights and her thoughts on discrimination. She gave us some advice on how to coordinate a march and her opinion on today’s politics. Overall the interview went really well and she is helping us get in more contact with other women who helped with the San Diego chapter of the Women’s March in January 2017. What I Learned: Women’s Rights Women make up roughly more than 50% in both America and Mexico according to census.gov. Even though women in both countries are more than half the population they don’t have equal rights and face discrimination every day. They both face different similar injustices as well. This is what I learned in my search process. More specifically I first didn’t know the specifics of women’s rights in America and especially in Mexico. Looking into articles online and scavenging around, I found many organizations based in Mexico that fight for women and human rights. According to the article by Global Fund for Women, Planting the seed for the first Women’s fund in the Global South, there is a huge organization based in Mexico, called Semillas. Semillas stands for seeds in english. Semillas is an organization located in San Juan, Mexico City, and they fight for all women in Mexico and help with health care and employment. Global fund for Women, a world-wide women organization helped start up Semillas. Semillas was a big impact for women since they were the first known women’s right organization in the South. I also learned that organizations aren’t the only groups that help. Many young girls around the world help the environment around them. According to the online article, “‘Wonder Girls’:How girl-Led Activists Are Changing the World.”, young girls are helping the areas around them from social injustices. A story in the article that I was interested in was of two girls that face a world of child marriages. They want to pursue an education but it is very difficult since young girls marry off early to men, especially older ones. They live in Malawi, a country in Africa; which has one of the highest rates of child marriage. In a 2016 report by UNICEF, one in every two girls are married by the age of 18 years old. This article led me to look into similar cases, specifically in Mexico. This led me to another article, “Mexico’s Lost Generation of Young Girls Robbed of Innocence and Education” by Hannah Summers. As stated in the article 320,000 of girls in Mexico between the ages of 12 and 17 are with partners that are 10 years or more their senior. Though it is not uncommon in Latin America since different data shows that marriages are increasing rather than going down. In all states in Mexico the minimum age of marriage is 18 for both men and women, but some states are noncomplying. Child marriage, from what I have read so far is just one of the injustices that women face today. Women do face a lot of challenges today but there is a lot of ways to fight against these social injustices. Protesting comes in different ways. People do marches, art, dancing, poetry, music, or writes stories to show their voice. Kelsey Wadman, one of the coordinators for the Women’s March, and one of the many adults that we interviewed talked to the Women’s Rights group about how to spread your voice around. She told us that one way she spread the word about the march is by using social media. That’s how she spoke up and tried to work together with the San Diego community. She got into the idea of a protest by watching the news during the time of the presidential election. She didn’t want her child to grow up in a time of opposite views, and decided to input herself into the community. She explained to us that to start a movement you have to have a cause that sticks and involves the majority of people that can relate. During the interview that we had with her she gave us insight on how to make your voice be heard. I learned that spreading your voice isn’t just to spread it around you but to talk to different individuals. This semester we have talked to students from a school named IMAN located in Tijuana. We each are paired up in twos or threes, and had conversations on Skype for about 20 to 40 minutes. Talking to them has helped us connect with our project more. Though many partners don’t have much knowledge based on the topic that we are researching. Not only did we talk to our partners about our projects and get help from them we also connected with them and bonded by our interests and hobbies. Basing off from my own group experience I felt that connected with my partner and the group. Our chats are always full of laughter. Overall from this experience I’ve learned about this experience that you can talk and connect with other people from other cultures and backgrounds without getting political views in the way, and that the students at IMAN are just like us at High Tech High. As we continued researching our project, the women’s rights group was working on coming up with a mural or a painting. From the beginning we each had little knowledge of actually making a mural. Though each of us love art in different forms, drawing painting, clay. We wanted to make an art piece that brings light into the injustice. From the articles based on murals, I learned their significance and history. From the article, “Mural.The History and The Meaning” written by Angie Kordic I learned that Mexican Muralism started the way people looked at murals differently. They were known to be political messages and communication tools. They were meant to represent hope and unity. Murals started off only for powerful messages but also can be known for advertising or just for an image. I investigated more on how murals impact other and bring light into different issues, but more specifically on women’s rights. An article I came across while researching murals,”Woman Never Forgotten:The Murals and the Memorials of Ciudad Juarez.” , was about the artist Maclovio and his work of murals of three young women that were victims of femicide. I learned that femicide by definition is “the killing of a woman or a girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender”. Maclovio wanted to make the mural bring emotions. He wanted to signify the memory of the three young victims and to preserve the memory of them to their families. This article made me want our mural to have strong emotions. In this project I’ve learned a lot about women’s rights. Reading article after article helped me have a deeper understand of discrimination that goes on along the border region concerning women’s rights. So far in this project, I learned many statistics and statements that have helped me very much, but I noticed that communicating with others through interviews and dialogue has helped me learn more from people’s experiences.
Reflecting back on Proyecto ComUNIDAD
Looking back at the project, I have faced many difficulties and accomplishments. From the beginning, I didn’t know what I wanted to research for my topic. Reading the book Into the Beautiful North by Luís Alberto Urrea gave me interest for women’s rights and empowerment, since the topic was recurring within the book. The characters within the book dealt with discrimination because of their gender and it made me think of today’s society. I chose women’s rights and empowerment because I wanted to gain more knowledge of how women are getting discriminated against, and how we can change that. As I stated before I didn’t know what to do for my research. Coming into the research of Women’s Rights I barely knew facts or statistics, especially when researching about cases, organizations, or different types of protesting in Mexico. Finding reliable sources is not easy for me, but I did get set on the right path by my teachers and peers that I was working with. My teachers helped me one on one, by sitting down with me and looking at potential images or articles I can use, and sending me emails with articles online that relate to my topic. Learning about women’s rights was very impactful for me. Seeing stories about femicide or how women with political jobs are getting threatened made me see truly how women and men are not on the same level equally - yet. Looking back at the interviews that we had with Kelsey Wadman, a Women’s March coordinator, and Sarah Diamond, a sexual violence prevention coordinator from the Center for Community Solutions, I gained a lot of information. My first interview was with Kelsey Wadman, we were able to contact her with the help of our teacher. Our interview with Kelsey went very well, she told us about how she got started with coordinating the recent women’s March in San Diego and how to start a movement that can impact others. She said to use today’s tools to spread your message, for example social media, events, art, music, and poetry. Our interview with Sarah Diamond was also very informable. She talked us about sexual violence, how we can prevent it, and how we can support and help others. She told us about how she teaches classes about how to treat each other and to understand when no means no. She also gave us a talk about how to keep a good relationship where you respect each other and know each other's boundaries. Both women impacted me by talking to us about today’s society and how women get affected by it. Reflecting back on the process of my papel picado I fairly enjoyed it. In the beginning I know I wanted a design that showed strength and empowerment. I decided to do a closed fist since that is a symbol of strength that is known around the world. I also drew the rays, therefore people’s eyes would be drawn to the fist. The only thing that I had difficulty with was my phrase. At first I wrote Equality for All!, but I felt that the phrase was too long. It took a while for me to think of a new phrase. When I couldn’t think of anything I got frustrated, even my teachers got frustrated. It wasn’t until we looked around again, when I liked the phrase, Women, Yes We Can!. I felt that the phrase resembled my papel picado. The best thing, in my opinion, that we did during this project was talk to students from a school in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. The students were from a school called Preparatoria IMAN. We got to know them over Skype and talked to each other within our groups once a week for a couple of months. In my group was Tien, Erykah, Alec, Sebastian, Ernesto, Elsbeth, Citali, and Santiago. During the time of speaking with our partners, I felt that our group connected very well. We had a lot of similarities in our group, for example: sports, music, singing, dancing, and other interests. Though we didn’t just talk about our interest we also talked about our research and project. We asked each other questions to see if they can help us. Though many didn’t have a lot of knowledge about our topics, they did seem very interested. Recently, we finally all met in person. Everyone was very excited and nervous to meet each other. Throughout the day we got to do activities that made us get to know each other more. Mostly everyone was sad to seem them go home. It was hard to say goodbye to other people that you connected and bonded with throughout the semester. This project made me open my eyes and talk to many people that I soon became friends with. It was an experience I could never forget.
Works Cited
Challenging the Status Quo for Women's Rights.” Global Fund for Women, Global Fund for Women, 18 May 2017, www.globalfundforwomen.org/disruptors/?mutm_medium=website&utm_source=whrpage&utm_campaign=disruptors#semillas.
Gottbrath, Lauren-Whitney. “Mexicans March against Femicide after Teen's Murder.” Mexico News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 18 Sept. 2017, www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/mexicans-march-femicide-teen-murder-170917234207928.html
Kordic, Angie. “Mural. The History and The Meaning.” Widewalls, Widewalls, 21 July 2015, www.widewalls.ch/what-is-a-mural-the-history-and-meaning/.
Mcgrath, Maryellen, and Morgan Winsor. “'Wonder Girls': How Girl-Led Activists Are Changing the World.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 6 Oct. 2017, 11:43, abcnews.go.com/International/girls-girl-led-activists-changing-world/story?id=50186933.
Paterson, Kent. “Women Never Forgotten: The Murals and Memorials of Ciudad Juarez.” San Diego's Original Latino Community Newspaper, La Prensa, 14 Aug. 2015, laprensa-sandiego.org/featured/women-never-forgotten-the-murals-and-memorials-of-ciudad-juarez/.
Summers, Hannah. “Mexico's Lost Generation of Young Girls Robbed of Innocence and Education.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 May 2017, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/02/mexico-lost-generation-young-girls-innocence-education.