Final Reflection

There exist many injustices within the US immigration system. They haunt the US and its legacy as a land of opportunity for those in search of a better homeland. Many have experienced these injustices through the life stories of our loved ones. David’s mother experienced the highly unforgiving nature of US immigration which led to her visa renewal being rejected. Prior to receiving his green card, Jaden’s father describes a constant fear of incarceration or deportation. Jason describes his personal experience of the incredibly long wait periods to hear back from immigration offices.

The purpose of our final project was to show the injustices within the immigration system. To give the audience an idea of the hardships encountered by immigrants, we decided to make a website with some naturalization questions from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website. Due to the CS experience of several members of our group, creating a website seemed like a natural choice. Creating a website is a great way to reach many people, which is relevant to the issue of immigration as it will take the effort of many to begin immigration reform. Many members in the group also had personal stories with immigration in their families and given this was a topic covered in class, we decided to expand upon the issue. Our issue of immigration also relates to the class topic of multivocality as it raises awareness of the diverse underrepresented immigrant population. Despite these many different points of view, multivocality, where “collective agency is brought together to advocate for a particular cause”, brings together immigrants to advocate for a better future.

Though the real naturalization exam is even more difficult as it is given orally instead of multiple choice, the sample questions give the audience an idea of the difficulty of the naturalization questions. As shown in the video embedded in our website, despite being citizens, many US-born Americans have difficulty answering the questions on the naturalization test.

Our creative process consisted of reflecting on the issues brought up in the class regarding immigration and relating it to our own experiences. We decided showing hardships encountered by immigrants would be a good way to allow the audience to empathise with immigrants. The naturalization exam was a good choice as we were surprised by how many questions we found difficult to answer.