Shawn Mathew

Shawn Mathew

This user hasn't shared any profile information

Posts by Shawn Mathew

Tour of Harlem

0
10 years
by in Neighborhood Visits

I found this tour to be very interesting and informative. There was a lot of material that I learned about Harlem from this tour. Honestly, I didn’t know much about the history of Harlem coming into the tour. I knew that it was mainly a black community in the past, but I never knew of the whole predicament of the landowners. I thought it started with African Americans and more came to join them. I didn’t think that there were white landowners who refused to give apartments to blacks.  This really gave me a lot of insight on how Harlem has grown as a city through the years. Today it seems to be filled with many different types of nationalities, rather than the white or black majority that was expected in the past. I felt that overall this tour could have been much better. Most of the information we learned about was about structures that no longer exist. The tour would have been more exciting if we looked at more buildings like the Apollo Theatre and the residential area. It is still standing and serving its purpose. This way when I walk by those attractions I will be able to have a better knowledge about what happens within those buildings.  This would be especially beneficial because I am dorming along with a number of students in our class. Having a better understanding of the current Harlem would be great to help navigate through the area. The information that we got out of this tour could have been done in a classroom setting, and would have the same effect.

 

 

 

Eyes on Bangladesh

0
10 years
by in Immigration Stories

I found that the exhibit was very interesting. My parents are from India, and I have visited the country twice. Viewing the exhibit gave me a nostalgic feeling of my very short time in India. Although they are not the same country, they appeared to be very similar. I assume that this was caused by the fact that they used to be the same country under British rule.  Going to the exhibit was a really great learning experience. I learned a lot about Bangladesh. Before the exhibit, I didn’t really know much about the country because I never really had any reason to look into it. I also found that the pictures brought out the pains that the people from Bangladesh believe in. I really felt that pictures of the birth of a child from a poor background was really eye opening to the over population and the current state of Bangladesh. I was also really surprised about the way in which Bangladesh’s rivers are rising. I was very skeptical to believe that the country is going disappear in due to environmental problems caused by dozens of other countries. This should definitely be a problem highlighted more by environmentalists. Hopefully we can be more aware of this and the problem will not be so imminent.

Golden Venture

0
10 years
by in Immigration Stories

I feel that the Golden Venture brought a lot of insight about how much people want to immigrate to America and how difficult it is to become an American citizen. It really makes me grateful being born a US citizen for not having to go through the troubles that all the people in the Golden Venture had to go through. I especially felt bad for those who have attempted to come to US more than once and failed.  They would have had to go through the tough times on multiple occasions, but it really shows how great it must be to be an American citizen. I have not been a citizen of any other country, so it’s a little difficult to fully understand why they all try so hard to come to America. This movie, however, shows how much people would like to be in the same place that I am in today. The movie also showed how hospitable some Americans can really be. I was really surprised to the fact that a family let random strangers into their house when the immigrants just arrived in America. There were also those protestors and the people that assisted all of the passengers of the Golden Ventures throughout all of their struggles. I feel like these people are great role models, and I one day hope that if I’m in the same situation that I would have the courage to do the same thing.

 

Increasing Immigration

0
10 years
by in Census Data

Unfortunately I was unable to make it to Joe Salvo’s talk about New York City’s population. Based on what I saw on the slides, his speech was very informative and comprehensive. I really like the number of visuals that he used in his presentation. I was really surprised by some of the information that he presented to us. I knew that New York City as a whole was always growing, but I never knew by how much. Salvo’s first chart, which clearly labeled the largest cities in the US, showed that New York City’s boroughs alone were bigger many of America’s biggest cities. It was also very interesting to see where all the people in New York City came from compared to the rest of the country. It seemed as though New York City was its own entity.  I always knew things like this were occurring within New York City but seeing the numbers really put things into perspective for me.

Shawn Mathew's RSS Feed
Go to Top