Sins of the City: Immigration

In PLP we just finished an amazing unit. Our school is in North Vancouver so for this unit we learned about some of the sins, or social injustices, that Vancouver has had in the past and present. Coming into this unit I thought that Vancouver was one of the most perfect places to live. I never knew that there were so many social injustices here in the past and present. In this unit we learned about 5 different types of social injustices. We learned about environmental injustices, immigration injustices, human rights injustices, First Nations injustices, and city growth injustices. To start off this unit we went to the Museum of Vancouver to see their A City on Edge display and learn about the history of Vancouver.

The museum was amazing and I highly recommend that you visit it to learn more about Vancouver. Its main display is set up to take you through time and show you what it was like in Vancouver during each time period. It had tons of information about the social injustices throughout time. The City on Edge display was very informative and was a stunning photographic journey of protest, uprising, and change in Vancouver. It will only be on display till February 18th 2018 so I recommend you go see it while you still can. While we were at the museum we had to pick the topic we wanted to do for our project. Our project was to make a group podcast discussing one of the many social injustices Vancouver has. We had to talk about what the problem was like during the interwar period and what it is like now. We then had to write down our top three choices and submit them to our teacher so we could be put in our groups. I was put in a group with Sydney , Spencer, and Reid and our topic was immigration.

To start off the project we had to narrow down the topic and pick something specific to work on. We decided to pick the immigration of Jewish people because we had read about some of the struggles they had faced during the interwar period. Once we had put topic we immediately started to research. We collected all of the information we felt we needed to do a good podcast. After that we had to write a script. We started off with explaining the social injustice and talking about what it was like during the interwar period. We found a true story of a ship full of Jewish immigrants that were turned away from Canada so we decided to tell that story in our podcast. We then explained what the social injustice is like now and how it has changed overtime. An important part of a podcast is the first 30 seconds because that is when someone decides if they want to listen to your podcast or not. We had to make our intro very intriguing so people would want to listen to our podcast. Once our script was done we had to record it. We went to Sydney’s house and recorded it in her small office so it could have good sound quality. The trick with recording a podcast is that you have to make it sound like you are interested in what you are talking about, even if you aren’t. If you sound interested then your listeners are more likely to be interested. Luckily for me I was interested so it was very easy for me to sound interested.

A big part of this podcast was to get an interview with someone connected to the issue. We knew we wanted someone who works in immigration so Sydney contacted her dad’s friend, Alex, who is an immigration officer. She was really helpful and gave us lots on information and a very good interview. We were unable to find a time where she was free to interview for our first draft so her interview was only in our second draft. We also interviewed Sydney’s aunt for our second draft because she adopted to kids from Africa and she has to go through the immigration process with both of them. Once we were done recording all we had to do was edit it and add our original music. We spread the interviews out over the podcast to help break it up and make the podcast more intriguing. Once everything was done we handed it in and waited for critique.

While we were working on our podcast we were also doing a book club. Each group was assigned a non-fiction book that had something in common with their topic. My group was assigned War Child. War Child is the amazing true story of a boy who grew up in Sudan during a war. It is a very powerful story but it is not for the faint of heart. We divided the book into 4 sections and after each section we wrote a reading Log on what we just read. This was a really good way for me to really pay attention to what I was reading and helped me reflect better.

For our podcasts we were first given critique from our teacher. Our main critique was to change the music and add an interview. Once we did that we handed it in again and got critique from our peers. We once again edited our podcast. Once we had finished revising it our last step was to send it to our interviewees for feedback. They were both extremely kind ladies and said they enjoyed our podcast. Making this podcast was a really eye opening project because I had no idea that there were so many issues in Vancouver. I feel that more people need to be educated about the issues here so we can make a change.

https://soundcloud.com/user-302480519/immigration-podcast

After the podcast was done we had to make a small behind the scene video. The video is a compilation of pictures and videos of some of the work we did behind the scenes to make this podcast.

Throughout this unit we did mini projects to help with our learning. We did a namesake video project that you can read more about Here. We also did an infographic chart that showed some of the immigration numbers during a certain year in Canada. I did the year 1911.

The final project of this unit was to write an essay. Everyone had to write and essay/letter to our MP Terry Beech. In this essay we had to pick an issue in Vancouver and write about it. We had to write about why this issue is important and what we want Mr. Beech to do about it. After everyone had written their essay each group had to combine them together to make one letter to Terry Beech. My group’s topic was the treatment of disabled immigrants. It is almost impossible to immigrate to Canada if you or one of the people you are immigrating with has a disability. My group felt that this was extremely unfair so we wanted to do something to make this change. Writing the essay by myself was quite easy because I did a lot of research and had tons of information to write about. A lot of people were struggling with the grammar part of the essay so we did a little work with grammar. Writing this essay really helped me improve my writing skills. Below is my essay.

Combing the essays was a little challenging because everyone had such good points and it was impossible to include them all. We are going to send our group letter to Terry Beech soon and I will update this post when we get a response.

This was such an interesting unit. I learned so much important stuff about Vancouver and the issues here. I had no idea there were so many social injustices here and I am very glad that I am now informed about these important matters. Vancouver is far from a perfect city and there is so much we have to do to become a better place to live. We need to remember that everyone is equal and they need to be treated that way. We also must take care of our planet and treat it properly or it won’t be here much longer. Learning about these issues was very important and it has completely changed my view on Vancouver.