this class really made me think out of the box at times and i learned a lot of new things. i really enjoyed watching the Ted Talks and reading the weekly articles. the topic that caught my attention the most was sharing or posting thins online, in a smart way. i think a lot of people should read those articles or even do their own research on it because i see some people expose themselves too much online. one day, all that can catch up to them when they want to get a job.
i really liked relation my topic immigration with the various weekly topics of social media we had to focus on. at times, it was hard because there wouldn't be much connections i could make to my immigration topic but thats when i had to think outside the box. some of my predictions for my immigration topic through social media, are that social media will bring more immigrants together. theres a lot of immigrants across the united states and even if we might not be close to one another, we can use social media as a way to connect and support one another. hopefully other people read my blogs because i really did talk a lot about my favorite advocated group "United We Dream". i really do recommend this group because i think its empowering to anyone else who is undocumented. it provides us with a lot of resources and things we should know about like our rights.

Feels Like Home

As soon as I started reading the first article, I was able to relate to this topic. The reason behind that is because, my parents and I didn’t have access to internet 3 months ago. My family and I had always wanted and needed internet access, but we lived in rural area. Not only weren’t we able to have internet but the signal for our phones was always low. A lot of the popular internet companies were never able to offer us internet access because of where we lived. It was always hard for me to go back home and do homework because I would have to go to the library just to use their Wi-Fi. Not only was it hard for me but for my parents as well. Sometimes my parents wanted to skype with our family from Mexico but without Wi-Fi it’s very hard, even if we wanted to use our cellular data. Sometimes my parents wanted to use their smart tv to watch Netflix, but they couldn’t even do that either. I didn’t really care about having to go to the library just to be able to do my homework but what bothered me the most was knowing how badly my parents wished they had Wi-Fi. Even after we found a company who offered internet where we live, we had to wait a couple of months because during that time my dad was between jobs. The first payment was $200, and they had to wait until they had enough extra cash. Even right now my dad always must prioritize the way he uses his money because he has many bills. We also, chose the lowest price so sometimes the Wi-Fi is slow but because my dad has other bills we can’t choose the fastest one. I’m very glad we were finally able to get internet access. But my aunt can’t get internet for her kids, my cousins, because they’re struggling financially. So now they’re able to get internet but can’t because they don’t have enough for money. Even if it isn’t my family dealing with too many financial struggles, there’s always someone else and it isn’t a few people. there’s a huge difference now of having internet. Now my parents get to watch Netflix and be on YouTube anytime they want to. Going back home is so much easier because I can stay home to do homework. I also don’t get bored too easily because I can communicate more with my friends. I have a friend who also lives in a rural place but with more people around and the signal is so bad you can’t have a long phone call without it dropping. 

There’s a couple of ways that maybe social media can be used to teach and inform people. from personal experience there has been time when social media has informed me about important decisions made by the president. Ever since I moved to Chico for school, I don’t have cable so the only way I read the news is by following news pages on Facebook. So, when there started to be rumors that trump was going to end DACA, I found that out through Facebook. A couple days later, trump announced his decision to end DACA. If I wouldn’t be on social media, I probably would’ve never found that out. So, for people who can’t watch tv to see current news, social media can help with that. I think social media has impacted everyone’s, especially young kids learning because it can be very distracting. I’m barely 21 years old and even I get distracted by Facebook. For example, like right now I was in the middle of typing this post and as I checked one text, I automatically got on Facebook without even thinking about it. It felt as if it was an instinct to do and after a couple minutes on Facebook I realized I had to get back to typing my blog. So, think about it, a 21-year-old who’s supposed to know what’s more important, their college homework or checking Facebook and compare it to a 12-year-old who sometimes rarely has homework. I’ve seen how my little cousins are with Facebook, they’re always on it and I think it will have an impact on their brain because their brain isn’t fully developed. I mean my brain probably isn’t fully developed either, but it certainly is more developed than theirs. If we are taught how to use social media in a correct manner, maybe limiting our time and requiring everyone to at least follow a certain number of educational pages, something better can come out of it. That way we at least won’t always say social media is a waste of time or that it “kills” brain cells. 

This blog is definitely different than the rest, doesn't really have much connections with my immigration topic nor do I find it too interesting. Throughout my years of using social media the way I've seen businesses using it, is only to promote their services. From my personal experiences i think business target certain type of people and go from there to see if they even need social media to target their consumers. For example, Chegg knows most of its consumers are students so they do use social media to target, us, the students. You really don't see life insurance business on social media because their age target aren't usually on Facebook or twitter.
I have also seen how some business do allow people to leave comments or complaints on their page and someone from their business tries to help them solve the issue. Another thing I've seen is when a business is advertising their services, they help their costumers through the comment section. I've encountered some posts about clothing business where their costumers are complaining on the comments section and someone from the business replies to their comment.
I think the one of the ways a business can be effective if using social media, is they have to know what is the group age of their target and what type of social media their using because Facebook isn't like LinkedIn.

How Politics Has Impacted Life

Before I truly acknowledged my legal status of being an undocumented student, I never really paid attention to the news. After I acknowledged my legal status, I was more open about it and would pay attention to the news. It wasn't always rainbows and butterflies because it was a constant reminder I would never be accepted in society or as a person in the U.S by the government. Until the Barack Obama administration passed DACA. After coming out of the shadows with many other undocumented young adults I felt as if we were starting to become accepted at least some people and even the U.S government. I got the chance to enroll in college and work. This is when I found my passion in politics. now only that, but I wanted to help my fellow undocumented peers go to college. If I wanted to do this, I had to fight from the inside. That's why I decided to major in political science. Then attending college, I learnt how to correctly learn credible news articles. To this, I thank technology. I was always able to stay up to date with law decisions that affected me. And it wasn't hard, I could be on Facebook or even snapchat and stay up to date on the news. I've met a lot of people who hate politics and aren't really interested in the news but you see them on Facebook and other social media. So, whenever an interest group needs signature for something they can target people who are interested on the issue and even sometimes because those people share those sites, it helps the interest group get more signature. On social media I'm the type of person who is always sharing things but as a political science major I must double check the credibility and sources the article uses. Many won’t think about it because it’s so normal now a day but social media has a great impact on everyone. That's how I found out Trump decided to end DACA and I'm sure as hell that how I will find out what congress decided to do with our future.  

Activism

So far this has been one of my favorite topics to talk about in my blog. While I was in high school I was exposed to a lot of activism and feminism. As I mentioned in my blog Undocumented and Unafraid, I revealed I never spoke about my legal status until a friend of mine helped me understand I shouldn't be afraid or even treat it like it wasn't important. After I, I guess, came to terms of my legal status and accepted it as a part of me because it does make me who I am, I began to speak up more about it. I also began to encourage other undocumented students to pursue college and be unafraid. While I volunteered at the boys and girls club, I spoke to little kids and told them if me, a person who is undocumented, can go to college they can as well. I told them that I'm not the smartest person in the word and you don't need to be "smart" to go to college. as long as you give it your all, you will make it. every time I go back to my hometown I go to the boys and girls club and one time I had the chance to talk to parents. a lot of them had concerns of their kids leaving to college hundred of miles away and I told them not to worry because they were probably raised by really good parents and that will always stick with them but they must allow their kids to grow. I just love talking to people about these issue, I love helping them and encouraging them to go to college. I don't know if I'm considered an activist but I will keep on doing what I do, even if its not much. one day I will get the chance to work in my community and help out as many people as I can from my community, since that is my goal. when it was time for me to do an internship for my major I decided to do it at CLIC in the family department because I wanted to learn every aspect of family law. through family law in CLIC I got to learn about professionalism and even though I didn't encounter any undocumented people, I still got the chance to work with the community of Chico. hopefully one day I get the chance to do more than just talk to people, not saying that it isn't enough even though some people might see it that way. my dream career is to work in the state government and once I'm there I want to be able to do more for undocumented students and family.

what is crowsourcing you may ask? crowdsourcing is when you are able to get help to complete a task from multiple sources instead of having to go to a third party to do the work for you. a great example, which helped me understand crowdsourcing, was the example given to us by our professor. for example, crowdsourcing can be being able to guy photos online provided by different type of people instead of having a company do a photoshoot for one imagine which can be very expensive. crowsurcing is important because it gives power to anyone with a creative mind to be part of the market. the reason why crowdsourcing is important to us is because through this we can get help with our project from millions of people. although, it does have its downside just like any other thing, you cant control the people who are going to help you all the time. its kind of like theyre their own boss but they als require attention, patience and honesty. crowdfunding, reminded me of the time I had to pick an international organization that provides small loans to people in third world countries. I focused on Kiva and surprisingly I happened to run by it again in this class. another one I recognized was gofundme, I like this one the best. I have been seeing how people donate to DREAMers who need money to renew their DACA. seeing so many people being supportive makes me feel good.