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.

If I'm being honest, this weeks topic of User Generated Content was boring for me but that doesn't mean I did think of things when reading and watching the Ted Talk. User generated content is pretty much anything, anyone posts online. After reading the articles and watching the Ted Talk about user generated content it reminded me of how some people share or post about "news" without checking their credibility. That's the first thing that came to me while learning about this weeks topic. I also think its one of the bad thing if user generated content. Since anyone can post about anything online its even more important to check your sources credibility. For example, in facebook ive noticed a couple of people on my newsfeed share articles that aren't credible. You may ask, "well how do you know if they are credible or not", personaly I think some of the articles are pretty obvious. When I run into thoe types of articles being shared by people on my news feed it makes me want to tell them but I dnt because I feel like I might come off as rude or as a "know-it-all", which I'm not. Being a political science major, credibility is a huge deal. We ALWAYS have to check it or else itll ruin the paper or whatever we are working on. Okay so that's one thing I see as bad for user generated content. The good thing I thought about was that people get to share their stories online and if youre ever dealing through the same thing you can read about that persons experience and it might help you. For example, for a lot of legal questions about immigration there is a lot of forums out there of peoples experinces and maybe, hopefully not, that can come in handy for me. Oh and another thing, user generated content does make something like writing a paper harder than it should be. Like I said anyone can post anything online so cause of that, you should ALWAYS check the credibility of your sources. 

How Does Social Media Influence Relationships?

I believe social media has good and bad things about it. for example, one of the good things is it helps people who are far away from each other stay in contact. My parents and I are 10 hours away and I sometimes feel very lonely when so having skype really helps me. I usually talk to them once a day and we recently got into using skype which is even better because now I can see them, my pets and even my home. I know it might seem weird that I get happy about seeing my home but it really does put me in a good mood to see the place I grew up in.my parents and I also text, so when I'm busy and cant skype or talk on the phone we can text, theres always a way to stay connected. Another good thing is you can stay in contact through social media. For example, my parents have a lot of friends in mexico and because of facebook now they can message them and catch up on all those years they missed out. I have also ntied how the immigration community gains good things through social media. We receive a lot of good information like on our rights and where to find local resources. We also get a lot of support which I appreciate. After the whole issue with DACA its nice to see so many people stand up fpr DACA and state their support towards the immigrant community. It is honestly so heartwarming and it restores my faith which I really need right now.
Now to talk about the bad things, one of the bad things about social media that affects relationships is it creates trust issues. For some relationships "liking" the opposite sex picture can create a problem which arrises from trust issues. Then you have single people messaging one of the partners which can also create problems.
Social media really does help with building your strength in the field youre pursuing. For this I think its best to use LinkedIn. On linkedIn you can find a lot of professional people who are working in your same career choice and maybe you don't need those connections right now but it will come in handy later on. For the scholarship I won, I had to create a linkenIn account and through that I started to get a lot of recommendations from people who work in organizations from back home I used to be interested in. the reason I say "used" to be it was because those were the organizations I wanted to be in while I was in high school but I couldn't. Now that I am about to graduate maybe one day one of those connection will come in handy.

Undocumented and Unafraid

I'm sure everyone has heard the decision of trump to end DACA and I'm also sure everyone who's on my blog knows I will be focusing on immigration. Well now more than ever, I feel that its time that I stand up again. I am Undocumented and Unafraid. I am a DACA recipient.
I was brought to the United States at age 3 and growing up my mom did tell me I was undocumented. She explained I wouldn't always get the opportunities my friends got and I had to keep that a secret. I did what I was told to do, I kept my legal status a secrete even from my friends. While I was in middle school and a freshmen and sophomore in high school I was never really interested in college and being undocumented wasn't the reason behind it. Until I reached my junior year and got into honor and AP courses. One day I went to my counselor and talked to him about college but he told me I was wasting my time even thinking about going to college because I was undocumented. let me tell you, that burst my bubble. every night I would cry myself to sleep thinking, "what am I going to do after high school?" and "I will probably have to work in the fields", but I didn't want that. at some point I even considered of dropping out of high school or getting home studies because I knew I wouldn't be able to handle seeing all my friends applying to college then being asked what colleges I applied to or why I wasn't applying to any of them.
Then I remember coming home one day from school and my dad told me to watch the news and there I saw Obama announcing DACA. I finally got the opportunity I had been crying for every night. I told myself "now more than ever I have to work harder" and I did. I got myself involved in so many clubs and did a lot of community service. I knew that even having DACA I still wouldn't get enough financial help but whatever I got, was enough for me. until this at the only financial help I get is through the state of California and its always just enough to cover my tuition. fortunately, my hard work paid off and I got a scholarship for the four years of college. with that money I pay my books, rent, utilities and food.
After DACA was enacted, a lawyer went to our high school to help anyone fill out the application for DACA and there I was with my parents. the next day, one of my close friends asked me if I was at the meeting for DACA and I said yes. she then said "omg why didn't you ever tell me you were undocumented? there's so many opportunities for you now. I can help you out". I accepted her offer and I will always be glad I did. I later told the rest of my friends about my situation and they all accepted me and showed me how to be proud of who I am. from that day on I was never aging afraid of being undocumented...... until now.
Now I don't know how my life is going to turn out. Congress has six months to decide what to do with my life. I'm trying to stay strong and just deal with it day-by-day but being on facebook and seeing all those videos of people talking abut their stories and being so similar to mine makes it harder than I thought it would be. I can be happy all day and the moment I get on facebook ill be crying my eyes out because I'm scared and mad. I'm scared of being deported to Mexico, a place I haven't been to since I was 3 years old and im mad because I have worked so hard to get to where I am today.
I was debating whether to make this post or not because there are people out there who will use this information about me against me. Then I thought that now everyone is like that and there's actually people out there who aren't DACA recipients and will stand by me and protect me, so that was what helped me write this.
I am not a criminal, I am not a drug dealer and I am not a rapist. I am you, someone with dreams, someone with a family and friends and if I hadn't shared this I can be anyone of your friends right now. So If you do have a friends who is a DACA receipt let them know you are there for them, let them know you will protect them and wont allow them to be sent back to a place they don't know.

Hello World

As we all know there is many topics out there that are influenced by social networking. The topic I decided to pick for this semester is Immigration. To be more exact, how social media influences immigration. The reason I chose immigration is because it hits close to home and its something I am very passionate about. As a person who constantly uses social media and reads the news online, I have seen the two sides of immigration online. the first one is the stories of families and young adults who are affected by immigration policies and even by the new president. By reading their stories it provokes sadness and sympathy but then there is the other side. The second side, we see and read about how immigrants are criminals, steal jobs from Americans and drug dealers. We can read about the murder of Kathryn Steinle who was killed by an immigrant in San Francisco. We can also read about how much drugs are being brought into the United States by smugglers who then stay in the United States. These types of articles can provoke anger and fear. Throughout the semester I want to discuss how media influences our emotions with these types of articles. Some might be lies and some are clearly real. I would also like to learn through this class how the development of the web also has an influence towards immigration. For example, before the web was so developed the only thing we could see was the text but now we can also see images and videos. So now that we have that, as we read an article about immigration the image or video can also influence our emotions. I would also like to use my blog as an information outlet, to inform people of the immigration policies we have right now like DACA. A lot of things can happen with immigration in the next couples of months so my blogs wont always stick to these issues like policies. It all depends what happens in the world but do know my blogs will stick to immigration.