October

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10/6/2014

Trying to come with a very synthetic and succinct statement for my dissertation. For the elevator pitch. Here is one:

I am looking at how latino/hispanic immigrant youth with mexican origin growing up in Austin, TX, use media to navigate many sociocultural worlds, contexts, spaces. How they do their identity work, negotiate their fluid identities (multiple), local belonging, and connections broader figured worlds.

IS the notion of assimilation trajectories useful for explaining their navigation of different contexts?

10/8/2014

The borders hispanic/latino youth cross are not only the ones of nations, they keep crossing borders in their everyday life as they navigate different sociocultural worlds, contexts, and spaces.

Using and mobilizing resources capacity and support in order to navigate the different worlds, and by doing so, to also perform their identities, do identity work.

The question will be to what extent should i focus more on the process of assimilation? to what extent more in their identity work? and to what extent in the new media practices? or could i some how find a practical way to integrating them, and at the same time remain very practical and narrow in the chapters and the questions?

Another thing to do, perhaps in the intro, or in the section about the site is to narrate the geographic location of FHS and the houses of the participant families. How I got there. The amount of time invested in transportation. Usually an 1 1/2 in a bus. Or an hour in a bicycle. The landscape of isolation, of cars, of roads, of nobody walking.


The three different sites where I focus my analysis are interconnected. New media practices connect them, and the media devices travels across the different spaces many times along and in the pockets or backpacks of the latino/hispanic youth. The assimilation trajectory also links the three spaces, since they are part of a complex process of navigation and multiple identity construction.

Engagement with media is more complicated. Everyday uses reveal that they are not totally savvy although they are indeed avid users. Making meaning thorugh the use of media is one thing. Constructing identities. Navigating spaces. Relationships with others in the different spaces. Certain dispositions are reflected in media usage.


How do they navigate the worlds of their homes/families, the after-school, and online? How do this navigation contributes to their assimilation? At home, they speak only Spanish with their parents with the exception of Gabriela. However they do help their parents to translate. They are important agents in the assimilation of their families. They finish high school, speak english, can translate. However, they do not take advantage of the tools to become engaged in civics, to find more opportunities. The place where they find more opportunities is the afterschool world. In the online world and social media they do not mobilize as much resources. But they are indeed very active users of the tools.

What are their strategies to assimilate? How does new media help them in the assimilation process? does it help? why yes? why not? what are the missing opportunities? the disconnects? Perhaps the most dramatic one is in their little hability to speak up, to participate in forums, to publish content, to become more visible in the worlds they enter and cross. In the afterschool they are definitely very visible and active. In their homes they play the roles of translators, brokers.


How do they use of new media as source materials for identity work, for assimilating, incorporating, doing school? Or how they do not use new media technologies?

How does new media change the process of assimilation? As they have more options, more worlds to explore, how do they change their assimilation process? Using technology across sites to do identity work.


My project involves bringing new media practices to the center of the process of assimilation, problematize their relationship with that process, and see how they use the media to navigate different trajectories, different pathways of assimilation. See the new media skills they have, the ones that are missing, and the ooportunities and challenges for the future of the immigrant communities, and adults.


10/10/2014

Problematize how privilege operate through access to voice and thought making our own personal success, suffering louder. Why this group of immigrants kids cannot make their personal voices louder on the Internet? even if they have been positioned as tech savy, media makers. Why they struggle with talking in forums, making comments, uploading content. Why do they want to remain in the margins, even online?

Why this immigrant youth do not go to dedicated immigrant sites where they could discuss issues of race, gender, culture? Is that a sign of assimilation? Is that a sign of navigation? detachment from origins? What does that mean about the internet ecology? about the media environment and hispanic/latino in the usa? What does the absence of those kind of mentors, networks mean for this youth?