Day 11 here at CONAMUCA, San Cristobal, Dominican Republic!

Today’s topic was “Immigration” and we started off the day with an Academic Seminar on immigration after breakfast. In this seminar, we were able to delve deeper into our own personal family histories as we analyzed our first, middle, and last names. Our GGL leaders posed this quote to us:

“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionaries” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

This quote very much encompasses what we learned throughout the day as we had three guest speakers come to CONAMUCA to share with us the struggles of Dominicans of Haitian descent. We, as Americans (+ all nationalities), must not forget that we too were immigrants at one point in our family history. The insecurity and discrimination that Haitians or Dominicans of Haitian descent face here in the DR on a daily basis blew my mind. With the recent constitutional amendments and bills that were passed in the DR, both groups of peoples suffer a tremendous amount of human right violations. With laws ranging from deportation to denial of documentation, these people put everything on the line to live in the DR because of the turmoil and corruption that they experience in their homeland (of Haiti).
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The struggle that people of Haitian descent go through must not be simply ignored. That is why organizations like Reconoci.do protest and stage movements to protect the rights of these people. When Elena from Reconoci.do talked about how she was denied entrance into college due to her Haitian descent despite the fact that she was born in the DR, it made me reflect on all the blessings/opportunities/privileges that I had, which I mostly took for granted. Being denied entrance into college due to ancestry sounds absurd to us, but this is a reality for the people here.

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Global Glimpse really does “Open the eyes of tomorrow’s leaders” and allows us youth to see for ourselves the different lives that people live all over the world.

Well, this was Amy Jung writing the blog post & it’s pretty late so I will be signing off.

PS. Hi Mom, Dad, + Claire
PPS. No Diana, I am not constipated(-: