What GPP 105 Meant to a South Korean Girl

Since my GPP 105 course is coming to an end, I find it is necessary to conclude some thoughts on my experiences with this course. I was born in Incheon, South Korea, but began attending a boarding school alone since 10 in the states. And, I have been working with Women's Economic Agenda Project  (WEAP) in Oakland, California. WEAP is a non-profit organization that works with females from low-income background. 

Taking Prof. Robert Reich's Wealth and Poverty class during my first year at Cal had introduced me to the severity of inequality throughout the globe. Every time I set in his lecture, my mind was busy working with the concepts he introduced. However, working with social and economic justice advocates, and males in the feminist realm of urban development had taught me physically of how gender is imbedded into the structure of urban poverty. I began my practice with an initial understanding of the relation between gender and urban poverty, but the insights I gained from working with WEAP had taught me something new, and different from the countless scholarly readings I had done in my Feminist Theory class or in GPP 105. 

I couldn't understand what had been the difference between physically observing or listening to the cases involving gender, and scholarly reading about them, until I heard the news. The one about South Korean ship sinking. Yes, the one that still remains in the sea with corpses of innocent teenagers. 

It was my gender, race, educational background, and ethnicity that had made the difference. When I was at WEAP's meetings or trainings, I experienced how my appearance as an Asian girl from a renown university affected my work in this field. I was the only Asian present in trainings and meetings, and I felt as the minority within a crowd of colored and white advocates. And, it was not the first time. I had experienced something similar when I worked weekly as a economic advisor in homeless shelters including the one that only had females. To make things worse, I lived alone for the most of my life in cities with high crime rates. With all these experiences and courses I have taken on gender issues, I could not help but to become conscious of the remarks or comments I get from the individuals based on my gender or race. And, what the literature could not provide me was this communication. 

The South Korean ship tragedy demonstrated the epic fail of communication. It was actually a nightmare to watch the news. I often slept with my South Korean news channel played live 24/7 with a hope to hear something better than what I had heard in the previous days. And, I realized I was a South Korean working with issues that seemed to be mainly focused in foreign countries. I could not figure out what I had gained that reflected by nationality. And, I, as a South Korean student completed elementary, middle, and high school curriculums in the U.S., was not happy and confident about my progress in the foreign field. 

I was wrong. Taking GPP 105, interning at WEAP, and exploring my interests in a foreign country was a great way to navigate where I seem to standing in different societal structures. Without this course, I would not have accomplished certain types of self-evaluations within different society. And, GPP 105 was an opportune for me to not only gather qualitative or quantitative data of global poverty and inequality, but also to interact with these issues. I was constantly opening up dialogues about the issues within myself. And, it was GPP 105 that allowed me to do so.

Is Life Worth It?

I want to share a quick story about how I experience the effects of rising health care costs in my line of work.

I work as an EMT (emergency medical technician) responding to emergencies, stabilizing patients, and transporting them to emergency rooms. Getting people to definitive care at a hospital for trauma accidents, cardiac conditions, strokes, seizures, etc. is imperative to their survival and long term-health, however, it is often very costly. As we know, not everyone has insurance but emergency responders will never turn a patient away. Those same people are generally impoverished, and ultimately more vulnerable to disease compared to wealthy individuals who can afford preventive care and quality insurance.

That being said, I remember a specific patient experiencing an ischemic stroke (block of blood vessel in brain) and needed to be taken to the closest stroke center. My partner and I stabilized the patient as much as we could and transported the patient immediately. The patient was an elderly, lower-class Hispanic male without insurance. My partner drove while I monitored the patient in the back while questioning the wife who rode in the back with me. She mourned. She was afraid. I assured her that we were doing our best and that her husband was in good hands. After a while, she explained that it was his third stroke and that they weren't even done paying for the first treatment. She was afraid for her husbands health, but at the same time, she was afraid to think about how they would pay off the hospital bills for a third round. I don't know if he passed away after dropping him off in the ER, but I know that his wife would be left the pay for the bill either way.

With the cost of health services and the current health care system, people can't even concentrate on wishing their loved ones to get better soon. People resort to questioning if being saved is even worth it. Some people disproportionately more than others. How can we let this happen, even in a "developed" society?

Poverty and Photography

     The week we analyzed photography and the ways we can frame a story was really intriguing.  I decided I wanted to do more research on other photographers who tried to tell the story of poverty.  One artist I found was Stephen Shames through an article by the New York Times that was reviewing his photographs.  According to the New York Times article, it was reviewed positively, stating that that his pictures were able to capture the condition of poverty with children (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/30/arts/review-photography-poverty-among-america-s-children.html).  The article argues that Stephen Shames had successfully portrayed children in poverty because he had separated himself from the photographs and had not tried to impose his individual feelings in the photo.  After I read this article,  I decided to look up some of his photos and use a GPP perspective to analyze his photos and make conclusions for myself.  I decided to analyze this photo (6^th photo when you scroll down) by Stephen Shames in following website:http://www.arsivfotoritim.com/yazi/stephen-shames-ruyanin-disinda/.  The photo is three poor children sharing a mattress.  Initially, my first thought was how he had permission to get a photo of them sleeping, and how having a photo of them sleeping portrays poverty.   If I had seen this photo in a different context, I may not have thought it had to do with poverty.  In this respect, it makes the photo interesting since it isn’t the obvious “photo of poverty” that is often portrayed on TV asking for donations.  Maybe the point of the photo was not to present poverty in the opposite way or a way that does not sensationalize their condition.  Through a new GPP lens, I feel as a viewer I’m able to be more aware and more cautious of what story people are trying to portray. 

2014 FIFA World Cup

http://www.survivalinternational.org/worldcup

As the World Cup quickly approaches, many are excited to watch the games and celebrate one of the biggest international sporting events in the world. While I myself am a soccer fan, I think it is important to also be aware of the controversies that are involved in this year’s World Cup in Brazil, especially for indigenous peoples. Hosting the World Cup is a huge commitment and planning begins many years before the start of the tournament. One of the biggest complaints has been the large public expenditures by the Brazilian government, which are likely to benefit few of the general population. The 2013 Brazilian protests, while focused on a number of issues, shed light this huge expenditure despite high rates of poverty and inequality in the country. Another cause of protest has been the forced relocations of thousands of people to build the stadiums, including approximately 30,000 people in Rio de Janeiro. Finally, organizations such as Survival International have begun to campaign for the rights of indigenous peoples, whose voices are often lost in the excitement of the World Cup. When attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists ready for an Amazonian adventure, it is essential to give a voice to those who continue to survive off the land.

The struggles of indigenous peoples in Brazil are similar to those of many around the world, including in Chiapas where I will be doing my practice experience. Development initiatives and infrastructural projects continually dislocate people and their resources, causing further marginalization and inequality. While I don’t think it is possible to challenge the World Cup in Brazil at this point, I think it is important to at least be aware of the many issues involved and to recognize the impact on indigenous people. If anybody is lucky enough to be able to watch a game, I think that you should at least have the knowledge to make an informed decision of whether or not to attend.

Solution to Global Poverty = Improved Global Health?

Did you know that “Between 2000 and 2011, about 24 percent of the growth in full income in low-income and middle-income countries resulted from [Value of Life Years] gained" (Global Health 2035)? This means that nearly a quarter of the growth these countries experienced over a decade came from better health of their people!

I've been asked several times if whether my interest in public health work counts as poverty alleviation. Sure, I'll be improving access to much-needed health services that impoverished communities may simply be unable to afford, but does that really count as improving their overall state of poverty?

I know that the answer is yes, but expressing it in an intellectual manner has been somewhat of a challenge. I was never quite able to place my finger on the necessary arguments to support my case.

But this Humanosphere article has provided me with some important resources to not only educate me on the ways that health is directly involved in poverty alleviation, but also allow me to explore important aspects that I had never really considered!

While the author argues that improving global health is the best solution by miles when compared with other aid and development programs, I believe that the latter are equally crucial supplements for bettering a developing country's conditions. Being constantly concerned by a child's chronic diarrhea or one's own tuberculosis can no doubt take away from a person's focus on earning a living or contributing to the country's economy. But even if health concerns are removed as a factor, the conditions for other socioeconomic inequalities would still exist, which would continue to render the healthy individual's opportunities limited. But he still has the right idea, in that global health has been severely neglected and its progress could have been much higher in the last few decades had more attention been paid to related endeavors. Thankfully, it is a rapidly growing field and I'm excited to see what opportunities await me!

Cultivating Fear

As our last blog entry I want to share one of the most interesting reports I have read all year. It comes from the organization I work for and it really resinated in me. Every day, farmworkers awake at the crack of dawn and head out to the fields to harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed our nation. It is a grueling, backbreaking, seasonal job, one of the most dangerous occupations in the country. The vast majority of farmworkers in the United States are foreign born, looking for opportunities that are not available in their countries. Because so many of them are undocumented they are particularly vulnerable to abuse from people that have power over them in the work place. Through the lens of structural violence, specifically the axes of gender and race, it is clearly evident that these agricultural employees are being exploited and are suffering from serious abuses such as sexual violence. It is a true horror, female farmworkers are experiencing various forms of sexual violence, this includes rape, assault, and harassment and cannot go to the police due to fear of being deported.

With no one speaking out for the rights of these farmworkers, the abuse continues. I actually had the honor of meeting an amazing woman named Alina Diaz. Alina Diaz created Alianza Nacianal de Campesinas. Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, is a national network founded to advocate for the rights of farmworkers, especially women. They have various campaigns and programs that help farmworkers in a plethora of ways, from reporting abuse to teaching them their basic rights. With the aid of organizations such as Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, this silent disaster is being exposed in hope that they will serve as a voice for those that are unheard.

I encourage you all to check out the amazing report by HRW by clicking here.

Surrogacy: Who is it really benefiting?

As I sat in my last lecture for my Legal Studies class: Sex and Reproduction, I was thinking of all the new material I had learned regarding surrogacy. So why not talk a little bit about it. There three different types of surrogate mothers:

• Genetic surrogacy or partial surrogacy: This is the most common type of surrogacy. Here the egg of the surrogate mother is fertilized by the commissioning male's sperm. In this way the surrogate mother is the biological mother of the child she carries.


• Total surrogacy: Here the surrogate mother's egg is fertilized with the sperm of a donor - not the male part of the c partum ommissioning couple.

• Gestatory surrogacy or full surrogacy: Here the commissioning couple's egg and sperm have gone through in vitro fertilization and the surrogate mother is not genetically linked to the child.

To begin, who really benefits from surrogacy? In my opinion, it is the intended parents. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how one looks at it. Although there is always debate on this issue, i will discuss one of the many debates: taking advantage of the poor to obtain a baby. Many times women who seek for surrogate mothers are wealthy women. And although hiring surrogate mothers to carry babies is illegal, most of the times, if not all of the times, women who are hired to carry the babies are women who are poor and do it for the money. The rich are exploiting the poor!

I find this really interesting because although this is meant to help both parties, the wealthy get a baby and the poor receive money for their services, this is a big issue, because there are times when poor women have to do this because they really do need money and not because they are 100% sure they want to carry someone else's baby. there have been cases where surrogate mothers get attached to the baby, that eventually they do not want to give it up and if they do they suffer from serious effects after giving birth.

Also, because it is more expensive to hire surrogate mothers in the United States there is this argument that third world women are being exploited as well and treated like baby Machines. Paid surrogacy in India, for example is legal and more women are willing to get hired, and their services are used more often because it is cheaper.

Finally, another issues with surrogacy is that children are becoming more of a commodity, parents are designing their child, choosing from a list to see what traits they want their child to have, ect. One problem with this is that because surrogacy is becoming more popular, children in foster care are not being adopted, and their stay period is becoming longer. There are so many children who need a home, so instead of looking for a surrogate mother to carry a baby, adoption should be a primary option for having a child. If all fails surrogacy should be their last resource. 

http://www.positive-parenting-ally.com/ethics-of-surrogacy.html

Disaster "Relief" in New Jersey

Find the article here! http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/30/fema-sandy-aid.html

Although Superstorm Sandy occurred a year and a half ago, the people of the states of New Jersey and New York are still suffering. As devastating as the actual event was to the people living in the area, the aftermath and lack of support is the real tragedy. FEMA has just discontinued support although Many people relied on FEMA money after the hurricane to pay their high rents while their houses were being rebuilt. New York and New Jersey promised better support at the time of the incident, but little has been done to help former home owners; many are still paying for expensive temporary housing with little sign of return or aid to rebuild their old homes. These expenses leave very little money to pay to remodel homes to fit state standards, especially for people who were low-income to begin with. The applications for state government aid have been notoriously slow to respond, unclear in their language, and not reaching underserved populations such as non-English speakers. There have been many cases and paperwork lost as well. Clearly something is wrong with the process currently in place.

The Fair Share Housing Center, a legal team based in New Jersey, piloted the "Sandy Bill of Rights," a lists of the rights that people recovering from the superstorm should be entitled to. The legal team is urging the governor to sign the bill of rights to show his true commitment to the people of New Jersey. The rights include:  

-The right to a plain language explanation of the application process for any recovery funds;
• The right to know why an application is rejected and to appeal that rejection with a specified timeframe;
• The right to know current status of an application and position on any wait list;
• The right to access information in English, Spanish, and any other language spoken by impacted communities;
• The right to a review of racial and ethnic disparities in funding and corrections of any problems;
• The right to have funds distributed by amount of damage and not based on political or other considerations;
• The right to transparent information online about how funds are being distributed.

The Bill of Rights acknowledges that government-aided recourses are distributed unfairly, leaving poorer and more disadvantaged people even more at risk and in debt. This Bill of Rights seeks to provide better services to lessen the inequality of the resources distribution and make the modes of doing so more fair.

What do you think? Is this another Katrina? Do disasters and lack of relief reveal government insufficiency? Can grassroots organizations, like the Fair Share Housing Center, make a change in government operations?

Health Care as a System

In Atul Gawande's Ted Talk: How do we heal medicine, he discusses the transformation of health care and the ways in which we can begin to fix a broken system. Today our deepest crisis of medicine, is the cost of health care globally. We have gone from pre-penicillin days (1937) in which medicine was very cheap yet ineffective, to today where we have treatments for nearly all conditions. The foundation of medicine and doctors has been to be independent, self sufficient, and autonomous. However, self sufficiency has become a disaster for medicine. Gawande notes in his talk that 2 million people come into hospitals and pickup and infection they didn't have, all because someone failed to follow basic hygiene practices. He goes on to say that the most successful hospitals in giving treatment to patients are ones that look like systems.

He highlights three key points that systems allow. First they have the ability to find where successes and failures are, second they devise solutions, and third they have the ability to implement. The key point that Gawande discusses is through devising solutions. In medical care, his solution is to have checklists, like other high risk industries do (ex. aviation world). These are tools to help make experts better. After implementing checklists in 8 different countries, ranging from rural to urban areas, complication rates fell 35% and death rates fell 47% in every hospital. The implications of this information is huge for the medical world. By implementing something this simple, it allows for hospitals and medical staffs to work more cohesively together and give more successful treatment.

This Ted Talk made me think of the ways in which going into my practice experience, how gaps could occur with staff and patients. By creating more of a system, although requires people to embrace a different set of values from the foundation medicine has grown on, medicine can be more successful and perhaps in the long run less expensive.


http://www.ted.com/talks/atul_gawande_how_do_we_heal_medicine#t-1136248

Under-rated of the month: That teacher in high school that was so inspiring and challenging that you still keep your essays and the class readings in your room back home.

     That person for me was my AP World History and Honors Comparative Literature teacher. In comparative literature class, he had us watch the movie "The Mission," which was a big hit when it premiered. I talked to other teachers about the movie and they all loved it, especially since some of them lead mission trips to other countries. They found it inspiring.

     My comp. lit. teacher, on the other hand, had us analyze it more deeply. We all came to a similar analysis: the main character (a Western man) isn't truly helping these indigenous people.
     In the movie, the Christian men were presented in a way that made them seem like they were living in native villages and relating to the native people. The nuances of the movie showed the true discourses that the writers/directors thought of when making the movie. The natives were never fully dressed. They always seemed to laugh, smile and make primate-type sounds. The natives who did speak, spoke perfect english because they were educated at the newly erected mission. The white men ate with silverware and on shiny plates. The natives learned how to play Western music on a flute.
     It seemed to me and my classmates that these missionaries were held up as greater beings. They were the classic saviors-of-a-primitive-culture disguised at good guys. Sure, they suffered in their pasts but did they suffer with the people that they came into contact with? I argue not.
     A justified summary of this message comes in the form of Paulo Freire's Dedication Page from his book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed": To the oppressed, and to those who suffer with them and fight at their side. 
     If we are to truly impact the situation when we work domestically or abroad, I argue that we must step into the situations of the oppressed. We may never feel the true pain of a homeless person seeking health care or a 40 year old Bolivian who never received the proper education to read or write. But we must at least make wholehearted attempts to enter their world and suffer. Nonetheless, I have no idea what this may look like in practice when I travel to Bolivia.
     One thing that always struck me during comp. lit. was the fact that my teacher never stood up in class. He sat down with the rest of us and acted as a facilitator of discussion. Instead of standing on a stage and speaking with power, as most teachers do, he gave that power to us. It was the best class I ever took.