As my time at UCSD is coming to an end, I look back at my growth from a kid to an adult. This growth was achieved by taking a path through UCSD. The Race and Oral History Project was a part of my path here at UCSD. The class named HIUS 120D is not a course that is taken to memorize and write from memory, it is an active involvement course where I got to volunteer in a school at El Cajon. My responsibility was to take care of 3rd graders and help them with their coursework and be a hand for them. My involvement made me familiar with Beatriz who is a staff at BLCI, El Cajon and she introduced me to Naima Hagiismail who is an UCSD graduate currently working in BLCI for high schoolers. An interview with her was itself a course of wisdom. Her experiences, obstacles and life lessons were illustrated in her talk. One of the most important things about the interview was the question of why there is a BLCI site at El Cajon. She answered it by talking about cultural differences in different places of San Diego to the lack of help to kids as well as parents because a school can act as a second home for children. There needs to be involvement in the students side as well as parents side to have a better future for kids with the greatest potential. This can make the next generations to be world leaders or their talent might become unnoticed.
The last part of the interview was about the topic “Your zip code determines how long you live or who you would become”. This is exactly why we need a Race and Oral history project as well as BLCI.
