Destructing There Culture Reconstructing There Future

Think Creatively
Based on collecting pictures from all over the sites, I presented thinking creatively. Because my main theme were Death and Live, death representing their experience of civil war and live representing their hope as well as assimilation to America. So, on the death side, I put famine, poverty, wars as well as despair. On the other side, I put pictures of hope, money, work, America and their life in America. The reason why I divided into two parts is because I wanted to show that there is a hope although they have bad past, they are looking for hope in the future.

Reason Critically
As I said in the Thinking creatively section, I have divided into two parts, death and live. On the death side I showed how much those lost boys suffered, and on the other side, I put the pictures of nowadays. From my six word memoir I designed destructing referring to the death and reconstructing referring to the future and hope. I also put some of the texts saying that lost boys of Sudan need a lot of help in terms of education and food. These show that I feel empathy and have a good understanding of how much they have suffered from harsh traumas as well as past experiences.

Communicate Effectively
My collage is a great source to look how much the lost boys have suffered from harsh traumas as well as still in America. First of all, the Death section of my collage shows how much they have suffered in the Sudanese civil war, and how much they have hungered there, walking thousands of miles in the desert. On the Live side, most of the pictures are based on how they are living in America and interact with other people. The reason why I didn’t include photos for the plight of their assimilation to America is because my concept of this collage was to show dramatic change between their past years and nowadays. Also I used my 6-word memoir to communicate the overall lives of the lost boys of Sudan to the audience. I described how they have suffered in the past and trying there best nowadays to get out of that life.

Live Ethically
As people look at the contents of my collage, they will realize how much of sufferings the Lost Boys went through. In my collage, I have included pictures as well as some texts which are basically all about needing help. The reason why I made those texts is to create empathy and to evoke emotional response from the audiences. Firstly, it would give them a sense of what it feels like to lose one's whole family to a violent and merciless war. One of the texts is about lots of people are dying due to the lack of food. As the audiences it creates empathy over them because they are eating 3 meals a day and they don’t. At the same time, interacting to the texts, some of the pictures create empathy. As an example, I put a picture of three children who are very slim and looking for food with the dishes. Because we all are wearing good clothes and eat three meals a day, almost everybody will have at least little empathy to them. Therefore, in my opinion, my collage will do good job in creating sympathy in the people and encourage them to take action to help the lost boys of Sudan

Lost boys of Sudan

As the British governed North Sudan and South Sudan as a different region, after Sudan gets independent from British and Egypt, they had a civil war against each other due to the different opinions of creating a federal government that would give the South autonomy. Because of this durable civil war lots of people died from the starvation and the hot weather in Sudan as well as from the war. Those South Sudanese who were survived from this atmosphere, they fled from the war place and moved to the refuge camp for their safety and help. Then a while later, Forced migration was set up for those people who were selected to migrate to America, to live a life without so many difficulties as they had back in there country and to receive a better education and earn money from the social life, so that they could help their tribe with the money benefits that they made out of there jobs. The men that migrated to America were called "The Lost Boys of Sudan". There was quite a lot of people migrated to America and Peter was one of the men who was forced to migrate to America. Peter is a man from the Dinka tribe and one of the representatives of this Refugee camp who have to take care of this tribe after all. Back in the documentary “The Lost Boys of Sudan” most of the people who are going to America said that America is like heaven when they just arrived there, however, they weren't expecting any of the hardships that they will face because they are new to this society.

Peter's main goal was to receive an education from the high school that will help him to provide for the Dinka tribe. (He can go back to his tribe and teach the kids what he has learned.) When Peter left his friends in Houston it seems like he was leaving for his own good of satisfaction, he was sacrificing a lot for himself and the Dinka tribe in several ways. Leaving his friends would have been harsher to him but there were lots of supporters who helped him in terms of making new friends, which made him to stay there for such a long time without his friends back in Houston and feel that his place is better than the Houston. Another thing that Peter suffered from there is paying for his food and sending back some money back to the tribe, which made him to work harder. Leaving Houston would have decreased their relationships with each other since they lived so far apart from each other with little communication. When Peter went to his School he knew that it was not going to be easy for him to fit in. He experienced racial comments from people a lot throughout his education from students to teachers, and since the school that he attended didn’t have a lot of students that looked like him, he had to try even harder to be a part of the school. However, there were some nice people who supported him to socialize with them. In my opinion, I think they are the people who would like to share there own life that they experienced and learn new things from there own culture. The perception of teachers and their point of view in Peter was erroneous and inappropriate. When he was talking to the counselor about applying for a college, the counselor thought that he might not do well on his college with only little experience, and he was sort of referring back to his life. So the counselor wanted to help him but not really in an appropriate way which was telling him other options which was taking 2 year course of community college before the 4 year college. Peter proved the counselor wrong by giving him his written essay of his own life and about also with the information of applying it for his college education. When the counselor was looking for an biography formation of essay for applicant, Peter amazed him by telling him that he had already done it. When the counselor started to read it, he put it down quite fast which means he didn't read to the end, saying that it was too sad and that he could not bear to read it. This again is discrimination, for the counselor had an opinion that Peter's grammar and writing skills are very poor that he needs a lot of help. Peter showed his determination and passion of studying as well as how much he is eager to get what he want by answering all of the questions that were asked to him directly showing that he wasn't going to take no for taking the recommended course for counselor. From the documentary, when a teacher was interviewing and getting some of the information about him, she asked some of questions such as how is your life look like, how did his parents die, and asking such question as what will you do if you had one million dollars. Because he is still not familiar with the currency of the money and for him a million dollar is something that he can think of because he had to live his life always with starvation, no education and lack of money as well. And these questions also made him think back to how sorrowfully dispersed from the civil war. Although, it’s something about an education and learning in variety ways, but this way had actually made Peter to feel uncomfortable.

Peter lived a very difficult life, but he proved to himself and the Dinka tribe that nothing is impossible and he will figure out everything by himself in Kansas. Peter is now a model of the kids in the future (the Dinka tribe kids), they now have someone reliable to look up to when it comes time for them to leave Kenya and go to America. Last but not least, although he seems he is not caring for back in Kenya, his tribe, but he really shows that he didn’t forget them from his way better life in America. He also says that he will send money when he gets some left money after he use for his food and education.