The Immigrant Visions Voices event encompassed the VOZMOB interface, which is an online community designed to collect stories from the working class in Los Angeles. Although it is not limited to this growing metropolis, VOZMOB's system of "mobile voices" allow low-income communities that are marginalized or excluded from society to appropriate the mobile media to create their own stories and essentially share their lives.
Started in Pasadena in 1980's in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, VOZMOB had a vision to help and work with the immigrant community specifically with literacy and use the words as practice of freedom and adoption of realities. They decided to utilize the flourishing internet and mobile media to showcase their realities of labor. For instance, one would use features such as texts, videos, and pictures and attach a story as an opportunity to possess their "window into the world." The presenters of the event emphasized that because the internet provides such accessible means to communicate with the world, technology is seemed less as a distraction and more as a great benefit to creating bonds with the rest of the community. Additionally, the presenters were active participants, staff members, and founders of VOZMOB and Mobile Voices work on projects with household workers and daily labors. Organized projects are aimed to publicize and promote the stories of VOZMOB. Through these methods, individuals can use the platform of Mobile Voices to amplify the realities of life for laborers and immigrants. Participants of Mobile Voices desire to reflect on their rights as immigrants and laborers and "emphasize power sharing, horizontalism, and community accountability."
Although I learned about something completely new and unknown to the majority of the Los Angeles community, I noticed that the entire presentation was not effectively organized and was informal. There was one translator in the group of presenters, and the rest of the staff members spoke fluent Spanish and minimal English. There was no formal translator for the presentation, and a streaming of twitter messages running across the wall in the background. No one explained the connection between the messages and the presentation itself. Overall, although the presentation did not attempt to engage the audience in any way, the entire presentation ultimately promoted the idea of creating a close-knit community through digital media.
The link to the VOZMOB webiste can be found here.
I felt that the ineffective organization hindered the event's impact to a greater extent in that the mission statement of VOZMOB was muddled. I understood the Spanish spoken at the event, so the message was not as lost in translation as it was for other members of the audience. Still, their language reflects an adherence to the culture. The spoken Spanish was powerful by itself for reinforcing the need for awareness regarding marginalized migrant workers. How would you balance these opposing elements?
ReplyDeleteUtilizing both Spanish and English in the presentation was definitely the most effective way to reach to the audience. It seemed, though, that their translator was unexpectedly and informally put into his position. I would balance the need for immigrant awareness and understanding of the language in the presentation by portraying majority of the discussion in English and articulating portions of the presentation, such as the story in the beginning, in Spanish to emphasize the mission statement of VOZMOB.
ReplyDelete