Goals

My short term goal for peace is to smile at everyone. A smile could be insignificant, but to others it might show them that there is still a small percentage of peace in the world. When you smile at someone you let them know that you are happy and that they should also be happy. If a person is having a bad day, just with a smile you could cheer them up.  My long term goal for peace is to start an organization to help the poor. I would like to go across the world and help people that are need. I would especially like to help children that are abandoned in the streets that have nothing to eat. One of the things that truly hurt me is seeing the way how children suffer. Children that are living in the streets learn how to live on their own. Sometimes they learn the wrong things in life and it affects us because we depend on those children to have a better future.

Inner Peace

Even though it is hard to think of peace with all of the horrific things happening around the world, we mainly have to focus with inner peace. We really can’t do a difference in the world if we don’t start within ourselves. All around the world we are used to be in conflicts and use violence.  One of the things society, including many of us, tend to do is blame others and not realize what we do wrong. Inner peace should be started by accepting our errors and trying to fix conflicts without violence or accusing others for what we do wrong. For example in a relationship when a couple is fighting, they should not argue against each other. Instead they should talk it out and fight against the problem. Simple things like that can be the start of having inner peace. Through inner peace world peace can be achieved. First we have to start within ourselves then soon expand to our friends, our families, and our communities to reach the entire world.

Op-Ed

There Is No One to Blame but Ourselves

Brutality, assaults, attacks, power, aggression, terrorism, and murder are a few of the words that have become a regular part of our lives. The entire world has faced wars and conflicts between countries as far as we can remember. Yet, we have all been bombarded to make revenge but we all know that it just makes it worse. It is clear that our response to violence is violence, but it just becomes and endless back and forth. Since the September 11 incident, things have gone overboard especially now that Osama Bin Laden has been pronounced dead. I believe that the number one element preventing peace all over the world is the use of violence to solve problems.

We all know that President Bush started one of the biggest wars ever known because of what Osama Bin Laden’s organization did to our country. He destroyed all of the United States not only economically but also emotionally. When the Twin Towers were destroyed many innocent people were killed and family members were not even able to see their loved ones for the last time. President Bush decided to send a large number of troops from the United States to fight Osama Bin Laden. Due to this, there were more terrorist attacks occurring in the United States because it made our enemy even angrier knowing that we were attacking him. Poor Americans were sent daily to Iraq and had to leave their families behind to fight. Many of the civilians saw that war as a waste of time, money, and most importantly, lives.

Many people were hoping for the war to come to an end. As our newest elected President Obama was inaugurated, he promised that the Iraq War will come to an end and he has come closer to ending it. As soon as he became president, what Bush had promised us for many years was finally coming to pass. Many troops were sent home and they were once again united with their families. It was a relief for most of us to know that we were not at war anymore. Recently we all received “happy” news; finally Osama Bin Laden was killed.

But the relief that we had all felt disappeared in an instant.

As you all know, in this situation Al Qaeda in Afghanistan will soon find a way to take revenge. The war will once again continue due to this most recent incident that took place. The United States economy will get a lot worse than as it is now. The gas prices will rise even more and there will be intrusive security to prevent terrorist attacks. Once again there will be chaos in the lives of Americans, people will feel unsecure and scared waiting for the next attack.

If all of us would take an in-depth look into peace, we will all notice that peace is the only answer to our entire problem. There is no need for violence; instead, it destroys us even more. There are many steps that we could take after this incident to have a peaceful world. We could all reduce aggression by looking for peaceful solutions instead of violence.  We could also start little by little by making neighborhoods safe; we could show the little kids a healthy environment so that when they become adults they will change the world. The most important solution for this problem is after the 10^th year anniversary of September 11 we could all start from scratch working for peace.  How ironic that for most of us, the five letter word “peace” is just an imaginary perfect world that doesn’t exist. It may seem hard to bring peace back to our world, but when everyone contributes nothing is impossible.

Don’t Stand For Homophobic Bullying

Society shouldn’t criticize or be mean to people that are attracted to their same sex.  We are no one to judge them; we do not have the right to say if it is right or wrong. Yet, after seeing this video it crossed my mind how it contradicts what I have learned in my religion. This video is letting society know that being attracted to the same sex it is right and they should be free to show it. Instead, the church says that it is ok for a person to be gay or lesbian but it is not right when it comes to the point where they start to be active about it. I agree with the video 100% that no one should bully people about their sex life and it is true. We should all accept everyone just by the way they are, the only thing that I didn’t agree with in the video was when they showed in the end how they were walking together holding hands. Overall, even though this issue brings a lot of conflicts and contradictions it was a good way to respond to this issue in a peaceful way; the video was very well organized.

Libya

Most people are aware of all of the things happening around the world. Most people are concerned of what is happening in Mexico about murders and the war that is happening between drug cartels. The reason is because right now Juarez is known as the most dangerous city in the world.  Yet, there are many other horrifying things happening around the world that we should be aware of. One of the things is that for the way how things are getting worse, it seems as if there could be a next civil war in Libya. Qaddafi is the person in charge of all of the preposterous things happening in that country. He has horrible qualities as a leader, and one of them is that he is willing to do anything to maintain his power. A group of people that are against him, the rebels, decided to fight Qaddafi and that is why Libya is known as a dangerous country right now. A lot of innocent people are being killed and are waiting for some sort of help because Qaddafi is really powerful to defeat him.

Organization Memo

Date: February 11, 2011

To: English 1311 students

From: Angelica Valdez

RE: Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

There are a lot of immigrants that are in need of help. There are many people that want to come to the United States but they cannot due to economic problems or just difficulties in general. Las Americas was born on March 1 of 1987 to answer the needs of these people. They provide aid to people who are trying to escape from the violence that is occurring around them. A good example is what is happening in Juarez, there are a lot of people that are trying to come to the United States to escape all of the violence that is going on in their home city. They are in need of help but yet they cannot find it due to the long process of becoming a citizen. They are in desperate need because a lot of people are being murdered and they don’t want it to happen to their own family members. Not only that but by the children seeing all of the violence their minds are being corrupted and we will not know how they will be in the future. Due to high rates of killings, there are a lot of orphan children. People are so desperate to run away from all of this violence that refuges are arriving to the United States, there is where Las Americas take action. Their mission is to provide legal representation to immigrants and by supporting their human rights. 

The stories that they have shared are very touching and show how really important and helpful their agency is. A touching story is of a woman who was born in El Salvador; she was passed form stranger to stranger when she was a child since her mother was murdered. Her father gave her away to a couple and they would make her work and as a punishment they would place her hands in a hot iron plate until they were burned. She then was sent to this strange man to be his wife and she would be sexually abused.  She soon had an opportunity and decided to escape to the United States, she was detained in El Paso and Las Americas represented her and helped her. She is now happily living in the U.S freely. 

When we become aware of these types of situations that are happening around the world we have the necessity of helping them. Las Americas provides a lot of advertisements so that people can become familiar with their agency to help them in any way possible. Las Americas provide events so that people could join them such as 2010 Border Heroes. They also ask people for donations; once you enter to their webpage there is a site where you can sign as a regular supporter to send them economic aid. They have a site where you could become a member and they sent news and updates from their organization. They also have a facebook page and a twitter so that people are able to follow them. Finally a way that Las Americas communicate with the community is by many of the stories from people that they help come out in TVs news such as in ABC-7 News.

This agency relates a lot to our community because we see immigrant issues everywhere in the United States. Every day in the news we see people that have to leave their families because they are sent back to their home town because they are not citizens.  A lot of people surrounding us are going through this issue but we are not willing to help. Agencies such as Las Americas are a hope and an answer to many people that are fighting for their freedom. This type of associations shows us that there are people willing to help others that are in greatly need of justice.

Bulding Peace

The video has made me reflect that we take things for granted, we are not thankful for all the things that we have while there are people around the world that will die for an education. I had the mentality that there was no more peace or good people in the world, but  when I saw this video I saw hope because now I know that there are still people out there with a heart that care and help others with nothing in return. Greg Montenson was motivated by seeing all the poverty in the world and saw how their culture was in need of education and he had the initiative to start building the school for women in Afghanistan. He thought that if they educate a girl at least to the fifth grade level it could help by reducing infant mortality, reducing population explosion, and improving basic quality of health. With this simple act of kindness he proved he was able to enter a foreign culture, respect local customs, and build relationships with religious and community leaders. He mentioned something that is very true, we can afford to give out condoms and do other things but yet we cannot afford free education to those who are in need? He reminded us that we should spend all of our money in things that are really needed, not just for guns and war. There should be less ignorance in the world to make it a better place for all of us. Why does it always have to be blood shedding battles? We should all find peace in another way other than fighting. This video gave us all hope and it tells us that with just an act of kindness everything can turn into a better place.

Does peace really exist?

The first thing that comes into my head when I hear the word peace is that we truly need it in our world. It is extremely heartbreaking to see that the city that most needs it, is right across our border. People have already lost the sympathy of killing human beings. We see in the news that in Mexico women and children are being raped, tortured, hanged, or decapitated. It is devastating to know that kids are carrying and using weapons to kill people each day as a job to get paid. Females were used to be known as something warm and caring, now they are the ones in charge of major drug cartels in Mexico.  People that live in Mexico and do not have papers to come to the United States are frustrated because their families are in danger and they can not find peace in themselves. They do not have normal lives like we do, they are scared to go to places and they are home by a certain time to be safe; they are screaming for help but yet no one can hear them. My family and I used to go to Juarez often to visit our family but now we think twice about going, and when we do we lock the doors and pray that nothing will happen to us. It is sick to know what our world has turned into. That is just one of the preposterous things that are happening in the world. How ironic that for most of us, the five letter word “peace” is just an imaginary perfect world that doesn’t exist.