POOJA SUBRAMANIAM | WOLVERINES ABROAD
I
t was the first day of my
spring
break
—
halfway
through a grueling semester
— and I was unsure about my
choice to spend my break in
Nicaragua. I sat in an airplane
with 12 of my peers, each of us
silent, due in equal parts to our
unfamiliarity with each other
and the tiredness that often
accompanies an early morning
flight.
I
quickly
texted
my
parents and boyfriend and closed
out of Instagram on my phone,
catching a final glance at the
clear, blue waters of friends in
Mexico that filled my feed. I said
a quick prayer and, like that, we
were off.
The Ross School of Business,
with a generous sponsorship
from the Royal Bank of Canada,
organized a service learning
trip
in
the
recycling-based
community of La Joya, Nicaragua
where we would work alongside
International
Samaritan,
an
Ann Arbor-based organization
focused on serving communities
that
live
in
garbage
dumps
around the globe. In the days
following the initial morning
take-off, I would help build
the foundation of a home for
Yorlena, a mother who worked
tirelessly collecting recyclables
from the nearby landfills to sell
at a small margin. I would grow
to adore the 12 peers who joined
me on our adventure in the
Nicaraguan town of Nandaime.
I would practice my Spanish
while twisting wires with a
construction worker, speaking
with him about his daughters
and wife. I would learn about
the beauty of Nicaragua from our
International Samaritan leader
Tanya and how she decided to
bring her higher education back
home to help her nation with its
most dire needs. I would learn
how to mix cement and to remind
my friends to drink water in the
heat. And I would fall in love
with the neighborhood kids who
came and watched us work on a
new, fortified home, much unlike
their own.
Yet
through
the
thousand
things
I
learned,
saw
and
finally
understood,
from
my
own obvious privilege, to the
potential
negative
effects
of
volunteerism,
the
patriarchal
norms
in
many
developing
nations that help contribute to
these issues and even the manual
labor that goes into building a
small home, one thing stood out
to me. My biggest takeaway from
my trip was double-edged sword
of “doing good.” On our first day
at the landfill, our group met
with Yorlena and a few of her
coworkers, all mothers who spent
their days collecting recyclables
among the dusty, expansive piles
of trash.
Standing near these women,
I was extremely aware of my
waterproof hiking shoes and
the iPhone in my pocket. My
mind couldn’t help but flit to
the recycling standards I so
heavily preached in the United
States: reduce when possible and
recycle at home so that we can
create a more efficient recycling
process. This belief of recycling
at the home level carries over
in what I believe should be an
international norm. To me, this
method was always the solution
to our excessive use of plastics,
but bringing my own principles
to Nicaragua would be heavily
destructive. Yorlena provided for
her three children only because
a recycle-at-home infrastructure
does not exist in the Grenada
area — with this type of social
program, she, and many of her
colleagues, would lose their jobs.
As students at the University
of Michigan, many of us are
looking for ways to improve
the world. Whether we choose
engineering, business, science
or the arts as our medium to
create that change, for many
of us, it is our final goal. Yet,
for me, standing in Nandaime,
surrounded by kind people who
let us enter their homes and lives
for a short period to simply teach
us about their way of life, I knew
what I had learned – what I had
thought was right – would not
help people in this community.
Nevertheless,
I
still
believe
we should reduce our use of
plastics and encourage in-home
recycling
internationally.
It
is this tension between doing
what is theoretically good and
what is good for the real people
in real communities that drives
the difficult decisions that come
with creating solutions for the
social good. This hypocrisy of
helping people was, at first,
entirely
disappointing.
But
looking back, months after that
first flight with strangers, I
now realize this hypocrisy is the
reason change is so scary and the
reason change is so important.
Yorlena had a picture in her
home that’s still clear in my
mind: she, her husband and her
children, smiling and holding
each other, photoshopped into a
beautiful living room, unlike the
small, concrete room in which
the picture hung. Tanya told us it
was a common practice--families
photoshopping themselves into
nice homes for their family
pictures,
a
framed
escape
of their own reality. While
generating industry change and
positive environmental impact
may not help Yorlena achieve the
standard of living she wanted
for her children, it’ll help others
move away from working in
landfills to find more lucrative,
less dangerous ways to support
their families.
Back in Michigan, I’m once
again entranced by idealistic
solutions, rooted from my own
experiences and education. I
know that, directly, my actions
may not affect the people of
Nandaime, but indirectly, my
perceived positive beliefs may
have
negative
consequences,
consequences that are now no
longer distant from me. But maybe
that’s why we travel, maybe
that’s why we value an education
abroad so deeply — it shows us
the people who may be hurt by
our solutions and challenges us
to understand the implications
of our actions and make sure the
solutions we choose to believe in,
we can still believe in even in the
face of those they hurt.
5
OPINION
Thursday, June 21, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
We learned about his
career
in
elementary
school
history
books
and were taught to see
him as one of the most
successful presidents in
U.S.
history.
However,
this
image
completely
erases
some
of
the
atrocities FDR committed
during
his
presidential
terms. Americans find a
way to conveniently forget
FDR
was
responsible
for
the
internment
of
over
100,000
Japanese
Americans and Japanese
immigrants.
While
the
United
States
was
supposed to be fighting
xenophobia
in
Europe,
it was creating a similar
discriminatory
culture
within its own borders.
Many
of
the
Japanese
Americans interned in the
United States had never
lived in Japan and were
imprisoned purely based
on the fear that their
ethnicity would lead them
to betray their country.
Tens
of
thousands
of
Japanese Americans were
placed
in
internment
camps
with
their
only
crime being the fact that
they had at least one great-
great-grandparent
who
was ethnically Japanese.
By no means was this
FDR’s only questionable
act during his terms as
president, but it was one
of
the
most
egregious
and
is
often
forgotten
completely or ignored by
the general public. FDR is
one politician for whom we
should seriously question
whether to refer to him and
his legacy positively. By
referring to FDR as one of
the best presidents in U.S.
history or just referring
to him in a positive way
in general, the suffering
of over 100,000 Japanese
Americans and Japanese
immigrants is erased.
There
are
many
politicians and political
figures
who
could
be
added to this list, if not all
of them. As we attempt to
become a more inclusive
society,
we
must
make
decisions as to whether
certain
figures
can
be
talked
about
positively
after taking all of their
actions into consideration.
This article is by no means
intended to suggest all
politicians
are
terrible
people unworthy of our
positive
opinions
or
praise. Many politicians
perform
good
public
service
in
the
attempt
to
make
the
United
States
a
better
place
for
all
its
inhabitants.
However,
these
good
actions do not necessarily
counteract decisions that
negatively
affect
their
constituents, particularly
those
of
marginalized
communities.
We
must
make sure we consider
holistically these political
figures
before
blindly
singing
their
praise.
Liberals can still respect
Ginsburg for her position
as the second woman to sit
on the Supreme Court and
the good work she has done
since her appointment. As
a party, we must be more
conscious of looking at our
leaders as humans with
both strengths and faults
while
considering
the
harm idolatry can cause.
The hypocrisy of helping people
Pooja Subramaniam can be reached
at plsubr@umich.edu
Audrey Gilmour can be reached
at audreymg@umich.edu.
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Ignorance in idoltry by Audrey Gilmour continued below:
“This belief of
recycling at
the home level
carries over in
what I believe
should be an
international
norm.”