1. Write a short family immigration story explaining your ethnicity, immigrant dreams, and any reasons for wanting to come to America over other countries to CA. over other states. In this writing, also explain reasons why you like or dislike living in SoCal, and if, and how you have felt racial discrimination.

2. Write a short response to the photograph and its picture of reality here in SoCal and America. Explain what the different images mean to you.

Tim Moore

1. I have immensely deep, cultured, and complicated family immigration story. My grandfather on my mother's side is 100% East Indian, by way of the county of Guyana, South America. My grandfather's grandparents migrated to South America from India to find work, which was at an all time high in the rice patties of the country's of the continent's farthest north regions. My grandfather was born and raised in the capitol city, Georgetown, where he finished high school at the age of 16, and went on to teach at the very school he graduated from. In 1948, he received an athletic scholarship to Michigan State University where he studied religion on the way to becoming a Lutheran Minister. From Michigan, he received a bid to be an interim pastor at a church in Berkley, California. After two years in Northern California, he was offered a job at a church in West Hollywood, California, where he served for a number of years.

My Grandmother; his wife, is the daughter of a direct immigrant from Lithuania who came into the United States through Ellis Island at the age of three years old. She met my grandfather at a bus stop in New York, and from there, a relationship fostered. They made the move to California together, and never once desired leave.

2. The mural pictured is a somewhat familiar sight to me, living in Southern California. Having grown up in some of the lower-class areas of the Southern California "Inland Empire", I've seen many murals like this, signifying the struggle of the hispanic populous. The people in the mural being drawn to the border signifies the struggle to provide for their families, and the drive to live the American dream. The rising sun with a metropolis in sight represents hope. The Biblical reference on the left represents the strong religious background that these people have.