Artist Statement

Loyola Academy was my first service learning experience I ever did. I was really interested in getting to know the students backgrounds, where they were from, why were they at Loyola and what did they want to take away from the school. My project came to me by looking at the work of Dawoud Bey’s “Class Pictures” and Life magazine.
I was really upset when I heard that the students had no art class, because I feel like art and music play a huge roll in students developing creative skills as well as problem solving. One of the things I did was hand out disposable cameras to the class. I'm also a photography major and I wanted to share my love for photography with the students. I did not want it to be a financial burden on any of the students so I even paid for their pictures to get developed. Some of the issues I ran into were that some of the students did not want to participate in the assignment. I still have not received two of the cameras. Another problem with the project was that the students did not really know when to add the “flash” so a lot of the pictures I got were really dark.
Out of the six cameras that I handed out I only got four back. I feel like the four students that did the assignment took it seriously and had fun with it. I really enjoyed seeing the students pictures of where they live and their families. None of the students felt comfortable with doing voice overs so I had to scratch that from the project.
I not only learned a lot from doing this project but from service learning in general.The hardiest challenge was trying to get the kids involved. Some of the students seemed to want to get involved more then others and when they did it was great and I thank them. I feel that all the students have a creative side to them and if they were given the chance to have music and art added back into their curriculum it would allow them to express themselves in a fun and positive way.

Angie

Celia

I have a son named David, being a teenage mom is really hard, but I want to finish school so I can offer my son a better life.

Beatrice

Mario

I was born in Mexico. I moved to Wisconsin when I was 5. I don't really remember a lot about Mexico but when I grow up I want to move back there.

Loyola

Last day of going to the school ... felt pretty weird

ME

When I was 3 years old me and my parents went to North Carolina to visit some friends. One day I woke up and thought my parents had left with out me so I opened the door and walked out into the hallway. One of the housekeepers found me and took me to the GM. When the man asked me my name I told him my name was Mowgli.

Loyola

Told the class about my final project .. didn't get the reaction I was hoping for.. hopefully they will surprise me by actually take it seriously

Pictures from around Loyola

Multimedia Essay

Last Monday I really enjoyed walking around the Loyola Academy High School and the surrounding neighborhood with my camera. I feel like photographing something you are not use to really helps you see all of your surroundings. Photography also allows the viewers to see the way the photographer sees things. A unknown author wrote “ I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather then just look at it.” I'm a photography major so I am use to going out into the world and trying to capture the moment.
Going to Loyola Academy High School for the first time was defiantly a shock. The high school I went to had a few thousand kids with thirty kids in every class. Loyola has about 90 students and your lucky if you have six kids show up for a class. When the students took us on a tour of the school we visited the cafeteria which is also the gym, they move the tables to one side. We also went to the office where the students go to get out of class, or to call their parents to come pick them up if they are not feeling well. Before Loyola was a school it was a monastery and while taking the tour we still saw some reminisces of it.
Loyola Academy is located on the “South Side”. The South Side of Milwaukee is a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. The school itself is 92% Hispanic. The school is a partnership between Milwaukee Public Schools and the Council for the Spanish Speaking. The Council for the Spanish Speaking also has Adult Learning and Workforce Development, Guadalupe Head Start and Housing for the Elderly.
The students at Loyola when asked where their favorite spot in their neighborhood was most of them said their house. When I asked the students why they said because it was quiet and clean. The students also said they liked to buy there food from El Rays which is an ethnic supermarket. I really enjoy getting to know the students even though every time we go there we never know who will show up for class.

Loyola

Today was my 3rd time at the school. Half the class was not there again today. I feel like Its a challenge to work with the students when very few show up. I do believe that the students enjoy us coming so they can get away from their normal class period.

Media Literacy Exercise

I choose “The Westwater Family” by Tina Barney along with “24 People for Whom I Have Been Mistaken” by Roger Simomura because I feel like both photographs try and portray popular stereotypes of the different cultures. The definition of stereotype is oversimplified images of a person or a group.

In Tina Barney’s “ The Westwater Family” the subjects are a family who are all dressed in black and are standing in a kind of circle. The family members seem to be grandparents, father, mother, and then daughter. The black clothes and the surrounding furniture give off a sense of wealth. The colors of the walls are an off white with a big black piece of art on the right wall. The black painting has a strange eerie white face that is positioned over the woman who looks to be the mother figure in the photograph. The three center figures are all staring down wards towards a little sculpture. The eldest man is off center and to the back is wearing a bow tie. "To its devotees the bow tie suggests iconoclasm of an Old World sort, a fusty adherence to a contrariness point of view. The bow tie hints at intellectualism, real or feigned, and sometimes suggests technical acumen, perhaps because it is so hard to tie. Bow ties are worn by magicians, country doctors, lawyers and professors and by people hoping to look like the above. But perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think."[i] In the left side of the photograph is a man in brown suit that is out of focus and seems to be less important then the figures in black.

“ The Westwater Family” portrays the typical white upper class family. Benshoff and Griffin state “ the most common designation of whiteness in the United States is the term WASP, which stands for White Anglo-Saxon European”.

“24 People for Whom I have Been Mistaken” uses 24 images of men all very different but all connected threw the “Oriental” stereotype. The images are all different snap shots in all different settings.

“ 24 People for Whom I Have Been Mistaken” by Roger Simomura is exactly what Benshoff and Griffin state in Chapter 6. For most of the twentieth century American film has reduced the hundreds of different Asian cultures into this “Oriental” character. The “Oriental” character is most commonly shown with shifty behavior, broken English, and slanted eyes. Yellowface became popular in 1960’s- 1970’s when blackface was no longer considered acceptable.

I myself use this stereotype, the other day we had an Asian manager at my store and I automatically started calling him Jackie Chan. I also see every person with “slanted eyes” as being Chinese, which is ignorant to the fact that they could be anything from American to Tai.

Both of the Images I have looked at show typical stereotypes of different cultures.

The Westwater family being a good stereotype of wealth and power that the white race shares while the stereotype that all Asians are the same is a negative and false stereotype. Stereotypes can be conceived from a bad personal experiences with different races but more times then not the media plays a big part.

---

[i] ^ St John, Warren (June 26,2005). "A Red Flag That Comes in Many Colors". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/fashion/sundaystyles/26BOWTIE.html. Retrieved 2009-10-15.

WHITE STEROTYPES

while working on my Media Literacy Exercise I found this link and felt like sharing.


http://black20.com/middle-show/white-stereotypes

Loyola

I have really enjoyed going to the school and getting to know a little more about the students.