A reflexivity statement is a reflection on the author's perspective, biases, and experiences as they relate to the research being presented.

I pinned Cumpas, Sonora, Mexico, because I specifically mention it in my reflexivity statement; additionally, the themes in my statement all track back to the fact that my family originated from there.

Creating my reflexivity statement, I had to think about who and what were important figures in my life which has contributed to my identity, since those items would demonstrate my perspective and possibly important experiences that are reflected in my work. Much of it was also getting all my ideas out on a piece of paper and then organizing them into a fluid statement.

I revised my statement from the first draft to the final draft by gaining insight from people close to me, so that they could give me feedback regarding whether or not my reflexivity statement was a true reflection of myself. I also made changes to it that I believed would help the fluidity of my statement so that it would sound more natural and like me.

Initially, I was stumped on how to do a reflexivity statement because it was hard to pick and choose which experiences and themes I wanted to include, since there are many more than what I wrote about. However, after finishing the statement, I felt joy because I was able to complete a statement that I believe reflects my perspective and important experiences. This reflexivity relates to the rest of my writing since it shows the place where my feelings are coming from when working on research and writing. Lastly, I think that I will likely write about something like this in possible future academic and personal projects.

I wrote The Borderlands letter to my chosen author, Alberto Rios, regarding one of his works, “Border Boy.” Writing this letter allowed me to share my reflections and analysis of their work directly and to ask questions about their ideas or creative process in an interpersonal way. Additionally, it helped me practice my synthesizing strategies when diving deep into “Border Boy.”

I pinned Nogales, Arizona, for this artifact because Alberto Ríos's poem "Border Boy" is heavily influenced by his upbringing in Nogales, Arizona. 

Within this unit, I heavily analyzed two different texts on my own. Both were in the format of poems; therefore, I collected notes on my highlighted and underlined major themes, quotes, and rhetorical devices throughout the poems. I was initially attracted to these texts because of their relation to the US-Mexico border, which I am familiar with. Therefore, when I read them, I personally connected to some of the themes that were being brought up. 

While working on this project, I learned a lot about rhetorical analysis; more specifically, I learned that adding in rhetorical devices to ones writing can be a way to add deeper meaning to the writing, Additionally, studying the context/author and what audience the text was is meant for helped develop a better understanding as to how these different components come into the overall purpose of the text. For example, Alberto Rios did not explicitly mention that he was raised in Nogales, Arizona, in his poem, but by learning about this information, I was able to form deeper connections when analyzing the text.

For this project, the only thing that I had to research was the author’s background. Luckily, this author had multiple platforms available that contained information about him; therefore, the research process was not too difficult. I used the author’s background to help me get a better idea of the text’s purpose. 

Upon reflection, my interests impacted my study and understanding of borderlands in this unit because I enjoy reading poems and trying to dissect the meaning in them. Therefore, having this interest helped me do a deep analysis of the poem to learn the underlying borderland themes. Additionally, my personal experience of growing up traveling between the US-Mexico border also helped me form better connections in this unit.

Producing this letter challenged me because I wanted the letter not to sound like a regular academic paper, but instead, I wanted to stick to the aspects of the genre of a letter. This experience impacted the rest of my writing because it taught me how important it is to integrate genre into my writing. Overall, I was pleased with how the letter came out in the end; however, I do not believe that I will produce a letter in the setting of writing to an author of a published work again. The closest I might get to doing so is by writing cover letters, although those contain different components within themselves.

The Borderlands Digital Story & Cover Page was the creation of either a fotonovela or a storymap with an oral history of a specific place. I chose to do a storymap of the Gadsden Hotel in Douglas, AZ. The purpose of this assignment was to practice taking oral histories and to raise awareness of certain histories or topics of the chosen place that may not have been well-known to others.

I chose to pin the location of the Gadsden Hotel in Douglas, since the story map revolves around the hotel itself.

While conducting research for this project, I collected information by taking pictures at the site and interviewing my grandma and mom’s oral histories regarding the hotel, since they have had a lot of experience at the hotel. Additionally, I also jotted down different bullet points about the general atmosphere in the hotel while sitting in the lobby. Through all this research, I learned how to conduct an oral history, which was a skill I had not yet developed.

Learning about how to write to a specific audience taught me to be more cautious about the level of language I use in my writing to ensure that my audience will be able to understand. For instance, my audience for the story map was, firstly, my family since my mom’s side of the family (tios, tias, grandparents, and further back) can personally relate since they lived through the experiences that I mention in my story map. Additionally, my intended audience also includes people from Douglas, AZ, and other Mexicans who have stayed at the Gadsden Hotel since they may see reflections of their own families’ experiences with the Gadsden Hotel in my family’s history.

Within this project, I mainly included the regular convention of a story map like including historical maps and archival photos in my story. One convention I broke was the reliance on purely academic sources—I prioritized personal storytelling over traditional research-based argumentation to highlight lived experiences more.

In my process of storytelling, I mainly chose to tell the story from my perspective while including the narratives of my mom and grandma. In this unit, I learned about the different narrative types and even experimented on possibly telling my story from a secondhand perspective; however, ultimately, I decided not to go with that narrative choice.

Upon reflection on the whole assignment, I genuinely enjoyed learning how to conduct an oral history because I enjoyed hearing about stories from the past. Additionally, I enjoyed doing fieldwork such as taking pictures, videos, and taking notes. I can now take these skills that I learned and/or further practiced and use them to elevate my writing in future projects. I am not sure when I will write something like this again in my academics; however, I hope to be able to write more in my personal life.

The artifact I chose is my written response to La Calle, a reading that analyzes the historical displacement of Mexican Americans in Tucson due to urban renewal projects.

I pinned this artifact to Tucson, AZ, since that is where much of the displacement described in La Calle took place. This location connects directly to Borderlands theory because it physically embodies the erasure of Mexican-American communities and their history due to the clash between two cultures. My definition of the Borderlands includes both the physical border and the social and cultural boundaries that determine who gets to be remembered and who is pushed aside. La Calle, therefore, symbolizes the reclaiming of space and memory.

This activity helped me understand that being a writer in the Borderlands means recognizing whose stories are silenced and then using writing as a tool to make sure their stories are no longer silenced. Additionally, learning that urban renewal was used to erase the presence of Mexican-American communities opened my eyes to how deeply intertwined place, power, and narrative can be.

Analyzing La Calle strengthened my connection to Borderlands genres by demonstrating how easily writing can both degrade and/or empower a culture’s history. Therefore, Borderlands literacy is valuable to me as a writer and learner in academia because it gives me the tools to be able to analyze dominant narratives and tell counter-stories.

This activity helped me reflect on my sense of purpose as a student and writer. It made me question what stories I’ve inherited, what stories I’ve ignored, and what stories I’m responsible for sharing. Before, I mainly thought of writing as just an academic exercise, but now I know that writing can be used to bring justice to those who were the victims of injustices.