One of the major growths that I have undergone especially this semester was understanding how blessed I truly am and looking at life from new perspectives. There were a few experiences that I had outside of the classroom that led me to this realization. However, the reading we did in class opened my eyes to how blessed my life truly is. Tucson Salvage y Brian Smith was about the living conditions South Tusconians live under at the El Camino Motel. This motel is only 12 minutes away from the Honors Village. When I heard of this my mind was blown. How can life look so different for individuals that just live 12 minutes away from each other, and when I say different, I mean drastically different. My realizations didn’t stop there, a few weeks later we read “More Than an Address on the Map” by Lydia Otero. The stories that Lydia wrote about were heart-wrenching. Her grandfather and brother were killed due to the city not caring for the individuals who built it. This is an ongoing theme of Tucson showing a blind eye to the less fortunate. It seems that they believe that the only way to make Tucson better is to get rid of the ones who are “holding them back.” 

This philosophy that I started to gradually pick up developed great anger inside of me because it goes against everything I stand for. For example, the TCC, anyone that has grown up in Tucson knows what the TCC is and has probably gone there before. However, I never knew how it got there. La Calle by Lydia Otero opened my eyes to the history of the TCC and the atrocities that occurred during that time. In the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, author Richard Robins defines urban renewal as “ a set of plans and activities to upgrade neighborhoods and suburbs that are in a state of distress or decay.” That is not what Tucson does; instead, they purchase property for dirt cheap value, kick the lower class out of their house, erase their homes, and plant a convention center or a highway and reason it by stating it’ll help the city grow. 

I am very thankful for this class for opening my eyes to these sorts of problems. I was never unaware of these sorts of problems. My parents always instilled in me how lucky I am while I was growing up. However, I didn’t know how lucky I truly was until my Freshman year in college. I overthink a lot, and one of my challenges is that I tend to make problems for myself out of the air because my mind is always racing. This year, seeing and reading these things about my less fortunate make the problems that I make up in my head almost seem obsolete. It’s almost like I am luckily worrying about these problems because I have my necessities met: food, clean water, shelter, and love. While many people struggle to obtain these things daily. 

This all ties back to my progress in writing because this course has shown me the power I have in writing. It has motivated me to create more works of writing in my future that bring awareness and help individuals in need. One of the core reasons why I want to become a doctor is to help others. I have never thought about using writing as a means to accomplish this. However, I am very grateful that this option has been displayed to me through people like Brian Smith and Lydia Otero using writing to bring awareness to these issues that are not only in Tucson but around the country. This is why I chose to focus on these issues in my pallet, as a means to bring awareness to others and hopefully bring change that helps the less fortunate instead of getting rid of them.