Reflections from Class

Looking back on this quarter and my experiences working with Casa Latina, the two themes that stuck out to me is digital divide and women leadership. Digital divide is something I have always had an interest in. I even thought of incorporating it into my CHI Competition submission, for the theme this year was "Appropriating Technologies for New Cultures". The project asked us to “showcase your best abilities of "maker cultures" to build new connections and to make less-voiced cultures be better heard.” Although it isn’t entirely related to the Casa Latina work we were doing, a reading that I did for this class highlighted some aspects of the competition.

Author Alysa Hullett of “Why more women in leadership will mean few women in poverty” emphasizes how the spreading of resources among underrepresented communities is important for giving a voice to communities and organizations such as Casa Latina. She states how people have “failed to speak up about wage theft in the past due to fear and a ‘lack of power’.” Some things can be improved though by informing workers of their labor rights in the United States, and letting them know that claims can be filed. This is just one example how resources can be a game player in giving the voice necessary for change.

From here you think about the “digital divide” notion in America, and wonder how this plays a role in being a barrier to that voice that is needed. How prominent is this digital divide within various communities in America, not just Casa Latina? This class has left me wondering about other identities that face a digital divide. What about people with disabilities, or those within the LGBTQ community? What about someone who is a minority and a citizen versus someone who is a minority and a non-resident, or undocumented?

There is also the questions I have about women leadership in America. The same author, Alysa Hullett, brought up some interesting statistics about women leadership and women poverty in America. She also popped some questions in my head, such as who is responsible for this poverty? Who can change this? Are they groups, or are they individuals? Surely there are some solutions (which would take time to implement), but what solutions or action steps would be right ones?

It was great to looking around and seeing the women leadership happening in Casa Latina. It was also great seeing the true meaning of “community” and “family” take place right in front of you. I remember at one workshop, one of the women’s husband ended up joining us and that was awesome! I didn’t expect a husband to want to be a part of the workshop, and for him to be interested and a part of the conversation was great. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a couple of the women on a different day. We were talking about how it would be great if some of the men joined us. It is much more about the women at the workshop, it is also about their allies, their supporters, their family, and their friends. Together, change can happen. Together we can holistically look at what is going on around us and understand what can be done to change current situations. I would be interested to see how support networks vary from community to community, and what happens if there is no personal support network available.

Walking away from this I am left with so many questions. It was a great experience overall, and the stories that were shared allowed me to understand the articles we were reading even more, and see the power that exists in available resources and support networks.

2/18/2015 Federal Way Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time 5-7

Date: 2/18/2015

We were all in one room today, kids and adults. The planned theme was “Using Technology with Kids” as a family workshop, but the women had specific things they wanted to work on.

There were four boys around 6-8 years old present, which was a bit of a pickle as we had only three iPad minis. We tried to encourage them to share, to play games together, such as the word guessing game on the Osmo. The played the word game for a little bit, but then one broke off to play the chef game with the Tiggly, then another wanted to play that game and soon everyone wanted to play that game on their own tablet. It was not as easy to make that a work together game, and so one boy was left out, upset. Although Brad tried for a while, for some reason he was unable to get the other tablets to download games. So I let the other boy use my Surface tablet, though the only game I have is Jetpack Joyride. That started a commotion over everyone now wanting to play that game. It’s never fair with children, is it? I could probably say the same with adults though, we want what they have, not what we have.

Anyway, that didn’t last long as it was then storytime. I sat and listened, amazed with the librarian’s ability to keep the attention of the boys, who were not wanting to stay still. I talked to the storytime librarian for a bit afterwards about children’s programs, the ones she runs and the research she’s done with education. Meanwhile, Brad was playing with the boys in the children’s section, running around on all fours, which was funny to see.

2/11/2015 Federal Way Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 2/11/2015

Today, there were only two children, one older kid and an infant. Another kid, middle-school age, was doing homework in the back of the adult room. We had planned to make Valentine’s cards, and started to make a few after some negotiation with our one attendee, who wanted to read.

Again we had to move into the adult room at 6, time for storytime. There were a few kids in the children’s section of the library who gathered for storytime, which is good because I had felt bad that the librarian had shown up and there were no kids with us who would sit through storytime. The infant was not feeling well and fussy, the other was reading on her own. Since there was not much for Willa and I to do, we made cards in the back of the adult room. 

2/18/15, Federal Way Library, Freddy Mora

Location: Federal Way Public Library
Date: Feb. 18th, 2015
Time: 5: 00 PM-7:00 PM

 

Reflection:

It was nice to be back at the Federal Way Public Library. As always, the staff members were very welcoming. Edna goes out of her way to make everyone feel at home there, and I notice how this branch is a community of its own.  It was great talking to Edna and hearing more about her background. Also nice to hear she is a UW alumni, and from the I-School! She sounds like she identifies well with the work that Casa Latina is doing, and I am sure she is one who would love to keep on partnering with this project.

 Throughout the work shop, I walked around and observed how people were interacting with one another, and with the resources that were available. Edna was working with a mom and daughter in ensuring she was knowledgeable of the free resources available to her, form scholarships to academic tutoring. The mom was very excited to hear all of that, especially. It was nice to see the kids playing on the tablets and interacting with the games. They really enjoyed a counting game that had you count the ingredients you needed (mushrooms, carrots, etc.) and upon getting a math problem right, you completed the recipe. Then they headed over to story time, which they were hesitant at first, for they were having too much fun with the tablets! It was a good chill day where people got to do their thing and ask any questions they had, and have us come in and help them find an answer J

2/11/2015 Federal Way Branch Library Workshop Willa

Federal Way Branch Library

February 11^th, 2015

3:30 PM – 8:00 PM

            I brought my car to UW in order to make sure that we had enough room for all of the participants who needed a ride to KCLS. Ivette drove the U-car because though Klarissa and I both completed the certification, we were too nervous to drive the car. Not only was the car new and something I had no experience driving, I was also nervous about having children in the car and added confusion from the number of people in the car as well. We left a little late, but we were able to make it to the library on time. We only had one girl and one baby in the early literacy program. I chose to stay and help with the kids during the tour of the library because I want to make Valentine’s cards for my family and do some crafts. After the tour was over and the children’s story time started, I moved my crafts project into the adult digital literacy space. I made paper cranes for all of the participants while Ivette gave the lesson. I’m not sure that I fully engaged with the discussion, but I did notice some distinct differences between Ivette and Sarah’s teaching styles. Ivette, I think, was much more discursive and had the women teach each other more than Ivette teaching them. I think that is was much more open in terms of a class. Ivette’s style let it be an open forum where people could discuss and Ivette was just the discussion leader. Sarah’s teaching style seems to be much more structured. Sarah still has the women contribute, but Sarah is definitely moving with a purpose of teaching x or y. There was also a lengthy discussion in the car on the way back to Seattle about a man who had come into the room towards the end of the class. I was not in the room so I do not have much to say about the matter, but it seemed to me by way of the discussion that it was a very disrupting force.

DATE Reflection #2 Tess

We are currently in the Latino literature section of my Multicultural Resources for Youth class, and one discussion topic that was generated made me think of something that could correlate with this class: the reluctance of those from certain backgrounds to use the libraries. More specifically, a question was posed by our instructor about how immigration laws may affect an undocumented person using the library or other information resources/institutions. The discussion churned out one very important open-ended question: how can we, as information professionals, use outreach to these communities as a means to foster interest?

As information professionals in the library system, it is a huge part of our job to serve the demographics of the communities that surround us. In the context of people who are reluctant to use libraries (either due to bad associations with institution-like entities or fear of negative consequences), there are two ways that I feel could help put them at some semblance of ease: 1) make sure they can see themselves in the staff and the collection, and 2) bring the library resources to them (via book mobiles, "in the field" programming, etc.). Ultimately, I feel that establishing a rapport with our patrons is vital to meeting goals of community engagement and providing a comfortable user experience. If we can create a more welcoming space, perhaps we can more easily demystify libraries for those who may have a hard time trusting organizational entities.

2/4/15, Federal Way Library, Freddy Mora

Location: Federal Way Public Library
Date: Feb. 4th, 2015
Time: 5: 00 PM-7:00 PM

Reflection:

It was interesting to check out another Seattle Public Library (or in this case, a Federal One). I have only been to the downtown and University District Locations. Every staff member was welcoming. The place was quite large, and very well maintained and organized.

The presentation that Edna and the interpreter gave was very informative. The women seemed to enjoy it. I even learned some new things myself, like how you can request a book to be transferred to a different branch for you! I liked looking around the rooms and seeing how eager the women were to learn. Sarah gave a great presentation, and allowed for time to have the women interact with tables and follow alongside with her. I was curious to know from what areas the other women (who didn’t drive down with us) were from. What topics were they hoping to have covered? Are they interested in future workshops?

 

Evaluating the Accessibility of our Online Presence

One goal of this project is to help expose more underrepresented groups to the world of information technology. If our online presence is not easily accessible by people with visual impairments, issues with motor functionality, and other attributes that require special methods to get information from the web, then we are failing these overarching goals of accessibility.

A common tool used for internet-accessibility is a screen reader. These programs scan the HTML and CSS of web pages and read their content aloud for the user to hear. One of the most important aspects of web accessibility is building pages that can essentially 'play well' with these accessibility tools.

Several online services have the ability to access a website's accessibility: The website accessibility evaluation tool (or WAVE for short), and AChecker. Freddy and I used these to evaluate the three main websites we use for this project. Their results and commentary are as follows:

LatinaTech.org

Our website has a few errors in terms of accessibility. For users that need screen readers, alt-text for elements is necessary to describe pictures. None of the images on our website have alt-text, however, this is a fairly easy fix and will not take long to remedy.

The other main issue with latinatech.org is the contrast ratio of some text elements on the background. The design language of this website (links are orange + underlined) does not follow the 1:4.5 ratio of background to text color on some elements (mostly external links). To fix this, we would need to pick a different color to make all of the links on our page. This will take a bit longer than fixing the image alt-texts, but  it will be beneficial for users that have poor eyesight.

Casa-Latina.org

Many of the issues that LatinaTech.org had hold true for this website as well. None of the images have alt-text, which makes understanding the content difficult for users that cannot view images (or understand their significance).

The administrators of casa-latina.org can remedy this by modifying the HTML markup that makes up the site. This is not difficult for any web-savvy person to accomplish as long as they have access to the source code (which we do not)html tab
.

LatinaTech.blogspot.com

I am actually impressed with how few accessibility errors our blog has. Freddy’s accessibility reports only pointed out two different kinds of errors: The HTML document language is not specified, and the alt-texts for the little ‘edit’ pencil icons are not written. For any non-administrative user, they will never encounter these icons, so we need not take action here. I can fiddle with the HTML backend of our blog and try to fix the language header soon. Hopefully this will help users with visual impairments and screen-readers.


Tools used:
http://wave.webaim.org/

http://achecker.ca/checker/index.php

1/28/15 , Casa Latina, Adult Literacy Workshop, Freddy Mora

 

Location: Casa Latina, Seattle

Date: 1/28/15

Time: 5:00-7:00 PM

 

Last week at Casa Latina was an interesting one. The woman seemed eager to get started, and it was interesting to hear about their Craigslist experience. I ended up working with one individual who needed help with her email. She stated that she needed to send out an email, but was offline, so she drafted it and waited later to send it out. She pulled it up for me and stated that she needed to paste it into the body of another email as well. She asked if I could help with this and I agreed. I wanted to pop up this draft in another window to make things easier, and when I went to do so, the original draft disappeared. She got upset immediately, and I felt terrible. I could tell how important that email was to her so I spent the remainder of the workshop trying to figure out what had happened. To this very day, I still don’t know. What was interesting is I never got a “pop up” box stating I was to discard the email, and if I wish to proceed with what I was doing… So I was so confused as to what had happened. Moving forward I will be more cautious as to what I am assisting with.

 

In the past I have enjoyed helping out the women with any side questions they had. In one workshop I spent that time setting up her Kindle for her and showing the woman how it works. It was quite the learning experience for me too, for I have never used a Kindle before. I am looking forward to the next session of Casa Latina, since this time we will be at the library!

1/21/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Brad Holland

Location: Casa Latina
Date: 1/21/2015
Time: 5:00 PM

Today the women in the adult digital literacy workshop worked on making personal business cards. There were not many attendees (I believe only 5) so Ivette, Sarah and I were able to offer more personal help when needed. Having one-on-one conversations with some of the women stretched my brain and seriously tested the limits of my knowledge of Spanish. Fortunately, they are all very considerate and understanding of the language barrier, and for that I am immensely grateful.

While I may not be the most competent person in Spanish communication, my tech support skills paid off today when one woman needed her computer to be cleaned up. She had some adware and pesky browser modifications that hindered web searching, which made her technology experience more challenging than it needed to be. Given about 15 minutes, I cleaned everything up so that she could move on and get back to learning the technology literacy skills.

I believe this is a prime example of how everybody has something to offer when volunteering is concerned. I enjoy being able to use my skills for the benefit of others, and in situations like this one I understand that I should not feel unhelpful to the project just because I do not speak Spanish very well. I feel that I am finally getting my feet wet as a member of this project, and I am excited to see where the next few weeks take me.

01/22/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Ivette

Location:     Casa Latina                 

Describe Context – Working in the Adult Digital Literacy workshop today.  4 women attended and the topic was creating business cards. 

           

Date:1/21/2015

Name: Ivette Bayo Urban

List things that happened today:

Left UW campus late which meant the mobile group arrived at Casa Latina at 5:10.
Sarah had computer lab set up and only 3 women in attendance at that point.
Checked in with mujeres and they wanted to explore making business cards.
Brad finished setting up the adult tablets.
Klarissa and Willa were able to unfold the ipad minis and new apps with the youth as well as do origami.
We had another Mujer show up, she had already created her business card but unable to print because she lacked the right paper.  
3 of the 4 women completed their business cards during the time in the class.

In the news:

Our Feb schedule and flyers were delivered to Casa Latina.

List Action Items from workshop:

• Print and deliver business cards to women next class.
• Email Gilda calendar for Feb workshop and topics.  
• Go to MSF to share information about the Latina Tech workshops and Feb.
• Make a tech inventory list inside of the bins, laminate and tape.
• Update website.

  Things to look up, check out and explore:

•  Set up meeting and site visit for Douglass-Truth Branch
  

Describe an important an evocative social interaction that happened today:

 

On campus today as I was preparing for the UW class a colleague stopped and asked how things were going.  I said great, shared some information about the diverse students I am working with and the tentacles of the project, including capstone teams, little free library and so forth. The colleagues says something along the lines of, "sounds like all you are doing is volunteer management."
At the moment she said it, I knodded and went on my way.  But as time passed I realized the perception that this work is not seen as neither teaching nor scholarship first (though definitely elements of that cannot be questioned) but as community work first.  And I started to think about that and the realities embedded in this vision of community work, community partnership and the heavy lifting needed to level the playing field, if you will and restructure the power and privilege to its rightful location.  Now I totally get that on the surface, it may appear like that is ALL I am doing, but just a little focus and dialogue and there is so much there that can go unseen, unnoticed and undervalued.  Similar to the work that marginalized populations do on a regular and constant basis with trying to making ends meet, learning multiple forms of navigating the world, inside, outside, within and around the power structures and learning to not only manage but to thrive, despite the patholigization of the "how" they manage it. 

Describe a success.

We managed another day in dialogue, being mindful and present (even if it was a bit messy and not as organized as I would have liked). 

Describe a failure.  What fell through the cracks?

Given the things on my plate, I realize I am currently better suited to support the project by a secondary facilitator role than as the lead.

Despite having done the workshop on business cards in the past, I felt as though my personal stresses of the past few weeks took a toll and I did not engage the women in the critical dialogue as I would have liked, have imagined and have done in the past.  While we were still able to accomplish our task, I had not anticipated the added stress with the technology - nothing that I tried to accomplish with technology was working and I was totally frustrated.  I wanted to work with my mac, the platform that was familiar and that I knew how to navigate well and this was not the case. 

What surprised me the most?

Despite my technological cluster mess in front of the Mujeres - I think there was some unintended learning that took place.  I think that I performed the role of frustrated mujer using technology better than I ever have and granted it was not just a performance, but a genuine 'nothing is working for me' kind of day.  Several students had to intervene and help with troubleshooting, including issues that I know how to troubleshoot myself. 

Reflections

I recall a Mujeres Sin Fronteras meeting months ago in which the person leading the workshop, a woman of the community,  was performing this same patholigization of Othering, the imaginary women they were describing, as we were discussing ways to learn and grow related to comfort zones and moving beyond them.  It is hard not to perpetuate this sort othering, unintentionally, as a way to talk about personal development.  But until you have walked in someone elses' shoes and carried the weight of all their identities, values, and responsibilities we need to take a step back and see that we always only have part of the story - there is always more, a lifetime, a generation, intergenerational things of more.  

I recently read an article on historical trauma and I could not help but take into account the  unseen and unrecognized violences that women face. 

According to Schuler*, there are four main categories of gendered violence and they occur in 3 main contexts:

Four Major Categories of Gender Violence:

1. overt physical abuse
2. psychological abuse
3. deprivation of resources for physical and psychological well being
4. commodification of women

Three Contexts:

1. Family (through socialization in hierarchical relations) 
2. Community (i.e. social, economic, religious, cultural institutions) 
3. State (policies and laws, military and police)

In the past few weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting about the coping mechanisms that we as women in particular have and make to handle stress and life challenges and prioritize information as it relates to our current situations.  This is something that I can theorize through my lived experiences as a young, unmarried, single mother who wanted nothing more than to provide a better life for her son.  Here we are, 19 years later and I'm still finding ways to cope and provide balance even in the absence of it.  We all have personal coping mechanism though we don't employ them in the same way, at the same time or necessarily for the same reasons since we are in fact individuals.    

I often hear people say in passing, 'I don't know how he/she does it, I couldn't do xyz'.  I too have been guilty of using this phrase, but when push comes to shove, we find ways to move mountains and make things happen that need to happen in order to survive and even thrive for ourselves and for those around us.  

The women at Casa are luchadoras.  They are inspirations of hope, love, courage and sincere desire. Each day I am amazed at the willingness to step outside of their comfort zones and work towards a society that is a little more just than the one we inhabit.  They are caring, insightful and provide a space in where I can be my whole self.  Where the priorities and challenges I have as a mom, are applauded and celebrated, and not seen as a crutch.  

They are similar and different to the women in my own family, to the women whose children I have taught in middle schools, and similar to the newly arrive Cuban immigrants from my days working at IRC Miami.  They have a 'CAN DO, MUST DO' attitude and no matter the challenge, are willing to sacrifice and fight to accomplish what they feel is in the best interest of their children.  

Being part of this invisible community, of this unspoken network of madres luchadoras, is humbling and eye opening.  Being part of this community means that reflections of our own work and sacrifice seem insignificant compared to the love, opportunity and responsibility we have on our shoulders.  

*Schuler, Margaret (1992).  Violence against women: An international perspective.  Ch. 1 in Margaret Schuler (Ed.), Freedom from violence:  Women’s strategies from around the world  (pp. 1-45).  NY:  OEF International, Unifem. [NOTE: pp. 1-18]

1/14/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina

January 14^th, 2014

4:30 PM – 7:15 PM

            Ivette, Brad, Klarissa, and I left for Casa Latina after class. The theme for this week’s workshop was accessing and using emails. This week I worked with the adult digital literacy class. I also worked on setting up the tablets with Brad. I set up the two iPads. When I finished, a man walked in that needed help accessing his email account. I worked one on one with him. The first step was making sure that his computer was connected to the Internet and that it would connect automatically. This way he wouldn’t need to reconnect to the Casa Latina’s network again. Next we worked on figuring out his email password. He had forgotten it. Luckily, when he set up his email, he put in his cell phone number for password recovery. Then we accessed his Skype and Facebook. We made sure that his password is the same for all of these services so that it would be less likely to be forgotten. Then I had him reaccess all of the things we discussed by himself. I hope that by doing this he would be able to access them without help. I was also able to set his Gmail account to Spanish language so that it would make using his email easier.

            It was great to work with him because when we started he did not seem to be able to even open his web browser. He also did not speak much English, but after I showed him Google Translate that would pronounce the words for him, he seemed really thrilled about using that feature in the future.

1/6/2015 Federal Way Library Visit Willa

Time and Location:

Federal Way Library Reflection

January 6^th, 2015

8:10 AM to 12:15 PM

            Ivette and I drove to the Federal Way Library in her tiny, but loud, old VW bug. In between the loud vrooms, we talked about the plan for the meeting with Catherine Lord and Edna. Our approach, as it has been throughout the project, is to start where we are, which means that instead of bringing any kind of definite plans to the table, we wanted to have an open discussion about what the library could offer and what we could offer in return in order to create a successful partnership. Our only steadfast requirements are a workspace for the people, childcare for their children, the requisite technology, and volunteers to help.

            The library has a beautiful space with large windows that allow viewers to see the forestry outside. It is also a large space with many computers and books of course. After we arrived, we looked at the meeting rooms where we would be holding the workshops as well as providing educational activities for the children.

I think that the future workshops at the Federal Way Branch library will be incredibly successful because of the enthusiasm of Catherine and Edna. Furthermore, they had a lot of different avenues for spreading the word about the February programs.

            Afterwards, Ivette and I headed back to Seattle and stopped by a coffee shop to discuss the blog and reflection posting for the class. We also talked about a way organize the posts using tagging.

1/14/15 Brad reflections

Location:  Casa Latina     

               

Date: January 14^th, 2015  

Name: Brad Holland         

List things that happened today:

I rode with Ivette and the other students to casa, arriving at 5pm.

After quick introductions with Sarah and some of the women, Willa and I went to find the technology supplies in the other room.

Willa and I began to set up the tablets for the women to use; Willa was responsible for the iPads while I took on the Android tablets.

For the first 45 Minutes or so, I worked on setting up the eight android tablets for use. This involved changing the time zone, language settings, and applying software updates to the tablets.

Eventually, Sarah needed my help with assisting one woman figure out how to create new folders on her email application on her smartphone.

After this was finished, I resumed working on the tablets until I had to help Freddy figure out how to use a Gmail address on windows phone. This issue was tricky and took most of the remaining workshop time.

In the news:

N/A

List Action Items from workshop:

The woman who was having trouble figure out her Microsoft account needs to bring her old password from home so we can access the account settings.

Things to look up, check out and explore:

Review common technological terms in Spanish so I have a larger vocabulary.

Describe an important an evocative social interaction that happened today:

The first time I assisted one of the women with a technology question was a very heartwarming experience. She seemed genuinely appreciative of my help, and was understanding of the language barrier. It has been almost a year since I last participated in a volunteer project, and the familiar warm, fuzzy feeling of helping others came back all in a rush during this workshop.

Describe a success.

I completed setting up all 8 tablets and successfully updated their software. The next step is to figure out which 3^rd party apps they need to install.

Describe a failure.  What fell through the cracks?

At one point I needed to explain a complex concept to one of the women, but my Spanish was not developed enough to accurately communicate this across. I had to explain the situation to Sarah in English so that she could translate for me.

What surprised me the most?

How enthusiastic these women are in learning new technology literacy.

Reflections

The language barrier is going to continue being a challenge. However, I enjoy having to stretch myself and learn new things as I go along so this obstacle will only be a positive one in the end.