Spring Break

I spent spring break in the Northwest joining a Tab trip to learn about immigration.  Our trip started from March 24 to 31 with 14 people in two vans.  First, the place, where we visited and worked, was an apple farm and located in Washington.  There were many apple trees and a huge farm that looked like a desert. It was run by immigrants who came from Mexico and speak Spanish and little English.  A almost of the people spoke only Spanish.  That’s why I couldn’t understand what they said, but I could work together. Our work was to plant a lot of apple trees clearly. After that, we went to a home which we could rent by ourselves and stayed for two days. Then, we met with ONE AMERICAN which is an organization. They work   to give American citizenship to immigrants. In fact, a lot of them don’t have American citizenship. I listened a lot of stories from them, and I didn’t know about it. We worked with them in order to get signatures to give American citizenship to for them. If the organization can get a lot of signatures, they are going to hand  it in to the government. Also, immigrants, who are undocumented, can’t get jobs regulary and work with very low or minimum wage. That’s why we went to Vancouver of America and distributed hand outs to many houses.  The Hand outs were for requesting any kind of work. For example, painting, cleaning, moving, demolition, digging and many other things. Another part of our work was to do hospitality for the homeless. In fact, I have never communicated with homeless people when I was in Japan so I didn’t know what do and how to communicate with them. But there were newspapers on each table. So, I could  talk to them with using it, SUDOKU, crosswords, and Japanese culture. Finally, immigration is a very difficult issue because I have never dealt with it. However, I experienced various things, learned a lot of things and became interested about  immigration  through this Tab trip . To understand everything was difficult, but I think that to join and experience the activity and concerned with people, who are in various circumstances,  is very important. I  spent a good time in my spring break.

SPRING BREAK PODCAST