My Experience As A Member Of My Painesville And Cornell Communities

2016 was definitely a year for the books and a rollercoaster of an experience as a member of both my Painesville and Cornell communities. Nonetheless, each moment served as an opportunity for growth and, in the end, 2016 was the year where I grew the most as both a person and a student. That being said, 2017 is a year that can present even further growth opportunities in my path. In 2017, I will push myself to be the best David I can be in order to improve on myself, my family, friends and community relationships. By challenging myself to do better this year I hope to both inspire and be inspired by the people I surround myself with so that we can all get one step closer to inspiring and empowering the world beyond Cornell. In particular, the

Last semester in particular, Economics of Wage and Employment, better known as Labor Economics, was one of the classes that had the potential since day one of to help me reach my goal of improving the Painesville community. This course gave me a better understanding of what causes humans to make some of the labor decisions, like that of immigration, they make, helping to clear the air in my eyes for some of the decisions I’ve witnessed being made by the members of my community throughout my time growing up in Painesville. With that foundation, I am now able to take courses that will provide me with examples in a historical context and then strategies for the next step of observing important historical events and then strategies for building successful relationships between those who choose to immigrate into the U.S. and the American people that can provide them working opportunities and a community. I am particularly interested in my Latin American Perspectives course as it is a semester-long discussion surrounding varying issues in Latin America. The class is big enough to attract students from many different backgrounds, while simultaneously being small enough to promote discussion and debate over the course material. One point highlighted in the syllabus is the idea of “Borders” and the

I am eternally grateful for all of the support and guidance this community has provided for me. It truly does take a village to raise a child and I find it hard to believe that there is any village more invested in raising its future generation than Painesville. That means that I must remember this as I become a man that can provide for his village, and I know that I will find myself back in my true village to provide the same amount of unbounded support that helped me get to where I am right now. One of the largest issues facing my community is the immigration policy changes that are currently being framed as a literal wall meant to cause a division in this wonderful nation. As a proud Mexican-American student, I can already see the division this immigration proposal has caused, all without any actual advances on the building of said wall. But as that same student I have also seen the beauty of providing working opportunities to the community members the newest president is working so hard to get rid of. As the son of a cosmetologist and a truck driver who works for the biggest Mexican grocery store in the area, I have witnessed firsthand just what hard work looks like and I have done my best to transfer this work ethic into my time here at Cornell. By striving to come into every class engaged and