Trip Reflection

          The trip my classmates and I took Friday was great, it was a nice opener to the year. We got to learn something new, activism. We visited the "Museum of the City of New York" and got a small tour of the activism section. During the tour, we got to look at visual presentations and listen to verbal interpretations. At the end we even got to create our own pins, depicting an idea of activism that we supported.
          Aside from being an exciting trip, it really helped me in learning a bit about activism and to get a first glimpse as to what it really is, since we're going to focus on activism/social issues in class. For example, I learned about some well known topics that produced many activists. Women's suffrage was one of them. The fight to uplift racial segregation was another topic. Surprisingly, creating more bike lanes and ensuring biking safety was also a big one, that's still currently taking place.
          We also learned some of the common tactics used in activism. Portraying things through political cartoons was and is a huge way to convince and persuade people, you don't only want to keep to the point and be serious about it, you also want to add some humor into the topic. The other main tactic is to get out and make your self noticeable in a non-violent way. In a place like New York City, there are tons of people you can persuade and get into supporting your side of an idea by getting noticeable. This is where using some humor really works, of course there will be people noticing you regularly if you dress in a certain way, but if you add some comedy into the mix, you are sure to have more of a crowd noticing you. Hopefully that crowd will also be able to understand the serious side to what your doing and get themselves involved in what you want them to support.
   
 Check this example out! 

          Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat - YouTube

Here's an example of a political cartoon used in activism
       


   
















       
          Attending the exhibit at the "Museum of the City of New York" made me understand what activism is and what you can do to be an activist yourself. I think that the trip is also going to support me when we write and read about activism further into the year. I just want to say thank you Ms. Galang and everyone else for making the trip possible.


Some other photos of activists/activism