January Goal Post: Writing from a MUN

Writing from a Model UN conference! Luckily, I have an hour of downtime between events, research, and meals, so I’m free to write what the future of my own project is going to be; my mind is cluttered with the ICJ case though. My Indian delegation accused Pakistan of making up the whole Jadhav case to suit its political needs (too many convenient coincidences), and I’ll need to defend that today….wish me luck! We’ll have a whole panel of judges interrogating us for hours. But back to Our Home, Our Town, Our Country. It seems like I say in every Goal Post that the month flew by, and the same is true for this one. I always seem to think that the next month is going to be a little less crazy, but it never is.

So this month’s SDA is an interview. As of right now, I have two possibilities: the director of the Regional Immigration Center James Milstein or a couple from Mexico that is struggling with the immigration process. Both will offer very different perspectives to my project; one will appeal to those who are factually minded, and the other will appeal to those who think more with their hearts. I have already written a journal entry praising Milstein’s work; for any facts about that, see my November Goal Post. However, due to scheduling and other recent projects, I am leaning more towards the couple right now. The easier one to communicate with would be the couple since they are close family friends, and my last SDA was very broad and procedural, so it would be nice to actually have the chance to use a more in-depth case study again. The couple has two children, one of which is a senior in high school and the other that is in 6th grade, so they would be able to offer not only the working perspective, but also a more personal familial perspective as well. I admit that if I choose this option, I will be going in with a bias (since I absolutely adore them); I’ll keep this in mind as I conduct the interview though. I’ll reach out to the couple as soon as I get back from the MUN conference.

Additionally, by interviewing the couple, it will match nicely with the book that my wonderful advisors found at the library for me: “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions”. This book is essentially the dream that I had at the beginning of the year; it’s a large collection of stories from undocumented children in America and speaks to how the reality of the immigration process is much, much different than the idealized welcomes we think we portray.

Questions for myself:

What is my main idea? Has it shifted?

How will I engage more with the community as my time slowly begins to free up?

How can I improve my argument skills? Is the point of arguing more about defending or allowing others to come to their own opinion?