The way digital media shape my understanding of place and space is by the way it is presented to me. For example, the pictures of the Golden Gat Bridge by Richar Misrach. Each of them are different. Each of them give me a different perspectives and ideas of the very same bridge. They are taken from the same point of view. However, it is not the same feeling. Each time of the day has different colors with different experiencse inscribe in them.
Thanks to the readings I was able to open my mind to the differences and similarities of places and spaces. For what I understood, places are where people root themselves. Places are spaces, but spaces seemed to not be places. As I was reading Homplace by Scott Rusell Sanders, a lot of ideas came to my mind. It was humbling because I didn’t know this about me, but after reading I realized that I had the idea that moving around is much better than staying in a single place. I guess that idea is not as right as I thought. I need to learn how to appreciate places and spaces better. In the past 10 years, I have moved 9 times. That is without counting the many times on my mission or few apartments here in college. I guess I have become numbed to moving. Place and space for me are so insignificant sometimes. I feel that we all the new technology the world keeps getting smaller and smaller. Only this summer I hope to visit Chicago, Alabama, California, New York and Hawaii. If finances allow it of course. I do not feel that those places are far at all. They are still in the States, anything oversees what I define as far.
This chapter really hit home for me. Chinatown and Imagining Homelands describe many things that I have felt before. I am an immigrant. I know what is like to be in the line of two cultures. Mrs. Mukherjee and I have a lot of common. Immigration can make or destroy places. I think that a space is made into a place when people decide to make it a place. I have decided to make the United States a place for me. I was very young when I took that decision. It is a place I appreciate and respect. I have learned what America is because I looked at it from outside, then I was able to root into it.
Marianna,
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your thoughts and feelings this week. Although I have not moved around as much as you, I too have always felt that to move from place to place would be ideal. I've always wanted to travel, but after reading this week, I've come to realize that moving and traveling are two different things. Even though I want to travel, I also want a real home to always come back to. My mother lives in Australia and is always trying to persuade me to move there. I've contemplated it many times, but when it comes down to it, I feel I wouldn't want to make Melbourne my home but rather a place I could visit (money saving of course).
Also, I grew up in Arkansas and feel my roots somehow lie there even though I've lived in Utah the last ten years. I wouldn't want to move back to Arkansas and I don't feel that Utah is my home, so I'm still searching for a place to call my own I guess. But like you, the United States will always be my home no matter where I decide to live.