Cover Letter
As I was writing this essay, I kept on thinking about the people around me and what they thought about the world. Individuals who do not always live in the best of conditions and sometimes struggle. I often ask myself if they are able to think outside of themselves? Are they able even for a second to think about how the world is treated? Because of this, I want any reader of this essay to know that those who live in these conditions are not only able to think outside of themselves, but know that these individuals actually do care about what happens in the world, in any sense. Continuing, I learned while writing this essay that I still have more to learn on the topic of sustainability. My interviewee had some powerful insights on the topic, which made me feel not as prepared as I should have been for the interview. Even with my feeling of inferiority during the interview, I am still happy that I was happy that I was able to learn something from it. Resuming with my reflection, I wished that I could improve upon my ability to be more flowing with my interview. I feel like the process of writing my transcript and my essay would be a lot easier if I was able to smoothly transition from question to question without stuttering and messing up. Furthermore, I also feel like I can improve at correctly transitioning my interview into essay form. I found it difficult to insert the actual interview in my essay without the paragraph mostly being a quote from my transcript. For the interview itself, the process was something very different for me. I had never conducted an official interview in which I had to readily prepare questions for it. It was a little nerve wracking even if the interviewee was my own sister. Thankfully, she was very understanding of my mistakes and gave me a lot of leeway for my error. That was one of my main reasons for interviewing her because I knew she would support me.The angle of analysis I picked for this assignment was that of a young person of color that wants to improve the community around her. A course learning objective that I feel I achieved was strengthening my sources with practices. I feel I achieved this objective because throughout my essay I was able to summarize and integrate my source throughout my work to make it easier for the reader. Thus, this essay is a collection of her thoughts of the topic of sustainability and my inputs.
Samuel Thomas
Writing For The Social Sciences
10/20/2023
Sustainability and Its Effects on People and The World
As a young man of color living in the Bronx, the topic of sustainability is not one of major popularity. If I were to ask a random individual in the street what he thinks about climate change and what he can do to help, I am pretty sure that person would ignore me and just walk away. In the Bronx, most individuals are not given the opportunity to think about things outside of their own survival, but little do they know, their survival depends on whether or not they take arms against forces like climate change or other types of issues. As a young individual of color who is going to be the next generation that will lead the world, I would like for myself and my fellow counterparts to fully understand the plight that plagues the planet and find ways to counter it.
With that in mind, I have decided to interview my sister Dorothy Thomas (I have been given permission to use her real name). Dorothy was born in the Bronx and raised by two immigrant parents from Honduras. As of right now she is a twenty-four year old college graduate who is now working as a caseworker in a shelter. As I walked into this interview, I have decided to keep in mind her age, her cultural background, and her professional background working in gardens because they tend to allow individuals to have unique perspectives on certain topics.
The interview took place inside her room. Entering her room, I am immediately hit with the smell of old books and vinyls. Throughout her room, she has a large bookshelf in the entrance that is composed of around fifty books and comics. On the bottom of the bookshelf are a bunch of toys and music that she has collected. Most of the interview was conducted on her queen sized bed that was being held up by a large wooden bed frame. During the start of the interview, I asked her some basic questions so she could get a feel for what the interview is going to be like. One of those questions being, “ Is there anything specific that you want to do in sustainability? Or something that you’re very interested in around sustainability”? She states, “Community Gardens. Community Gardens are very sustainable. They help maintain the community and make sure they are fed and also make sure that the environment around us is also very clean and nice and stuff.” In the Bronx, those who are given the privilege to think outside of themselves and contribute to change to their communities are individuals who are involved in community gardens. The gardens help produce food for the community and also allows it to be a safe space for individuals. These gardens tend to be safe spaces because they are always open to the public and do not require you to garden if you do not want to. If you need a place to get away from everything, use a community garden. However most individuals who are in those spaces tend to be people who are older, not individuals her own age. Knowing this, I asked her another question. “ You being 24 years old, do you think people in your age group should participate in things surrounding sustainability in any shape or form?” She states, “ Yeah they should. Look at everything going on. You have all types of plastics in the water and all sorts of stuff. Mind you there is not as much as little people can do because it is not necessarily us causing all these problems, but there are always different forms of advocacy”(Thomas,Personal Communication).Picking up on this statement, it seems that she has the mindset of many people her age, that the world is the way that it is because of the people of the previous generation, and it is up to us to change it. She emphasizes this by stating, “the one percenters are the ones screwing everything up, but I guess we could do what we always do and clean things up.”
Adding on to her statements, I wholeheartedly agree that people of a younger age group should involve themselves in sustainability in any shape or form. As a part of a younger generation we are on the way towards inheriting the planet, and unfortunately the planet was not well taken care of by those of the older generation. Pollution, climate change, microplastics and more are all things that are the result of the older generations’ ignorance of sustainability and their refusal to change anything. So as a collective, we should ban together and find ways in which not only to help the planet but also ourselves. One way we can do this is by involving ourselves in something as simple as community gardens. Most gardens are right there in your backdoor and you do not even know it. These gardens provide safe spaces for people and great ways in order to receive fresh produce with spending as much as a dime.
In conclusion, sustainability is not something that not only affects the world, but us as well. As young people of color there is nothing short of astonishment when we are able to not only think about ourselves but the community that surrounds us. The community that surrounds them may have multitudes of issues such lack of nutritious foods (also known as food deserts) and pollution, but that means little when we all come together as a collective and do something to change that.
Reference Page
Thomas, Dorothy. Personal Communication. Oct 9, 2023.
Z, B. (2020, August 31). Kelly Street Garden during COVID. ioby. https://ioby.org/project/kelly-street-garden-during-covid
