Internship Experiences

“A Day in the life of a Sociology Student” will showcase Sociology majors who are doing great things, like interning, studying abroad and more!

Hopefully the stories of these students will let you know what kind of opportunities are available, and what your fellow students are accomplishing.

Sociology student Rosalie Miller is currently in San Diego, working on an internship with Border Angels, a human rights organization.

The following is a letter in which she describes her internship and what she has been doing with the organization.

This past week has given me a great initial orientation to Border Angels, and I’m feeling really good about being out here for the semester.
Tomorrow begins the 7th annual ‘Marcha Migrante’, a 10 day long caravan in support of immigrant, worker, and human rights. The theme of this years marcha is ‘walking with Cesar’, in that we will be basing much of the march around the 10 principles of the united farm workers of America, and visiting many places and people of significance in relation to Cesar Chavez and the UFW. This past week has mostly been dedicated to preparing for the march- getting contact information, preparing directions, etc. you wouldn’t think it would take so long to put together an informational packet, but it has been a process indeed. Over the weekend Pam (the outreach coordinator, who I live with), Enrique, and I, went to migrant mass, a makeshift sunday service located behind a garden nursery, and held for migrants who live in the canyons nearby. After the service a local church organization provides a full meal, as well as distributes some food, and we brought along some clothes to give out. I really appreciated being able to attend the service, though its hard to meet such kind people and imagine the hardships that they have been through and continue to endure. Immediately after the service ended, a woman ran up to me to ask if we could talk with a man who’s son had just been deported, but noted that his main language was mixtec, an indigenous language, so we would probably need a translator.
This is just a tiny glimpse of the sorts of situations that migrants and agencies who work with them such as border angels have to contend with. In the past week i have seen Enrique field many calls from people needing legal assistance, as well as take calls from multiple people who had a friend or family member who crossed the desert only to disappear for months thereafter. In situations like those, the best that can be done is figure out what region and general route they took, and try to contact local organizations or border patrol to send out a search party.
After migrant mass on Sunday we stopped by Home Depot to give some clothes and bread to the day laborers there, and hand out some cards with legal and safety advise on them. It was a good thing we stopped by, because one of the men there did indeed need some legal information. Everyone I have met so far has been really nice and grateful, and continue to stay in good spirits, even though life is by no means easy for them.
Tomorrow we start the Marcha in San Diego with an opening ceremony and then head to Holtville to visit the mass cemetery, then continue on to Yuma (AZ) to visit the Chavez family and do a press conference, and then head to LA to do a discussion with community organizations and see the new play by Josefina Lopez (the author of ‘Real Women Have Curves’) who will be putting us up in her theater for the night! I will be heading back to San Diego after day 3 to hold down the fort while Enrique and Pam are gone, and hopefully get some headway on some other projects. I’m sure I’ll have lots to say about the Marcha next time we chat (rather, I write).
Hope everything is well
Rose

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