The World in LA; Los Angeles in the World

In the United States, the resolution of governmental legislation is too often minimized to the impact it will have on the American people in order to signal the bill or policy’s proponents’ sole investment in their constituents. Not only does this tendency preclude the realization of America’s potential as a leader on the world stage, it also ignores this country’s responsibility to our fellow global citizens as citizens of the globe ourselves. The nationalist notion of putting America first, moreover, is not limited to politics but pervades many aspects of our society, reflected in conversation, media, and personal beliefs. Through my immersion in communities with global ties, both at home and abroad, I have realized the devastatingly reductive nature of this idea and have begun to more critically appraise what my role is, not only as an American but as a human. From outreach work in Nicaragua to community engagement here in Los Angeles, from the use of Spanish in Ecuador to its fami...

I am a junior at a Pasadena independent school. In ninth grade, I travelled to Jinotega, Nicaragua with peers and faculty through Outreach360, which I wrote about here . Since then, I have become invested in community engagement here in Los Angeles and deliberately worked to improve my Spanish-speaking ability, achieving what I like to think of as a nearly conversational—though certainly not fluent—degree of understanding. Last year, I took a class offered by the Global Online Academy, with which my school has an established relationship, called Comparative Politics. This semester, I am enrolled in Globalization and Human Rights, an elective that delves into the effect of our increasingly interconnected world on the liberty of the global citizen as well as the moral and political responsibilities of sovereign nations in dealing with violations of human rights. I have worked with Reading Partners, a national literacy nonprofit, for the last three years. Though not directly linked to glo...