Elisa Hyder Globalization Q4 BM: Globalization in Philadelphia Photo Essay

In order to go out and collect my images, I made a notepad on my iPhone with just some general ideas and then set out on foot. One afternoon, I essentially walked home. Using my ideas to guide what neighborhoods and streets to walk through, I just took pictures as I saw fit. If I saw something that I could possibly use, I took a picture of it. After I got home, I then walked more through just my neighborhood of Northern Liberties for pictures. I must have gathered at least 90 photos, which I left sifted through and divided into categories. I then used those pictures and showed them to classmates and my teacher to double check their globalization-ness. The top pictures won the chance to be in the actual project. There were two pictures that made the cut that I would call my favorites: the picture of St. Augustine's and the picture of a mural in my neighborhood. Both of these I felt fell more on the original side compared to my other pictures of foreign cars, banks, and restaurants. I attended St. Augustine's church since I was small and even was an alter server for 4 years, yet I never knew the affect the church had on the Filipino community or the affect that community had on the church. I have also been involved in the Mural Arts program since I was young because of my father's job as an artist. I have personally met many of the international artists in the program and watched several murals comes to life. I now see these murals every day in both Northern Liberties and other parts of the city. 

Luckily, I was able to come up with enough pictures for my project, but it was a challenge to find pictures that actually showed globalization in Philadelphia. There are countless things I could have taken a picture of and then explained how they related to globalization, but the trick of this project was clearly showing globalization in the pictures themselves. That was indeed hard for topics other than like trade and economy. Philadelphia, just like many big cities in America, have been affected largely by international imports and exports, but finding obvious sources of globalization other than that is hard. New York City may have been less than a challenge since it is has more obvious communities occupied by only certain groups of people than Philadelphia, but I can see a person doing this project in other large cities having similar problems as me. 

I definitely learned more about the functions of Philadelphia and what make this city was it is. I never knew all that stuff about the church I always considered to be "my church." I also just never paid attention to the smaller things like the Chinese stores down the street or the Spanish translations on advertisements and such. Globalization is everywhere and affects everyone. This is what this project has taught me.