• Nothing really surprised me about the information other than the fact that I kept finding things about Mexico.
  
  
• The obvious part of the data was that all of the immigrants came over to the US because of better living conditions.
  
  
• Looking at the trend and the data It cannot predict how many immigrants we will have in the next two years however the population will continue to grow.
  
  
• We knew that it had to be a graph that showed change over time and multiple sets of data so the line graph didn't work out because it was all over the place so we went with a double bar graph. 
  
  
• Nothing was challenging for me working with this group.
  
  
• I wouldn't do anything differently the project turned out fine. 

I have a secret that’s easy to figure out, no it’s not money or anything you can touch but maybe this will help you figure it out. Every day the sunlight creeps in through my window shining almost directly on me. I manage to stay asleep that is until my cat comes in my room meowing and scratching on anything he can. I wake up and say

“Lester what you doin’ to bed, you crazy cat.”

He looks and says “MEOW.”

I giggled because it was the kind of a response you would expect from a cat. The look in his face says “hungry” at least until I start to put on my belt then he tries to play with the loose end. I get out of bed and see my sister and she says “Hi Jovan”

“Hey Nadya” I say

I see my mom and say,

“Good morning mom”

I get to school and say “Sup” to all my friends, or I might use a playful English accent and say “top o’ the mornin to ya,” but that’s just for fun. Did you guess what the secret was? If you said that I talk to my cat you are wrong, but I bet you do what I do too. I code switch I have multiple ways of speaking. A lot of people do. I code switch because my default speech pattern is a little unacceptable for professional conversations and a little too proper for a friendly talks without being judged.

I go through my day with many ways of speaking. They change depending on whom I’m talking to. I find it is useful if you know how to talk to certain people. I talk like your average African American with less slang in my speech, don’t know why maybe because I was raised that way. I say things like, “Sup,” and, “Ain’t” in my regular speech but you wont hear me talk like that at a job interview. Instead of, “Sup boss” you would hear, “Good morning Mr./Ms. (whatever their name is)” I know how to change my speech and it helps me fit into a new place. Through elementary and middle school I had to talk proper because I was in a “learning environment that encourages proper speech and literacy,” I already had those from preschool so those were no challenges for me. Once high school came into play it was a different environment. People weren’t in uniforms, and you hear a mix of languages and forms of speech all around you. I spoke proper for a while but somehow my speech changed and now when I give a greeting to a friend you hear, “Sup” instead of “Hi.”

Since then my language has been the same, but I can change it with a simple thought. My code switching is a major benefit for me. With my code switching I can do a lot of things that I like to do. You’d be amazed at what proper speech can do for you but don’t code switch so much that you lose your original speech. To quote Mike Rose’s I Just Wanna Be Average “Rely on your own good sense.” What this means to me is that code switching doesn’t require knowing another language, or keep using the same form of speech for a long time it just means know when to switch how you speak you can always switch back after. I like code switching its fun. And honestly I don’t even need to think when I do it. I know how to talk to certain people so I instinctively change the way I speak to show my respect to other people. I’ve done this for so long that in a sense I am a multilingual person because I talk in different ways to different people.

Code switching doesn’t take long to master. All you need to do is have common sense. Understanding when to speak properly is the most important part of code switching. You also don’t need to change your voice when you do. Mastering this skill is really easy and only takes about 2-3 days, so you can get used to it. It works because when we learn to talk we learn proper English, so over time as our language changes we will know the proper language and we can willingly revert back to it whenever we want. As stated before you don’t have to keep talking in another way; you can change right back and it will be fine. I do it all the time. After some time of reaffixing yourself with proper speech code switching is a breeze. That is my secret to getting things I want, along with the work that I do. But if you knew me you would have already known that. And with that I say “See Ya”

            It wasn’t always like this. I used to live in a nice house with nice people. They fed me and played with me. I had my own little bed and everything I could have ever wanted. Then one day the people were packing boxes I wondered what was going on. I climbed into a box and saw some of my toys.  I stared playing with them in the box. The little boy watched and giggled at the sight of me playing in the box. Then the woman picked me up out of the box and placed me in a cage. I wondered what was going on. Two men were gathering the boxes and putting them out into the truck. He seemed to fit a lot of those boxes in that little thing I thought to myself. It had words on it and a picture with words I didn’t know. I try to figure it out. Sa-n-ta Ana. I was confused. Oh well I’ll get it eventually. Suddenly the cage lifted up. I saw the boy’s fingers and I playfully tapped them. I was put into the family car in the back. It was like a mix of a pick-up and a SUV. I was put in the trunk.

 After what felt like 5 minutes we started moving. The purr of the engine lulled me to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up. I had a feeling we were almost there for a majority of the trip I didn’t feel a lot movement of the truck stopping. And there was a lot of stopping now. Suddenly, there were bumps, big ones. My cage bounced around from them. Then one big bump rolled under the truck and sent me flying. The impact opened the cage and I broke out at full speed to catch the truck. It was too fast I couldn’t catch up. I stopped and looked around. Nothing was familiar, or at least not enough. I started walking down the road to a park. I saw all these strange yet vaguely familiar things. Signs that shined in the night and flashed like the orange lights on the front of cars. I got to the park and climbed a tree to the lowest and safest branch, and rested.

Daybreak came and I climbed down the tree. There were people here. I wondered if they knew the people I came with. I wanted to focus on that but I was so hungry. I walked up to a lady feeding birds. She took one look at me and shooed me away. I walked away. I saw a man with an apron that looked like the one the man that I knew wore when he cooked, surely he would have some food. I walked up and saw a little bird and it looked sad. It saw me and watched. I walked up to the man with the apron. He saw me and how hungry I was. He wasn’t like that lady I saw before. Instead of shooing me off, he gave me some food. I don’t know what it was but it tasted really good. He pulled it out of his sandwich. It was brown and thin. I ate but I was still hungry, but the man refused to give me more food. I ran out of the place and crawled under a tree and slept for the rest of the day.

It’s night when I wake up. I walk past the place with the man and the bird but I only saw the man no bird. I looked around for the bird, no luck. I wondered where it went. I wandered the streets until I came to some tracks. I started to cross when I heard something coming towards me with a rumble that shook the track. I looked and saw three lights heading toward me. I knew I had to move. I couldn’t I was frozen in fear by the sight of this monstrous metal thing barreling toward me. Suddenly the little bird from the place chirped loudly and snapped me out of it and I escaped the tracks just in time. I thanked the bird and we walked on together. We got to a place called a motel after what felt like forever, and we rested. I started to get hungry again. I looked around for something to eat, nothing, I then saw the bird. My mouth started to water. I shook my head to get the thought out. I slept under a car in the parking lot. The next day my friend and I walked into a nice neighborhood and lucky for the both of us the first house we went to ended the journey. My family was here and the little bird was given a new home with me. It’s good to be home.

It was 10 to 12 and my team had 10 points. I ran and dodged players until I got to the 3-point zone. With 5 seconds left in the game, I had a clear shot and there were players rushing at me I took the chance and shot the ball through the air. It hit the rim and circled and circled… and missed.

The players on the court were surprised.

“Yo how did you miss that you’re the tallest one here” My friend Mike said

“I told you I’m more of a baseball person I don’t play basketball a lot”

“Your 6 feet tall”

“I know I’m just not that good at basketball I told you already”

“Oh yeah you did, Oh well I’ll see you tomorrow”

“See you”

      It’s been happening a lot lately. Most of the time I just tell people no I don’t play basketball and they just drop the subject. I love being tall most of the time and the cons aren’t just that question I have to duck to get down the steps at dad’s house and I can practically hit my head on anything. But some pros are I can reach most stuff and I can get on any ride at an amusement park.

      I can’t blame them, actually I don’t know who to blame I thought I got my height from my dad but I’m taller than him and it can’t be from my mom because I’ve been taller than her since 7^th grade, so I don’t know.  Now wherever I go people take one look at me and instantly think that I play basketball. I guess that when people see one person who looks a certain way they set expectations for that person without knowing anything about them.

      I’m kind of good at basketball just not as good as other people would expect. I like baseball and soccer. Sure I could probably dunk the ball if I wanted to but I don’t play enough to know how especially if I cant reach the rim.  I’m used to it now but it’s still annoying when so many people who know I don’t play keep thinking I play. That’s just wrong in some cases. It’s a stereotype all tall people must be good a basketball that can mess up a friendship before it starts. For example If a coach saw me and drafted me onto his basketball team and I make friends before a game once I start playing and people see that I’m bad at this then I would start to lose friends. To sum this up I don’t like the stereotype that all tall people are good at basketball because it can ruin things like friendships before they start.