Part 1: Bibliographic Entry

Meko, Hurubie. “What to Know about the Migrant Crisis in New York City.” The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2023. 

Part 2: Terminology/Keywords

Migrants

NYC

Humanitarian crisis

Refugees/Refuge

United Nations (UN)

Economy

Shelters

Emergency housing

Work permits

Immigration

US Citizenship

Nonprofit organizations

Deportation

Part 3: Précis

The article demonstrates the migrant crisis in NYC, with over 130,600 migrants arriving since the spring of 2022. Mayor Eric Adams declares a state of emergency, conveying this humanitarian crisis could cost the city up to $12 billion over three years. Majority of the people arriving in NYC were Venezuelans escaping economic decline. However, recently migrants from Africa have also been arriving. The city responds by transforming a former hotel into a migrant intake center and creates new agencies. The system faces issues with over 65,000 migrants staying in the shelters as of October. Mayor Adams changes his approach with more migrants arriving. He discourages migrants from coming and seeks relief from legal obligations. The city’s estimated budget is spending $5 billion on migrant care and Governor Kathy Hochul pledged $1 billion in the next budget. The fate of many immigrants remains uncertain with long processing, legal challenges, expensive housing, and undocumented status. 

Part 4: Reflection

This article is very insightful about what NYC plans to do about the migrant crisis. I understand why Mayor Adams chose to tackle this issue differently and change his message. These shelters are already helping so many people which shows how space is becoming limited and more expensive for the city to fund. A question I have is how effective will the different locations for emergency housing for migrants be? The article mentions how shelters will be in hotels, school gymnasiums, parking lots, etc… so how would this affect New Yorkers? If we make more space for shelters this also makes it inconvenient for New Yorkers to access these things. The article is eye opening because of how impossible dealing with the situation could be. From the expenses to accessibility, the migrant crisis involves many different challenges. 

Part 5: Quotables

“The city transformed a former hotel in midtown into a migrant intake center and created a new agency to help coordinate their arrivals, but the city’s response has, at times, been fragmented and reactive as the shelter system has become more strained.”

“He has asked a judge to relieve the city of some of its legal obligations under its unique ‘right to shelter’ mandate. He used an executive order to suspend some of the requirements under the mandate this spring.”

“The Adams administration has discouraged migrants from coming, distributing fliers at the southern border telling them that there is non guarantee they will receive shelter or services.”

“Many new arrivals in New York have found jobs in the underground economy and joined the existing pool of undocumented workers, where they remain vulnerable to deportation and exploitation.”

To create this piece of uncreative writing I remixed three different generated poems with ChatGPT, all following the same prompt. The name of the poem uses a line from the poem as well.

Prompt: Produce three stanzas of a blank verse poem that include themes of love and betrayal. Emphasize character development throughout the story.

Below are the three poems ChatGPT created:

The poem I created from recombining the three:

Their Love a Bitter Scar

In shadows cast by love’s alluring light,
Two souls entwined, their hearts and dreams unite,
A trust so deep, a bond that seemed so right.

A lover’s vow, once whispered soft and warm,
Now echoes hollow in the empty air,
As secrets hidden well, betrayal bares.

With tearful eyes and whispered words of woe,
They parted ways, their love a bitter scar,
In character revealed, a truth to know,
Love’s sweet embrace, betrayed from near to far.

The masks they wore, now shattered, lies unveiled,
Two hearts, once one, now battered, bruised, and pale.

Conclusion: Using ChatGPT to make my own piece of uncreative writing was an interesting experience. In a way, I found this to be a creative process because I was able to choose which parts of the three different poems I wanted to use. This goes to show how the process of using plagerized work and recombining words together is unique enough to the point where we can still take ownership. How I think of it is that anyone could have used the same poems that I had generated with ChatGPT but you would never get the same two exact poems remixed because there are so many different parts you can take from each of them. In my opinion this makes me realize how uncreative writing has a sense of uniqueness to it due to the many combinations we can create out of borrowed work as well as what we individually interpret as more valuable than another.

Margaret Atwood uses a connective insight in telling her story. She first demonstrates how the first age started with the creation of gods. Whether it was a cruel god/goddess, or one that gave us rain and sunshine, the different gods depict how we believed humanity was run. By Atwood’s use of metaphors, we could understand that gods were powerful and were in control. 

As Atwood shifts to discussing the second age, our next creation is on money. I believe that in each age Atwood talks about, what is valued most at the time is what is deemed most powerful. So similarly how in the first age gods were what controlled humanity, by the second age, wealth in money/currency became our primary focus. Interestingly enough, she connects gods and money and we see how each age follows a similar pattern for the next. 

This is represented by the third age as money became a god. The increasing value that we put on money can either make or break us. Once you get your hands on it, you can’t stop the greed that you have for more. Humanity becomes more money minded and has this everlasting hunger to get their hands on more. 

Highlighting on human’s greed shows how by the fourth age, the world sees nothing new. We create “deserts” or enter this age where there isn’t a new theme that the world focuses on. The world is so caught up on having more money and encouraging industrialization which will inevitably end up damaging the planet. 

No amount of money would be able to change the world. The effects of consumerism will only lead to negative environmental changes and social divides. Atwood is trying to warn us about how there was a time where money was viewed as, “If you have enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.” However, she ends by stating, “Pray for us, who once too, thought we could fly.” This is a creative strategy Atwood uses to emphasize how money can’t solve everything. As we let money fall into the wrong hands, our world is at risk to deteriorate. 

Stacey Pigg’s “Transient Literacies in Action” covers the idea about the “mobile surround.” What she means by this is that people interact in a shared environment with the use of technology. When reading this article, I’ve realized that coffee shops could be a hit or miss when getting work done. Depending on the person and the work ethic of the group you are with, this will either create a really productive space or not. In my experience, Starbucks has been a fairly productive environment to get my work done. With the free Wi-Fi, the outlet plugs, and the iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso I could never say no to, these resources make getting work done there more worth it to me. I work best on my own or even with friend groups in the mornings when it’s usually not too crowded. This is because our surroundings are a lot quieter and easier to concentrate. I would prefer doing studying/group projects at Starbucks since I could also eat unlike in the library. 

However, when working with a group of people, especially with your friends, it’s a lot easier to get off tract. I admit that our Starbucks work days sometimes turn into side conversations and random rants/gossip totally unrelated to what we should be doing. Comparing my productivity at Starbucks to the school library, I would say I get more work done in the library since it is almost always in a quieter space where everyone else is also getting work done. Since Starbucks tends to get busy and is generally louder throughout the day, most of the time social conversations are being made rather than doing the actual work.

It would be great to find a balance with social interactions and being productive and I believe it is possible if everyone in your group is on the same page. Working efficiently together with a plan on getting the task at hand done is what’s most important. This means that the social place you’re in, whether it’s Starbucks or the library, mainly depends on you and your strategy in being collaboratively successful. It’s best to be flexible to your surroundings no matter where the social gathering is held. 

James Paul Gee’s learning principle of Semiotic Domains connects to my own literacy practices. This is because last year, in my AP Calculus class, when it was closer to the exam we would have certain days where we would group ourselves on topics that we’ve mastered already and there were days where we would all be grouped on the topics we didn’t understand. This connects to Gee’s Semiotic Domains Principle because he mentions how learning involves mastering something at a certain level in order to participate with groups affiliated and connected with them. In my experience, the days where we grouped based on topics we’ve mastered, everyone was on the same page and was able to compare answers smoothly. However, on the days where we did topics we struggled with, the group would have to work harder together in order to help each other. The difference proves that the Semiotic Domains Principle is accurate since when we were grouped together based on what we knew, this discourse community was easier to communicate and engage with since these were topics that we excelled in. I think this principle makes working together easier in my opinion because when everyone around me was getting the same answers it was easy to tell that what we were getting must’ve been right. Comparing our answers also proved that we learned something and it helps us identify what AP Calc topics we’ve already mastered within the group. This organization made it better for everyone in the group to participate and I was able to score higher than I thought because of the discourse community I was in.

Another example of a discourse community I was in would be the Patterns club I was part of last year as well. This connects to the principle because the club consisted of poetry, art, and photography, and everyone’s different talents blended together to come up with the school magazine at the end of the year. Since every club member was someone who mastered something either artistically by hand and with photos or creatively through writing, we were able to work together to make a beautiful magazine that showcased different people’s work that fit within the theme that we chose for the year.