Like our first essay, my topic for this essay will be related to homelessness. I felt inspired by the sources I read when composing my first essay and wanted to do even more research. I especially want to find sources that include the voices of homeless people, with words directly from them. I follow some youtube accounts that interview homeless people. I also follow homeless people on TikTok who spread awareness about the conditions they live in and their experiences being homeless in general. I know of a couple Instagram accounts that document work done to aid the homeless. Specifically, I want to know how I can further make a difference so I can do my part as well as inform others on how they can do their part. I think it is our duty as humans to be there for one another and improve the quality of life for people who are struggling. I also wanted to familiarize myself with facts about homelessness. My first idea for a research question was: How can one help solve the issue of homelessness? However, I feel my first idea cannot be easily debated against. It could also be too broad. This led me to think of the research question: What NYC laws further criminalize or improve the lives of the homeless population? This question may be too specific, however it can be disapproved and requires research to be done. I also thought of the question: How does being homeless affect students in NYC public schools? I feel like I can look at how the NYC public school makes it easier for the lives of homeless youth and also how it can make it harder. I am not sure how many sources are out there for this topic though. As of right now, I am leaning towards the questions of how can one help solve the issue of homelessness and how does homelessness affect the lives of students. I hope to get some help in figuring out which is better to use.

EDIT: While reading through other student’s topic reflections, I started to find interest in the topic of  the prison system. How does the prison system work? Does the prison system help or harm our society? Who does the prison system help or harm? Should prisons be more rehabilitating rather than punitive? I will probably stick with the topics I thought of above, however I hope I will get the chance to research this topic in a future essay for this class.

For this essay, I have chosen to go a little bit far to learn more about social issues currently happening and affecting us, and I, for some reason, did not know a lot or anything about it. Here are two social topics I would like to write for my second essay.

1. To what extent does national security interfere with the personal liberties of the citizens?

Social media has always been a widespread alternative for young adults and teenagers to get in touch with relatives and people worldwide. However, recently there has been one that has taken over the world. TikTok has reached to top in the list of popularities, with more than 2 billion downloads. In the last few months, the world’s largest markets have begun to ban the app for stealing and surreptitiously transmits unauthorized data to third parties. India banned the use of TikTok in June of 2020, while the US still face the hard choice to banned or not, the truth is that people still allegate that these allegations are not 100% truth. Therefore it should not be banned just because of incorrect and weak allegations.

Are girls married before the age of 18 more likely to suffer domestic violence?
Coming from a third world country full of stigmas makes me think a lot about social issues. A social issue that has been placed as one of the most controversial ones in all the tabloids is the child marriage of girls under 16 years old. This issue has the target of multiples comments worldwide, most of them blaming the parents or blaming the lack of education these poor girls received in their lives. In contrast, others refuse to see the other side of the coin, they preferred to ignore the poverty, misery, and suffering these poor girls lived. Countries with the highest percentage of child marriage are usually the ones with the highest percentage of domestic violence, being at the same time considered as the “third world countries” because of their outdated ideas and stigmas.

For my second essay I have decided to write about another social issue that has interested me, that is, the deforestation of national reserves in the Amazon. More specifically, how indigenous tribes have been affected by illegal logging, mining, and farming. Some of the research questions that have come to mind are: Why are people illegally logging, mining, and farming in national reserves in the Amazon? How are indigenous tribes being affected by this? What is the government doing to help indigenous tribes protect their land? These questions arose after I watched a documentary called “Guardians of the Amazon”. This documentary follows a group of indigenous people, from Brazil, in their hunt to stop illegal loggers from logging on their lands. It also points out the lack of response from the Brazilian government in aiding them in their fight. Unfortunately, many more tribes have also had to wage war against illegal loggers, miners and farmers who have, day by day, taken more of their lands. This topic is very important because it talks about how the deforestation of the Amazon threatens the lives of indigenous tribes. Some of these indigenous tribes still remain uncontacted from the world, making them more vulnerable and more likely to disappear if these illegal activities were to continue on in the future. The consequences will be devastating to these local indigenous communities. It saddens me to think that these indigenous people have been forced to take it upon themselves to fight to protect their lands from disappearing. This rainforest has been the home to thousands of generations of indigenous tribes. They shouldn’t have to fight to preserve their homes or their way of life. I plan to answer these questions by researching more on what is causing the deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest, the effects it’s had on indigenous communities, and in what ways has the government not/assisted in protecting these national reserves. I’m still not sure if I want to cover different parts of the Amazon, since it expands over a few countries, or just focus in one location specifically. This battle to protect the rainforest and the indigenous tribes inhabiting them, takes place in several locations.  Lastly, for my opposing point of view, I might research for interviews with loggers, miners, and farmers on their reasons for exploiting the rainforest’s resources.