"To work hard within a context in which I am happy and can do some good - the U.S. and, more specifically, in academia - is as much as I or any person can do to make the world a better place."
During the summer of 2015, I traveled to Bangalore, India to participate in the Honors/CHID study abroad program "Social Justice and Artistic Expression." After spending July in Bangalore, I took a 40-hour train ride up the subcontinent to Delhi for a week of sightseeing. Traveling in India was incredibly logistically, intellectually, and emotionally challenging, but that's a big part of why my time there was so meaningful. I gained confidence that I could find my way (or find someone who could help find my way for me) pretty much anywhere, yet I also realized that I want to work in and on the United States. The activists I met in Bangalore urged me to go home and promote social justice there and helped me to understand this work as an act of global solidarity. I had bought my $1,500 plane ticket feeling guilty that I could afford to travel across the world to a country in which many people couldn't afford to eat enough food or access basic health care, but by the time I flew back I had realized that this kind of guilt wasn't constructive. To work hard within a context in which I am happy and can do some good - the U.S. and, more specifically, in academia - is as much as I or any person can do to make the world a better place. This realization that I couldn't and didn't have to fix all the world's problems is by no means a path to complacency; on the contrary, learning from the activists and artists I met in Bangalore as well as others I met, like the driver who took care of me and my friends like a father in Delhi as he worked hard to provide for his own family, continues to provide motivation and direction to my work.
Throughout my travels, I kept up a blog to keep my family and friends updated and to help myself process the overwhelming sights, smells, tastes, and ideas I experienced every day of the trip.
Throughout my travels, I kept up a blog to keep my family and friends updated and to help myself process the overwhelming sights, smells, tastes, and ideas I experienced every day of the trip.