Gateways Student Project 2022
Our team has conducted research throughout the 2021-2022 academic year on the significance of seven iconic spots around the city where important historical occurrences took place. These locations hold crucial racial history, and their stories are unknown to many. Our project’s purpose is to enlighten the general public with this research and recognize the racial injustice practices that took place in the city in order to create positive change. Our common goal is to have the public understand the past to change the future through the educational resources our team has created. Our team created a digital story map, a tech tool that uses a set of graphics and other media and their narratives to tell a digital story, to share these occurrences.
Our digital story map contains text and audio for each of the seven locations. Viewers can read or listen to our content while they visit each physical site when they visit Santa Cruz. Additionally, the map pinpoints each location and creates a visual of the city’s historical sites, making it easier to locate them.
Access our digital story map below:
Our Team
Melissa Rodriguez is a fourth-year transfer student at UC Santa Cruz, majoring in Sociology with a concentration in GISES. She is passionate about issues such as sexual assault, mass incarceration, and the #MeToo movement. The most important people in her life are her family, who motivated her to pursue higher education and encouraged her to learn more about her roots. She has experience in being a treasurer for a Latinos Club at her high school and would volunteer at her local elementary school for her after-school program. Melissa took the digital storytelling lab and acted as the cat herder for our team. She is also experienced in using Canva and has some knowledge in using Adobe Premiere Pro and creating digital story maps using JS Knight Lab.
Eileen Amador is a fourth-year transfer Legal Studies student with a minor in Global Information and Social Enterprise Studies (GISES) at UCSC. She has an Associate’s Degree in Administration of Justice from Diablo Valley College and has taken politics and business courses at Stanford University. Some of her future plans include going to law school and becoming an immigration lawyer. Eileen is passionate about creating change in social justice issues such as immigration, women’s rights, sexual assault, along with many more. Some skills she is bringing to the table include communication, problem-solving, and openness to teamwork. Eileen participated in the digital design lab and acted as the partner correspondence on our project. She has experience in using multiple design platforms, such as CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator.
Preethi Bathula is a third-year student at UC Santa Cruz, majoring in Global Economics. Her future plans are to study abroad during her time at UCSC and later pursue a Master’s degree in statistics, or another field that would allow her to work in STEM. She has a great interest in issues such as the foster care system, the immigration system, and gentrification in the United States. She is also interested in the caste system in India and how that presents today. The most important people in her life are her community in Fremont, which gives her a great place to grow up. Preethi has experience in leadership roles from being in the scouting program and working as a publicist, vice president, and president. She also has experience in Canva and Python programming. Preethi took the digital storytelling lab and took the role of note taker and timekeeper of the team.
Katerina Bajaj is a fourth-year transfer student at UCSC and is majoring in Sociology with a concentration in GISES. She has a great interest in politics and is passionate about working towards solutions and advocating for social issues, for example, migrant rights and housing insecurity. She has attended two national student conferences on the topic of Hispanic Politics and participated in discussions about topics ranging from the motivation behind the Latino vote in the US to the importance of education for success in life for kids as young as four years old. The most important people in her life who help motivate her include her family because they have always been open on topics like politics and influenced her to get involved in human rights issues. Katerina participated in the digital storytelling lab and acted as our facilitator for our project, and some of the skills she is bringing to the project include verbal and written communication, experience with JS Knightlab digital story mapping, ARCGIS story mapping, and database research.