Undergraduate Immigration Project Prize Winners

Research Prize: Justin Garlepp

“Critique of OMCA’s Arrivals Exhibit: The Distinct Social History of Vietnamese Refugees”

Written for History 128AC, California, the West, and the World: From Gold and
Guano to Google and the New Gilded Age, Professor Mark Brilliant, Graduate
Student Instructor Zoe Silverman

In his research paper, Garlepp analyzed the way that an exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California on immigration failed to distinguish adequately between the orderly experience of many post-1965 immigrants with the traumatic, involuntary migrations of refugees like his family, who fled the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Garlepp is a junior majoring in bioengineering.

The chaotic flight from Vietnam, the US federal government’s heavy involvement in the migration process, and the refugees’ ambivalence toward migration all set their experience apart from the ordered, deliberate view of migration advanced by the exhibit. The immigration experience of Vietnamese refugees differs enough from the interpretation emphasized in OMCA’s Arrivals that it warrants clear delineation within the exhibit.

Justin Garlepp, “Critique of OMCA’s Arrivals Exhibit: The Distinct Social History of Vietnamese Refugees”

Personal Essay Prize: Helina Li

“A World Without Borders”

Helina’s thoughtful, openhearted essay described the experiences of immigrating from Guangzhou at age six and her vivid childhood memories of learning English and of trying to maintain her Cantonese language and culture. Li is a first-year majoring in computer science and English.

But how was I any different from a tourist? How could I lay claim to those mountains and monuments, those rivers and basins engraved in the little red book, whose names I never learned, whose people I might never know?

Helina Li, “A World Without Borders”

Creative Project Prize: Miya Rosenthal

“Oral History of Yuriko Kamiya: A Year in Infamy”

Created for College Writing R4B: Images of History, Dr. Patricia Steenland

Rosenthal’s narrative video combined oral histories with photographs from the National Archives and other documentary materials to tell the story of her grandmother’s incarceration as a child during World War II. Like more than 120,000 other Japanese Americans, her grandmother was incarcerated due to race-based government policies. Rosenthal is a freshman planning to major in media studies.

Current Affairs Prize: Mariana Garcia

“Title 42: Stories of Migrants in Search of the American Dream”

Created for CalTV

Garcia, a student journalist who carries her Canon EOS M50 camera wherever she goes, was on a trip to El Paso with her family when they encountered crowds of migrants who had just crossed the border. Garcia interviewed migrants from Venezuela about the hopes that fueled their arduous journey and produced a short video news story for CalTV. Garcia, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, is a sophomore majoring in political science.