By Samantha Juarez, Staff Reporter
May, 2022
As the school year comes to an end, many of us want to be able to look back at what this year had to offer. Who else would be able to show the creativity within scholars of this year other than the Migrations Journal club?
The Migrations journal was first established in the 2017-2018 school year by 11th grade English Literature teacher Kenneth Snyder. The club’s main goal is to gather creative writing and art work from scholars who have nowhere in school to showcase their work. Although many take English and art classes, it may not allow them to show their own ideas in those classes. However, the Migrations Journal gave students a place and opportunity to show their many creative ideas.
Migrations Journal was able to accomplish this goal in many ways throughout the year. During February of this year, Migrations offered a challenge to KAC artists. Students would be able to submit their work for the theme “Love in the Time of COVID.” Students turned in poems, stories and artwork related to the theme of how COVID has affected love life/relationships over these past years through quarantine and the pandemic. The top three winners were given prizes of 25 merits for third place, 50 merits for second place, and $25 for first place. The top three artworks would also be automatically published in the upcoming virtual journal – a journal the club has been consistently working on for the past school year.
The virtual journal would include many different pieces of art from multiple students from every grade. The goal was to get students to submit as much artwork as possible from literature to actual art pieces. Migrations Journal was able to get a lot of art pieces from the multiple art classes the school offered. However, the staff was short on written pieces. Snyder’s creative writing class would only be able to submit a few literature works. To generate more writing submissions, the club planned a poetry slam, an event that would allow students to showcase their poetry or their short stories to present in front of an audience.
The poetry slam took place April 29th in the KAC dance room. The event was organized by the Migrations Journal and was hosted by members Karime Alarcon and Desirae Martinez. The club was able to gather Ms. Massey, Dr. Lopez-Plaza, and Ms. Minde as the judges of the event.
Students shared their poetry involving many different themes and topics. The poetry varied including topics such as love, mental health, race, etc. An estimated thirty students were able to stand on stage and present their poetry. However, only three would be declared winners and receive prizes.
Third place winner was sophomore student, Aleshka Perez-Reyes. Aleshka’s poem focused on self-reflection as she writes about not knowing who you are. Aleshka secured third place by reciting her poetry with strong emotion and projecting it to the audience in a way that made viewers reflect on whether or not we really know who we truly are.
Second place winner Amanda Martinez based her poetry on a story of personal trauma involving a father who was constantly absent in his daughter’s life. Martinez bravely stood on stage and expressed heartfelt emotions that would allow the audience to sympathize with her poem.
After an hour of performances, the winner of first place was finally announced. Everyone was eager to know whose poetry was deemed the winner of the night. The first place was given to none other than sophomore student, Camryn Austin. Austin based her poem on her hair, something that is a big part of her racial and cultural identity. With a strong poem, she was able to put on an unforgettable performance where she was able to capture the audience’s full attention with her strong-willed voice and use of repetition in which she emphasized her kind of hair.
All three poems, as well as award-winning artwork and many more literary and artistic submissions, will be available in the online journal, which will be published during the last week of school.
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