Invisibility RPT
By: Alan Ma
What is invisibility?
The meaning of invisible is when you are unable to be seen, or unseen by the eye. When someone says someone or something is invisible, that means that it is not there. Just because the meaning is to be unable to be seen, invisibility can mean many things. In the sources below, they will explain what it means to be invisible, and how we can raise awareness about invisible populations. Being invisible can mean being literally invisible, an illegal immigrant, and a homeless man or child.
Things not seen - Source 1
In the book Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements, There is a girl named Sheila. Sheila is an invisible person just like Bobby. But she wants to stay invisible because she started to disappear a long time ago. (Clements 238). If she wasn't invisible, she would have disappeared with booze or drugs. (Clements 238). Sheila is invisible because before Bobby found her, not many people even knew who she was. Another example of invisibility in the book Things Not Seen is Bobby. Bobby was "invisible" before he was actually invisible because he tells Alicia the he was the person that she wouldn't have looked at twice. (Clements 160). This is an example of invisibility because Bobby wasn't popular like Alicia and she would not have looked at him twice if he wasn't invisible. Bobby Phillips is also invisible because he says that his life’s decisions had already been decided for him. Bobby can’t make decisions about his own life. He is alone and he can’t do anything about it. (Clements 221). This connects to invisibility because Bobby can’t do anything about his life and his parents are controlling it. The last example of invisibility in the book, Things Not Seen is Alicia. Alicia is a blind girl in this book. She isn't invisible like Bobby but she is basically the same. Everyone avoids her on the streets and when she got blind, she lost all of her friends except one person named Nancy. This connects to invisibility because even though she isn't invisible, she is avoided by everyone and she is technically the same as invisible. This shows that people with disorders like blindness make people invisible.
The Circuit - Source 2
Invisibility can mean many things. For instance, illegal immigrants like Panchito in the book The Circuit By Francisco Jimenez. His family has to move from farm to farm just to survive. Panchito always lays in bed thinking about how much he hates moving. (Jimenez 67). His family first arrives at a farm to pick. He is the youngest so he can go to school for a few days instead of working. When he applies for school, and gets enrolled into the 6th grade, he is called on to read, but he doesn't read because he doesn't know English. When the teacher offered to help him with the words, he was very happy to be there and he also wanted to learn music. But, when he went home, he saw that everything he owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes. (Jimenez 71). His family was ready to move to the next farm. Every couple of months, he has to move to another place to work. This family is invisible because they have to keep moving every time the picking season is over. Everywhere he moves, he is invisible because he doesn't know anyone in the places he moves, therefore, making him invisible. A thing that we can do to make this invisible population known is rally a lot of illegally migrated people in one area and make them citizens depending on the actions they have done. People who have done bad things stay illegal but good people earn their citizenship. This will make them known and it will raise awareness about other invisible populations like homeless people and children.
Gallary Walk - Source 3
One Multimedia source of invisibility I did was a social experiment video on homeless children by: Fousey Tube. In the video, there is a kid who acts being homeless. He goes out to the streets and sits there for 5 hours, hoping for people to treat him like a son of America. The connection to invisibility with this video is very strong because everyone in the streets avoided him. Everyone knew he was there, they looked at him for a couple of seconds, and then looked and walked away like nothing was there, like the boy was thin air. Maybe they walked away because seeing a homeless boy was painful. But Not a single person cared enough to even think about giving him anything. This is a big connection to invisibility because invisible means to be unable to be seen with the eye. When everyone was walking past the child, like he was nothing, he was basically invisible to everyone because no one could really see him. Our world needs to do many things to raise awareness for this homeless population. One thing we can do is Collect food, water, and cloths. Then, give them out to homeless children on the streets because most of the time, it is not their fault that they are homeless.
Conclusion - What we can do to raise awareness for invisible populations
One invisible population in this world is people with disorders like blindness. In the book, Things Not Seen, Alicia is blind. She doesn't have much friends and she is mostly avoided by everyone. One thing that we can do to raise awareness is to have a fundraiser. If a school has a fundraiser, and enough people contribute, many people will know about blind people and not ignore them when walking on the streets. Instead of walking past them, people should start to help them get to where they are going. Another invisible population is homeless children. Homeless children is the one thing that should not be invisible because they are just children. One thing that we can do to make them known is set up a drive. If a school sets up a homeless drive, homeless people can get access to important items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, socks, jackets, boots, blankets and pillows. By doing so, people will know that we can do great things to help the homeless and they might even join them. In the end, our world needs to do all of these things so people know what invisible populations are and make it so that they are not invisible anymore.
Works Cited
Clements, Andrew. Things Not Seen. New York: Philomel, 2002. Print.
Jiménez, Francisco. The Circuit. New York: Scholastic, 1997. Print.