The Rose cafe event with Asad L. Asad proved to be especially inspiring for a number of reasons. Hearing Asad talk about immigrants helped defy a number of deep-rooted stereotypes that have become ingrained in the way we think about immigrants. Often times these immigrants have lived more than half their lives in the United States in the fear of deportation. Asad made the conversation a bit lighthearted as he discussed how one of the families he interviewed had a woman tell him she has experienced menopause in the United States. The part of the conversation that especially stood out to me was when Asad discussed how many of these immigrants display an act of resistance and resilience every day simply to carry on living their lives. Furthermore, the trust these people put in him and the way in which they shared their truth with them was something that I found to be really heart touching. I really appreciated and was grateful that Asad shared his background growing up in an immigrant family with us, and to look at how far he has come with his accomplishments was truly inspiring. This is something that really stood out to me becase I also come from an immigrant family, and I can imagine how debilitating living a life in the fear of deportation can be.

Additionally, my definition of research had always been extremely limited to a given number of fields; however, hearing Asad talk about his research in immigration and immigration policy exposed me to a whole new area of research that is directly impacting millions of lives around America. This really has allowed me to broaden the research experiences I seek and has helped me redefine what it means to conduct research.