Whether it has been for a long-term project like my senior thesis or for a final paper,
conducting research always has its highs and lows. I remember distinctly the first time I
had to write a final paper for a history class I took (which was “Social History of US
Public Health” taught by Professor James Colgrove, a class I highly recommend), I
wanted to examine the Hong Kong Flu and the discourse surrounding it in America, but ultimately had to pivot to another topic and the discourse surrounding it in America, but ultimately had to pivot to another topic due to the lack of archival sources and secondary research surrounding it. That experience has stuck with me mainly because it’s a reminder that research, which is conducted as a solitary activity, is firmly ensconced within a wider community.
My organizational method for non-digitized archival documents that I had the
opportunity to examine at the University of Southern California this summer, Photo Credit: Donna Qi
parents’ parents. When forms ask me to input my parents’ education level, I leave my father blank (don’t ask, I am just as clueless), but proudly jot down “GED” for my mother. My mother often talks about the day she took her GED. She had just immigrated to the United States from Mexico and knew very little English. She laughs and tells me her English teacher was Barney the Purple Dinosaur, a children’s cartoon she’d play for my sister and me, but from which she seems to have learned more than I ever did. She had been nervous about the written essay portion of the exam but recalls that in the lobby of the testing center, a fellow lady advised her to simply write as much as she could. “They don’t care what you write, so long as you write a lot,” remarks this wise lady who, though she had only recently arrived in the United States, already understands the American education system. So my mother goes into the exam and she writes, and writes, and writes, and she passes! 
