Moises Castano

Citizenship Journal

Citizenship is connectivity. To learn about citizenship we must learn about others because

its through others that we learn about ourselves. Who is Moises David Castano as a citizen?

Great question, but before I can answer it, I need to ask myself why citizenship is important?

Well, citizenship is important because people matter and even though we all might have our own

definition and interpretation of what it means to be a citizen the only commonality is that we are

all citizens, unless its taken from us. Even then we still can learn about citizenship, perhaps to a

further degree when we look at people who are noncitizens because they have the power to teach

us the notion of citizenship. In the last class we had an awesome class discussion about

citizenship and were left with some insightful and interesting questions to think about. One in

particular was how do you kill citizenship? and its an important question to think about

because it can help develop the idea of citizenship further.

For starters, I am a citizen of all the places I have resided in because I believe that were

who we have come to know, therefore citizenship is connectivity - its communication between

people who inhabit the same places- that results in action - then change - which then results in a

positive outcome for all rather than a few. For example Gandhi is an excellent representation of

citizenship because he interacted, connected, and acted. This lead to Indian independence from

British rule. If we look at an example close to home, I would say the staff within Author in

Action is an example of citizenship because they connect with Winston Salem students to

educate and mentor them in hope they would one-day be role models in their community and

perhaps take action on an issue the can cause a positive change. I believe those who are more

privileged than others have a bigger responsibility as citizens because they have the capacity to
be influencers and should act upon it, rather than ignore it. Citizenship is responsibility,

responsibility to serve, not oneself, but something greater than oneself. To be a good citizen a

person has to contribute of himself/herself in whatever form necessary to benefit the greater

good. To be a citizen one needs to be open minded because we are only as strong as our

readiness to surrender. Since its through our surrenderness that we allow ourselves to become

vulnerable to a point of connectivity to enact action.

Another powerful and eye opening example of citizenship is those who were stripped of

their citizenship during the Holocaust, the Jewish community because it shows a deeper aspect

of citizenship not really mentioned - what does it mean to be a noncitizen? - The Holocaust is

one of the most devastating periods in history and a lesson humanity learned to ensure it never

repeats itself. Citizenship is part of our deepest self like our identity and for these holocaust

survivors for that part to be taken from them demonstrates another form of citizenship and

connectivity that can be somewhat learned about through Viktor Frankls novel Man Search for

Meaning.

Overall, I am a citizen because I am a person who cares - I care about people - therefore

my citizenship is based on positive action that can have a positive impact on the lives of others.

My duties and responsibilities as a citizen are based on others.