My friend Oso pointed me in the direction of a very intriguing documentary project being developed in the Bronx which proposes to explore how using social mediums such as blogs affects the lives of new immigrants:

What happens when immigrants in the Bronx start blogging? Can social media help people communicate better with friends and family back home? Can it help communities sustain themselves? The Bronx Blog Project is a multimedia documentary about community, immigration, homesickness, and technology. Focusing on the experiences of a handful of ESL students and utilizing video and the Internet, the project documents the effects of new communication technologies on people looking for better, cheaper ways to communicate to friends and family both in the United States and their home countries, and wishing to develop and maintain new communities in the U.S.

I think the questions that this project asks are very interesting. It is true that immigrants sometimes are exposed to technology for the first time when they are away from their home countries, and the way they interact with certain technologies largely depends on how much they need to communicate, be it via telephone, email — I’ve even seen videoconferencing booths in immigrant enclaves in Europe — with the people they love. Having one foot still on the ground back home can be what holds people together when faced with the challenges of a new life in a new country.

Checking out the site, it seems that the project is in its nascent stages, but you can check out video of some of the students participating in the project. I found the video footage, even in this raw stage, interesting because it’s inspiring to see adults driven to learn a new language and in the process talk about the countries they come from.

Via / Bronx Blog Project