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William Hess

Mrs. Martin

Critical Discourse

07 September 2017

Critical Discourse Personal Essay

I went to Mexico in the summer for a mission trip as a young 17-year old aspiring to

become an optometrist. I knew my purpose there: to help bring and spread the gospel to an

impoverished village. But, another objective of our mission tapped into my passion: giving free

eye exams and providing free glasses for those who needed additional vision care. Now, in the

village we were in, birth defects were higher than what we consider normal, and other genetic

problems persisted, such as poor vision. At least 70 elderly people from the village received

glasses as a result of our exams. Although we only had a reading sheet and three cheap pairs of

glasses, we made a big difference through assisting those who were in need.

After coming back to the States, I realized that we are a very ignorant nation who always

wants more for ourselves, despite having everything we could ever want at our disposal, and not

caring about those inferior to us. In laymans terms, we are never content with what we have,

even in a global perspective. The people of that village always had a smile on their face, and they

were so happy with a soccer ball that was tearing at the seams and clothes that were essentially

rags. They would even play in the dirt roads without shoes. Yes, you read that right. Without

shoes. The unimaginable reality for these children in Chenkeken(the village) is that they were

content with what we as Americans would see as abysmal.

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Something else I saw was that there was a very high birth defect rate within the

population of the village. At least 10% of the people there had some sort of defect, may it be

physical, speech-related, or visual. To help explain this, we were able to see a pattern in the

name list for the exams. At least 70-80% of the list shared one of their last names, and from that

percentage of the population, an additional 50-60% shared both names. According to this, we

saw a lot of inbreeding within the village, which means the defective traits would be passed

through generations unchanged due to the lack of genetic variance.

Going away from that village, I couldnt stop thinking about those people in that village

and what they needed in terms of medical assistance. Especially with their level of poverty, I

could assume they didnt have much money to get quality care. So, I really want to help provide

affordable eyecare for impoverished communities. One of my biggest audiences would have to

be Hispanics who are impoverished, as thats who I built connections with on my trip. In the

Hispanic community, 21.4% of the population in 2015 was impoverished

(https://talkpoverty.org/basics/), meaning they fell below $24, 250 for a family of four.

With the above numbers, one can easily see that an impoverished family could not afford

most things seen as pocket-change expenses for us. But, thats one of the problems I want to

change with my goal: the mindset of us Americans. Currently, we have one of two visions:

tunnel or closed. Tunnel, in this sense, means that we dont observe what is around us, ignoring

those around us who are in need. Closed means that we only see ourselves in this world. We

dont look up to see if anyone distant from us is in need of assistance. Sometimes, I think that us

as the UNITED States are in disunity due to the fact that we dont do enough, or anything, to

help global problems.

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My solution: open not only eyes, but souls to the disaster that is occurring outside our

nations borders. Basically, we need to expand our vision. We need to make it peripheral and

open to see every person who may be in need of help. In terms of the optometric side, hold

glasses drives for impoverished people, host complimentary eye exams for the poor so they can

see. The trip I went on encompassed most, if not all, of these principles. My eyes were opened to

an entirely new scope of poor that I had never seen before. In addition, we gave those exams for

a purpose: not because it was in the schedule or anything, but because there were people in that

village who seriously needed visual assistance.

In addition to the above statements, there also needs to an increased awareness of these

types of problems. Not all of this is about doing the drives or the exams. Sometimes, what it

needed is just a seminar on the matter and a donation. Anything that can help the people of

impoverished communities, even a small donation, is extremely uplifting for a population in such

need. I used to be one of these small-minded people myself, focused on only my country. But,

with my journey into a community that was more impoverished than I could have ever imagined,

I saw that God had a hidden purpose set for me that I didnt know when I decided to become an

optometrist. He revealed to me that I was called to have a serving heart and serve the least of the

world.

In conclusion, I had a lot of things buzzing in my mind about my future before embarking

on this mission trip. Upon my return, I had learned more about myself and about my country

than I had in any institution. I learned that we as the United States of America need to unite the

globe together by delivering the care needed for all to see a brighter future.
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Works Cited

Basic Statistics. Talk Poverty, Center for American Progress, 2017, talkpoverty.org/basics/.