By: Donny Acevedo, Monroe Community College
Hello! My name is Donovan Acevedo, and I am a second-year student at Monroe Community College studying Cinema Screen Studies. On my free time I like to spend time with my girlfriend and go on walks and find cools stores within the Rochester area. I am really passionate about filmmaking and the process of making films, I want to be a film Gaffer which is the person who helps set up lights within each shot and makes sure the shots look good. Some of my personal ambitions are to travel the world with my girlfriend and see a whole bunch of new places. Some of my professional ambitions are to further myself in the career of filmmaking, I am currently interning with a team of creatives in Rochester and work on commercials and local advertising for businesses in Rochester.
My research project is about the spirits and sustenance of rice within Indonesia. Rice is such a staple food worldwide and the culture that’s most known for eating and growing rice is Asian culture. There are over 40,000 different strands of cultivated rice around the world and it is all primarily cultivated in Asia. Many cultures within Southeast Asia have spiritual beliefs and stories surrounding rice. My question on the field is going to be, how does rice impact the everyday life of everyday people? To conduct this research on the field I am going to be asking local people and workers as I sit down and go out to eat how important rice is to the meal they are having and making. Along with that I will also be visiting rice paddies around Indonesia to see how the local grain is cultivated and talk with the people who grow it to ask about the process. The reason I wanted to do my research project on rice is because within my everyday life I eat rice about once a week, also my family is also Puerto Rican, so my grandfather makes a fantastic Spanish rice. Growing up seeing how important rice is to other cultures impacted me to
want to do this research. I came about this topic when searching through the library at Monroe Community College for research for the trip, once I stumbled upon the book, I thought it was the perfect thing for me.
On the field in Indonesia I will be going to two different islands and different cities throughout. I will be visiting rice paddies to interview some rice farmers along with chefs and many interesting people. Conducting research in a foreign country will be so fulfilling for me, this is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience another culture and to see a vast difference to everyday life. I am the most excited to experience these different cultures and to eat all of the food they have to offer. I expect to learn so many fascinating things about their food culture and rice as a food. I can’t wait to be able to see a rice paddie in person and to see the process of it being grown. I am very much nervous about the plane ride itself and the actual travel between islands. I have only flied to Missouri, so the distance and time distance is so much more drastic I’m nervous only about that. I plan to make the most of my time a learning experience, to make sure that I am never at a point where I’m not experiencing something different. Talking to locals and interviewing people around the country will be so fun and interesting I can’t wait!
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