Where are you from?

          Often I am asked where am I from I immediately think Los Angeles, California born and raised. Then they ask if I am Mexican, since everyone that looks Latino/Hispanic is immediately put in that category, but I am not I have Salvadoran blood in me. Both of my parents were born in El Salvador. Of course if you tell someone who was born in El Salvador that you are Salvadoran they will laugh at you and call you a fake "Salvie." Growing up I didn't think it was such a big deal to just identify myself as an American since I was born in the States. As I got older and discovered that there was a side of me that had this beautiful culture, customs and traditions, I had to make sure that I became familiar with this part of me. In college I took Central American Studies courses where I learned the struggle that was the civil war in the 80's in El Salvador the reason my mother was so desperate to get out of the country she had known her whole life. Next I learned about migration and where people who come to the U.S. find a home. I find it a it funny because where I live is like "Little Central America" there are a lot of Guatemalans, Salvadoreans, a few Hondurans and of course Mexicans. Around our neighborhood you'll find many restaurants that serve plates that are common in their countries' as well as shops. There is so much culture. The United States is definitely a melting pot. Just today I a person who was born here with Salvadoran blood is familiar with the Irish Holiday that is St. Patrick's Day.

          Here in the United States the land that was once taken care of by Native Americans, which was taken over by the British so that later we could gain independence. Do you still follow? Now this country is home to people from all over the world, the land where "American Dreams" come true.

Mean Girls

          My first mean girl encounter happened at the end of 8th grade. I had seen it happen to other girls, but once I experienced it myself I felt the pain first hand. I had been put in a middle school according to my zip code that meant I was not going to go with my elementary friends. I fought and tried to change my mom's mind but nothing worked. I made new friends, that was easy. Little did I know that because they didn't know me for too long it would be easy for them to turn their backs on me just as easy. It was a big group of girls at least 12 that I can think of. For some reason they were picking on one I don't even remember why but I do remember that I told that girl I would still be her friend as long as she didn't tell the others. I saw this girl cry and be left out and how much it hurt her. I never thought I would experience the same. I had become really close to this girl named Lilian I used to call her my best friend. I used to trust her and tell her everything. I guess I happen to mention one of the other girls in one of our conversations and she went to tell the rest making it seem like I was talking bad about them. They quickly excluded me I don't remember how long it lasted but when it came time to graduate I had no friends. One of them signed a paper kite I had made and she still had the nerve to say "good luck with everything I just hope next time you watch what you say" Thinking about it now it makes me so mad.
          I'm just glad that in high school things were much different and that little click disappeared. It's been years and one by one I've been contacted y them through Facebook. I don't hold much against them now since it's been years and I would feel silly if I held on to that grudge. The only harm was a few months of being excluded, threatened to get beat up if I said anything else and maybe other little details but overall there was no physical harm done. I wanted to talk about this because bullying in school never gets old, thankfully schools have adopted a no bullying measure for a couple of years now.
          On Thursday, March 10th President Barack Obama held a day long conference at the White House with it's purpose to “dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up." said President Obama. ABC News (blog.abcnews.com) reports that the President said it's not something we have to accept and under-mind. President and First Lady Obama both took the stand sharing with everyone their personal experiences about how difficult it can be to connect with their children. The First Lady said that as parents they must make a greater effort be more engaged with their children. “As parents, this issue really hits home for us,’ Mrs. Obama said, “As parents, it breaks our hearts to think that any child feels afraid every day in the classroom, or on the playground, or even online.  It breaks our hearts to think about any parent losing a child to bullying, or just wondering whether their kids will be safe when they leave for school in the morning.” The president read statistics showing that a third of middle school and high school students have been bullied during the school year. The president also noted that because of technology bullying spreads faster.
          Sadly more often we are seeing bullying making headlines in the news of students overwhelmed by bullying and been driven to take their own lives by committing suicide. In 2009, 11 year old Carl Walker Hoover of Springfield Massachusetts took his life for being called gay. He was a football player, a Boy Scout and actively participated in his church. His mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, had plead to the school several times. The day she was going to go and ask the school again to do something about it, she found her son dead in their own home.
          How many more deaths is it going to take for schools' to get more involved and do everything they can to stop bullying? I am thankful I never had to witness any of my peers die because of bullying but certainly do not want to hear about it in the news. I know little by little not only are we seeing coverage of such tragedies but TV shows like Glee are doing their part to try and reach as many viewers and educated them on the matter. The Movie Mean Girls in 2004 also did a good job of showing what girls are capable of plotting and they even made a sequel, part 2 this year. Artist Justin Biever recently posted a video of a young girl on twitter and Facebook and added "Think before you say something hurtful to someone else. It may look like they're ok but they're not. Words are more powerful than you think." Here's the link of the video.
http://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh4pddr7E6739XRbyW

Sex: What's your orientation?

          Before you start getting all excited, I'm talking about being straight, gay/lesbian or both. It's funny because now it seems it's no longer a taboo that everyone has to hide from. Now it's all about being loud and proud. As I try to think back at when this all started happening, being born in the 80's I am certain that I never saw two people of the same sex being affectionate towards one another. Now it seems people are no longer afraid to go public with their orientations. The different ideologies, values, norms, and beliefs vary by person, culture and community. It can be very confusing to anyone looking into a group from the outside it seems that most of us have learned to respect each other. But even then there are those who will never be comfortable with the idea of two people from the same sex to be all over each other. There are too many factors to consider in all of this, one is family, genetic components, hormones which brings us to the question are people born gay? Next we have to consider the rights of a person, whether they choose to or not, marriage is still an issue that is hotly debated. Lastly how artists, actors and other public figures are able to openly speak about these topics.

          Born gay. That simple sentence is not so simple at all take user Dan on Yahoo.com asking on answers.yahoo.com "Do you think being gay is a choice?" he goes on to ask another question "When did you choose to be straight? Lemme guess, is your answer "Oh I just happened to come a long that way," or "I was born that way." Well, SAME WITH GAY PEOPLE." He seems irritated and tired of it and the answers he receives from other users are just as interesting. Take user Emilio for example "Don't know if it is a choice or not. Every other living thing has a way to naturally reproduce, gay people (by definition) don't and there for would actually become extinct as a species. Sounds unnatural to me, but to each their own... I agree and am right on par with this. It IS a choice. No question about it. They just say that it isn't so they have a reason to do what they do." You could ask anyone the same question and it's guaranteed no answer would be the same. They would answer based on their beliefs so is there a way to get to the bottom of this? escapistmagazine.com asked it's users a similar question: "Are gay people really born gay, or is it because of Oversexual mindset of Western and European cult?" User Chibz says, "What I speculate, is that straight people are either taught this behavior during their early child development years from a parent that wanted a child of the opposite sex or the person was simply oversexual and began to experiment. I don't believe people are simply born straight." Both answers are valid since they are each's opinion but let's look at what scientists have to say.
          The Seattle Times talk in their article "Born gay? How biology may drive orientation" about different research done on sheep at the Oregon State University, of course sheep are not people but studies like this help put a piece of the big puzzle that is sexual orientation. The research includes rams that only paid attention to other rams and they believe that their "sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brain before birth." The article also mentions "The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment - including the right to marry?
          At the beginning of the new millennium in 2000 same sex marriage came to light, here in the United States, when Vermont became the first state to legalize same sex marriage with all rights included. Since then it's been a battle for every state to be able to come to an agreement whether it should be legalized or not. The debate I think is more of whether or not we are willing to see American families have same sex marriage as a norm in our communities. We are mostly all familiar with the accepting liberal side and the censoring right wing groups but is it more than just politics? Religious groups which have a mixture of both parties and others believe that God made a man and a woman to be his companion. As well as other scriptures written int he bible forbidding such unions that are not man and woman. However when you think about this issue not including religious beliefs you are left with the simple fact that every person deserves the right to be treated as just that a human. It seems as if when we say no to the legalization we deny them of the benefits and discriminate them. It is fair to look at the cons and when people openly discussed the concerns of the respect for the institution of marriage been weakened as well as traditional family values. It seems even if we have become more open and accepting being gay is still not something that is encouraged. However when it comes to artists that perception changes.
          Boy George, Anderson Cooper, Ellen Degeneres, Elton John, Jane Lynch, Rosie O'Donnell, Neil Patrick Harris, and recently added Ricky Martin are just a few of the long lists of celebrities who we have watched on the screen. Whether it's news anchor, talk show host, prime time TV actor or singer these are the stars we have grown to watch and love. Even artist Katy Perry playfully sang "I kissed a girl and I liked it" in 2008. That same year Ellen Degeneres married her female partner Portia de Rossi when California agreed it was legal but only to change their minds again. Not only are celebrities open with their preferences but artist like Lady Gaga use their fame to advocate for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-gender community. It's not hard to see that maybe the reason people are becoming more open to it is because of the influence of famous people in the media. I just hope that it changes for the better and we can agree to disagree and still be able to treat everyone equally.

Women: Is our struggle over?

          Thinking about women in history as we celebrate International's Women's Day today makes me think about how far women have become to obtain equal rights; Even though in some aspects we have achieved acknowledgement I can't help but think in other areas we still have a long way to go. Earlier in my education I learned about women through holidays like Martin Luther King's Day. Women like Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, brave individuals who played key roles in the fight for civil right,s in a community who was wrongfully slaved. Even though slavery ended women still had a lot more to accomplish and so they began to work at it. Susan B. Anthony started it all by simply requesting equal pay for women teachers. Miss Anthony gives our generation something to think about as the website www.womenhistory.com explains: "Susan B. Anthony, never married, was more often the organizer and the one who traveled, spoke widely, and bore the brunt of antagonistic public opinion." Even though I don't have children I know women are capable of raising their children and having a career. It seems that now young ladies are becoming mothers at ages as young as 13 and forget about school and more importantly their future. There is definitely a small percentage of women who continue their education or pursue their career after bearing a child. Stanford university news (news.stanford.edu) say: "The problem is less pregnancy than poverty, say scholars... They dispute conventional American wisdom that teen-age motherhood is emotionally and financially ruinous. It's true that most teen-age mothers and their children are poor, they say, but delaying childbearing, by itself, does not necessarily help poor women escape poverty." From my experience few of the girls who dropped out of middle school or high school did take the option of a school that met their needs or went on to college. I only know one who is currently working on her masters which makes me wonder what about all the other ones?
          Stanford University Law Professor Deborah Rhode said in the same article, "there are cultural norms and pressures in this society that make it hard for teens to just say no, particularly if they lack opportunities to say yes to something else... There is also a common perception in this country that teen- age pregnancy is somehow a problem of minority groups but white teen-agers account for 68 percent of all adolescent births in the United States and over half the births to unmarried mothers." It is true that from what I have seen in my peers I have certain perception of an issue that is much bigger than my community but as a person looking out to these scenarios it is a bit over whelming with a feeling of what more could've been done to prevent these outcomes.
          What we see, hear and the emotions that it stirs within us is often due to television, radio and more popular now the internet. No doubt about it if you are near a TV, radio or have a wireless connection your being fed all these ideas, information, opinions and visuals that can have you hooked for hours. If you're like me you can easily get sucked into something and just like that you're hooked. Gladly I'm not ten years old and I do not say or do everything I see and hear however it's clear due to the observational theory that we are bound to copy what we see and what we find desirable. If something has got our attention we are likely to watch it over and over and so much that we keep that information deeply inbedded. It almost makes you worry that if someone believes in something so much they start performing those same actions and when they get results, even if they may be destructive, they continue. It is true I do believe we have control of our actions but I've seen what people under a certain mindset are capable of doing. Which is why media is such a big influence and a big part of our society. funderstanding.com explains: "A person’s behavior can affect his feelings about himself and his attitudes and beliefs about others. Likewise, much of what a person knows comes from environmental resources such as television, parents, and books. Environment also affects behavior: what a person observes can powerfully influence what he does. But a person’s behavior also contributes to his environment."
          The shows we have on TV go anywhere from MTV's Jersey Shore to Spanish Novelas on popular networks like univision and Telemundo. In Jersey shore we have a group of Italian Americans, among other cultures like Spaniard or Puerto Rican, many witness as they party the nigth away at Club Karma and the boys looking for women they can take back to the house and "smush." Jersey Shore being the highest rated telecast in the history of MTV shows what most people are watching. Novelas on the other hand are also very popular I fortunately grew up in a house where those were not on every night. Commercials promoting these shows were on every news break and here you see women as sexy bomb shells who are dramatic. Rosie G. writes in her article: Las Novelas - Are they racist? (beinglatino.wordpress.com) "As the years have passed these novelas have become a lot more racy in their content." That I know to be a fact because I've seen it with my own eyes before they were much cuter with kids, schools and nuns; Now it's scenes with naked people in tubs discussing their love affair, the change is evident.
          In the music industry we have a little bit of every flavor in all the genres but where women are degraded in hip hop and rap. This genre is known for it's explicit and sometimes even violent lyrics. Women are often referred to as bitches, whores and sluts. Sexual acts are spoken about loosely and the music is often promoted as it's funny so laugh about it kind of way. Unfortuantely not only is it not a luaghin matter their lifestyles are often times dangerous, many famour rappers have died in this line of work. The problem however lies deeper than the lifestyles of the rappers, the fans range from kids to teens who are often looking for role models and they are the ones that proudly sing and try to act out the music.
          Times are sure different from when women were trying to fight for equal rights and now that we have the right to education, voting, career opportunities and so much more do we really have it all?

Growing up in a public school

          Education has been something I have been doing ever since L.A.U.S.D. accepted me in it's institution, elementary was so much fun. I can't remember anything before 3rd grade for some reason, but what I do remember is being changed tracks because I could not stand my crazy teacher she was out of control so there I went from B Track to C Track. She had a really bad temper and would scream and throw chairs around I was seriously afraid of her which is why my mother decided to do something about it. My new teachers were sweet and simply wonderful Mrs. Davidson, from there made new friends had a culmination in '95 then it was off to middle school. Being an only child and having absent father issues I was a rebel and even my mother couldn't handle me. I of course knew the Dean's office very well and my folder was filled with slips somehow I survived those years of trying to grow up and be a teen. I still remember walking into Belmont High School for the very first time as a freshmen I was excited I knew college was right around the corner. I was put in J.R.O.T.C. and I hated wearing that ugly green uniform I didn't understand why I was put in there and I still don't. Years flew by quickly and I was not really prepared by my counselors for my options and what I had to do to get into college. Not knowing anything I only took the A.C.T.

          A friend of mine, Jackie told me the deadline to apply to the Cal State system was coming up and the application was easy and I could do it online so she walked me through it. If my friend would've never told me I would've most likely ended up in a junior college for a long time. There was a C.S.U.N. representative that came to see me and she told me my test scores weren't that good because of my G.P.A. I of course did not know about that either I highly disliked taking standardized exams and did poorly I just wanted to get over with it. I never found out who she was or what she did but called my house telling my mother I had been accepted. My mom was relieved she wanted me to go to a four year university and not just a community college. 

          My years in college were the best, I got involved in everything and anything. From the University Student Union to Associated Students I wanted to get a feel for it all. I hadn't given much thought to college so I was unsure of what I wanted to pursue so I went with Journalism. Since I discovered I was better at writing my thought down was more effective than when I spoke I was drawn to this medium. As I got closer to obtaining my degree I found that even if it took long hours I enjoyed editing my packages. We used Final cut pro and I found the process of shooting footage, reviewing it, laying down narration and presenting it so unique and fun. I was always proud of my work since it took me days. Of course I was just beginning and getting better at it I just hope I can continue doing that for fun and let others see what I see. In the concentration that I chose which us Broadcast we focused on hard news and even though I liked reporting on those I later realized that I preferred focusing on the arts whether it was music, movies or entertainment as well as culture, food and the history of my city Los Angeles. I've taken long enough so I'm hoping to start my free lancing career now.

          As graduation came closer in 2007 I was excited to finally be done with school. However once I was at the finish line I found myself asking "now what?" All those years, 16 to be exact, of nothing but school I feel it did not really prepare me for the regular 9 to 5 job. Instead I feel a void now of what to do when I'm not at work before there was homework and research and essay writing and now that is gone. I know that I have to return since now everyone has a B.A. the next step is a masters degree. My past experiences have made me want to become a counselor I hope to inspire high school students to think about their future. Whether they want to take four years and focus on a career or simply go to school to learn a trade as long as they can provide themselves with the knowledge the possibilities are endless.