While many consider their lives to be a timeline, my journey seems to form a set of cycles; cycles that constantly intertwine, overlap, and bring me back to a past memory that links to my current situation.
I grew up in a small farming community in Southern California, surrounded by miles of citrus and avocado orchards and just 15 miles from the beach. I was proud of my hometown, knowing that my great-grandparents had been some of its first residents: my great-grandpa picking lemons in the fields, and my grandma working in the packing houses. The sight and smell of the orchards reminded me of comfort, stability, and home. My adolescence was filled with sports, ballet, play dates, Girl scouts, and my love for school. Though my parents divorced when I was at a young age, I had a very loving and crazy Latino family, which continued to grow when my dad re-married and my mixture of six half- and step-siblings began to have kids of their own. Being the baby of the family, I reveled in the idea that I was perfectly in the middle of my older siblings, my handfuls of cousins, and the ten nieces and nephews that soon followed.
My nieces and nephews. From the left: L.J., Karisma, Jaxson, Robert, Raquel, and Damien. The oldest is 13, the youngest is not quite one!
L.J., one of my oldest nephews, came into the world when I was seven years old. Now that he is thirteen, his high-throttle energy, infectious smile, and athletic ability almost mask his autistic tendencies, which at times, bring about uncontrollable mood swings and reveal the unexplainable divide which exists between his comprehension and our understanding of him. Since his diagnosis at two years old, my entire family has fundraised for and participated in the annual Walk Now for Autism Speaks. The first year of our participation, we had such a big support group that our team photo made the newspaper headlines. To this day, the cause plays such a large role in my family that it has become my first and lovingly positive memory of the effect which one family can have in the community. I witnessed at a young age that entire social movements can sprout from the smallest seed, and that positivity and passion can carry causes much further than money and power could ever dream to.
Team LJ showing their support at the Walk
Tana came into my life as a baby-sitter when I was three years old, but soon transformed into my mentor and companion until I was seven. The funny thing about our relationship was that Tana was 30 years my senior, and did not speak English. Although I did not speak Spanish, we got along seamlessly, exchanging words until we both understoond what the other was saying. It was not until I was older did I understand that my family had employed Tana in a time of need, as she had just entered the U.S. from Mexico as an undocumented resident with her two young boys. Upon understanding the gravity of her situation, my love for Tana grew into pure admiration. That someone would risk so much to create a better life for her family.
It was not until I entered college that I met other people in the same situation. But these people were students, many of them becoming my close friends. I realized how indescribably difficult it is to live in a place where resources and benefits are within reach, but to not have access to them. To see others succeed and grow around you, but to be limited by financial, political, and social bounds. While they lived with this injustice on a daily basis, I was barely able to face the thought of it. The drive that they, like Tana, demonstrated in order to achieve their goals provides me with the motivation do the same.
In fourth grade, my parents moved me to a private school in the neighboring city. One day, during our lesson on agricultural development in California, my teacher had us walk around the classroom in a large circle for 5 minutes, bent over as if we were picking fruit. She then asked us to sit down and write about how we had felt during the exercise. We all agreed that we were tired, as she then went on to explain that people did this every day for a living, sometimes for more than eight hours a day. They were the people we drove by on our way to school; the people who allowed us to have strawberries in our lunches; they were people like my great-grandpa.
In college, I signed up for an Environmental/Religion class which focused on California’s Central Valley, also known as “the nation’s salad bowl.” Not because I was interested in the topic at the time, but because it would cover two of my graduation requirements. We dove into the gruesome topics of low labor wages, long working hours, exposure to toxic pesticides and high amounts of air and groundwater contamination, low education rates, and the fact that those with the least amount of control over their circumstances are also those who are most negatively impacted by harmful environmental activities. They made their livelihoods just a couple of hours away, but seemed to live in a completely different world than my own. I was so close to them geographically, yet felt so removed from their daily struggle and the ability to improve their circumstances. My desire to help was fueled not only because I felt it was the just thing to do, but because I empathized with them; because in some distant way, my family was their family.
My interest in sustainable efforts grew from my first job as a California beach lifeguard, where I discovered the true beauty of nature: the majestic and commanding waves; the animals and ecosystems that resided in the dunes, the tide pools, and the deep sea; and how each cycle worked together to maintain the beautiful Ventura coastline. My respect for the environment grew, and I began to take part in all-things-environmental that I could get my hands on: day hikes, beach clean-ups, surf sessions, farmers markets, bike riding along the coast, and even forcing my family to recycle.
Family beach clean-up
The time came for me to leave the place I knew and loved, and travel to the unknown world of Santa Clara University, where I could walk down the street and see one person searching for recyclables in a trash can, and the next person chugging liquid out of a red cup and throwing it on the ground. To center myself in this new and wild atmosphere, I joined the OCEANS Club, one of the familiarities from home that I knew would never change. I was suddenly and excitedly roped into beach clean-ups, Ban the Bottle campaigns, Save Japan Dolphins, Save the Waves Coalition, and many more environmental activities. My interest in environmental grassroots efforts grew until I finally decided to minor in Environmental Studies, where I hoped to apply my acquired knowledge to sustainable energy and social justice efforts.
SCU Earth Day 2013
And now, with a few environmental classes under my belt, along with involvement in GREEN club and a research internship under an environmental professor, I realize that my knowledge base only contains a tiny drop of the large ocean which encompasses sustainability, the environment, and social justice. Furthermore, my deep passion to help others does not seem to easily transform into ground-breaking and successful business models that will save the world population. So, I find myself here, in the middle of another one of life’s cycles, waiting to explore new opportunities, face new challenges, and make a positive impact in the life of a farm worker, a nephew, a babysitter, or an entire community. While my future and vocation continue to elude my grasp, I know that the current has brought me to exactly where I am supposed to be.