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2 Sides

At home I am supposed to be the same student before college. I am a dork, silly, and kind. Never harsh, or mean. Around my friends at home I am seen as one who has to remain tough to expect respect. At home emotion is thought to be a sign of weakness. If I look different from the rest of the crowd, then I am pointed out and if I have a different perspective from the group I am thought of as weird. I was always different from all of my peers, not in a good or a bad way but simply a different way. I never tried to be a "G" as some of my elders would call it, but I tried to be me.

When I am at school, I am finally allowed to be the person I want to be. The only problem is I don't know who that person is. Since I have tried to fit in the mold of what the people back home wanted me to be I don't know how to be myself. So I find myself unintentionally adapting and observing others behaviors to duplicate their behaviors to fit in. What I have realized, is that there are too many people to be one behavior and be accepted by them all. In conclusion I have no idea what my identity is here. I am a mix of so many things. I am someone who cares for their culture, an activist, a lover, an abundance of emotional feelings, a hip-hop enthusiast, a norcalian, a poet with ignorant lyrics, a poet with real lyrics, a poet with moving lyrics. I am more but these are the first that come to mind. I feel at home, but at the same time I feel I need to understand my home before I can call it my home.

jaguar girl who plays with fire

Back when I'm in LA, which, I consider to be my home... i'm very aware of two aspects of my identity:

my mixed-ancestry/immigrant status and being queer.

Being in LA has proven troublesome at times, and there are many spaces that I have felt excluded from because I occupy an in-between space, no soy ni de alli, ni de aca. (i'm not from there, nor here). i'm a jaguar girl. Like the jaguar in Mayan lore, I am also a transient; a person in between. In this indefinable space, i am constantly aware of how others perceive me. In some spaces i cannot discuss certain aspects of my identity, making me feel at times uncomfortable in my own spotted skin. As a mixed-ancestry Latin@ i have constantly faced people wanting to place me in little boxes. Outing myself as an immigrant has made people second-guess my capability, and even sometimes, I have been made to feel as an invasive terrorist. I cringe every time someone compliments me on being a "good immigrant," WTF does that mean? When I'm in LA, i'm aware that I cannot "be queer" in certain spaces; places where I have worked, with coworkers, or even with people or places in my own neighborhood. Yeah, when i'm in queer havens like West Hollywood, I can have certain privileges, but I'm also a queer Latin@. In certain "safe (queer) spaces," my identity can actually signify potential dangers to the status qou… Because I talk back, and I’m aware of these realities, that is also tricky business. When i'm home, I feel safe around my people of color (POC) folk. Yet, it is also my own POC peeps that enact some of these violences that make me aware that in LA, I don't necessarily always feel safe.

When I'm in SC, similar to LA, I feel the same discomfort because of these same aspects of my identity. Still my positionality as a wombyn of color/Muxer/Muxerista/Womanist has also impacted my experiences through these dimensions of my identity. My queer identity, my immigrant status, and my mixed ancestry, these are layers of my identity that have shown to be more problematic as I claim my identity as a Muxer; I am a racialized and gendered subject. Having a community where I could/can meet, and gain/give support and empowerment to other womyn of color was/is imperative. The lack of institutional support from the university and the diminutive representation of muxeres on campus (particularly in FMST) has led me in search of these spaces. Mi Madre (my mother) would always say “no juegues con el fuego” (don’t play with fire), whenever she knew I’d talk back or do something she didn’t want me to do. When i'm in SC i feel the weight of my skin color and I'm more aware of the microagressions (small instances of aggression that are directed through insults, jokes, etc.) that are geared towards me. These microaggressions are difficult for me to ignore, and often I want to talk back and because of all the BS that I put up with, I sometimes have a hard time finding my voice. Not having a voice that is heard has been a struggle, yet, I know that as I continue to question and challenge that which makes me uncomfortable, I know I will continue to foster my voice. My voice comes from these spaces that allow me to interrogate my identity, challenge myself, and I thirst to be educated through experiences and dialogue. In the end, I guess I am the girl mi Madre always warned me about, the girl that plays with fire.

Abrazos,

-Tamara

Home is 917 Mac block and Laguna in the foggy city of SF Loren Miller Homes in the mighty mighty Fillmoe! That is my identity when I'm at home I embody it I walk it and talk it and live it and feel it and breathe it with my fam. I feel Tongan and proud with my parents when we cookin in the kitchen or prayin in the church and drinking with the cousins and uncles and aunties on the down low leaning against parked cars speakin our many languages fucking up the diction code switching. I feel safe and unsafe always wary because I know whats really. I feel strong and sure but also heeeeella sad because i know whats really. I have flashbacks of places I knew but are no longer around. I feel my masculinity drawn out and exhibited because I know from experience what it takes to be safe and to be able to walk the same street everyday without being robbed and stripped of pride and scarred, but they don't last.

UCSC is like wtf?! Where am I? I love it and hate it. I feel alone but safe, too safe sometimes like I could disappear here and never go back to home. I feel that song by Gil scott heron 'home is where the hatred is' when im at UCSC but when im here I also remember the love and miss it. UCSC is a place I had to learn to live in, to be myself in, it's crazy hard but Im slowly finding that Santa cruz is a place that I love a lot, not because it's my school, or my home for now, but because of all the people I've fallen in love with here.

See ya'll tomorrow!

Tupi

is not where you from but is where you at...uhhmmm dont know

Home is with me, where I am at, where I am from, where I been, and where I'll be. Currently, these are my homes. El MOONte, Califas and UCSC. El MOONte. Brings me back to my ghettoness. What its feels to be poor. Economic Situation. Drama. Anger. Sadness. The beauty of family parties by my house. Fast Cars with loudass speakers bumping tupac or corridos. Motherhood. Long bus drives. Diversity of people. My will to understand my people. Immigration status. Prison. Cops. Siblings. Silence. Food. My spirituality. Pain. Poverty. Seeing myself in others. Wondering what is their life. Young couples. Betrayals. Chismes. Survival. Modern day slavery. Communism. Babies. I am not alone. Mexico. Sexual Abuse. Sex work. Poet. MC. Dreams. [email protected]/Transexual. Hope. Cold. I am just a little girl in a big world. UCSC. Privilege. Dreams. How I am disconnected yet connected. Confused. Student. His/Her/Our story. Liberation. Activist. Poet. Friendships. Homies. Change. My Reading. Haters. Gradschool. Xicana. Wannabes. Nerd in me. peace. Big Woman.

Listen to this song. This is how I am feeling right now about this topic. One of my favorite xicano rappers- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS9pABCCeiI&feature=related

love ale

UyenMy

When I'm at school....

I feel invincible like I can change the world with the tip of my fingers my heart has found its home resonated in the bubbling fire of social injustices hidden in the deep cracks of our history books. I have found my identity here, understanding the roots of oppression that has influenced every step that I have taken as a female identified Vietnamese-American individual. I have found the word womyn, to fit the capsules of my soul. I have discovered where the footprints in the sand lead. They are me. They are leading me to the next chapter of my life.

When I'm at home...

I feel like I'm living two different lives. Some people don't understand me I have found tools to know how to speak non-violently I have moved away from reinforcing stereotypes. If I am standing on one side of the street, your footsteps remain on the other side, stagnent, while my footprint are moving, I'm breathing.

My family, I love. My parents hold they keys to pedals of my cultural roots. I have finally connected the dots of the emptiness I have created from the lack of my culture I have chosen to never know. Some completely are in awe of this empire took my 4 years to build. While others, have no idea what I have found for myself here, lack of disbelief of how and why I want to make a difference in the world.

In general, people at home have lost the inspiration to do what you love. You have lost, hope. Materialism got the best of you. Seducing you in the glamour capitalistic monsters glued glitter on everything they can get their dirty hands on.

theres so manyyy ill choose one

To look back into my past would only provide everyone with a flawed source of evidence of myself. I could say in many complicated-as-hell ways growing up Mexican, mixed with Danish & a young girl in Inglewood gave me insight on the various meanings attached to my lightskin. I could also share with you how my skin color is one aspect of my identity I think about the most when I'm back home&in Santa Cruz. But then Id have to get into how my heart learned to feel...to acknowledge my skin color as part of my self my experience & my story is painful but its true and to admit that what shapes my reality is the real violence &erasure of experience of brown skin folks...something being mexican...mestiza never allows me to forget. I embrace this...to be a light skin mexican mixed womyn now is a very different experience than if my skin were two shades more brown. While I grew up wishing I was two shades more brown in the hood...I had power over my own family members..my own lovers. I came to college (while many folks back home would question if I was really mexican or read me as racially ambiguous) angered that people couldn't always tell what I was when they first met me..its still usually one of the first questions I am asked. This often allowed me to witness&experience racist situations while remaining almost invisible by either white folks or other people of color. This also allowed folks to assume I was on average trustworthy, honest smart beautiful rich and could speak english. This is real and when this happens its as if I am holding parts of my identity a secret or violently forced to...until I'm violently forced out of it. The value placed on my skin both cus of U.S. slavery &imperialism and limpieza de sangre/the idea of purity in blood that came to the Americas from Spain during the colonization of mesoamerica is what separates me from worlds. I find myself negotiating both histories everywhere I go. Even as I get older I know walking down the street in Inglewood I am no longer protected by my ignorance or innocence..my youth. I'm prepared for the worst for someone elses moment of survival or vindication or liberation to inflict violence onto my body. I recall my childhood..my mom sharing with me her memories of my grandmother telling her "never be proud of the color of your skin..the reason why your skin is so light is because our women were raped." I wonder now how many generations this knowledge had been passed down. I now know my anger is not toward any particular person or group of people everytime my light skin aids folks' assumptions about who I am cause of the meanings attached to it...my anger lies in the erasure of history...& the the ways oral histories are immensely devalued. I almost gave into simplifying my story........

African American Female

As a African American female in Santa Cruz, I have not been able to call Santa Cruz my home. I am originally from Los Angeles, Ca and I am located deep in south central. Culture plays a real big part In my life when I'm in LA. I am surrounded by a lot of black people from my community that share the same struggle as me. I come from a rural area in which we have limited resources and the proper education. When I'm home I feel at peace. I don't feel challenged or belittled by the wealthier people around me. My culture consist of music, good soul food, black entertainment, and community building. When I'm in Santa Cruz my culture is invisible. I am apart of a few black orgs on campus which make me feel at home. But when I'm alone in my dorm my culture isn't visible. Holidays such as Easter play a big role in my culture. Me and my family usually sit down to a big dinner and go to church for Easter but since I'm in Santa Cruz I don't get that type of treatment because its so much that goes on, on campus there's things that outweigh the simple thought of culture.

a daughter, being myself

I have always been a nurturing person. I feel I will always be a person who is serious but yet at times, can still be very caring and thoughtful. I love surrounding myself with people, not just people, but people I absolutely care about and who will also care for me in return. I love cooking for those I adore and love, and myself when I am not lazy. I love and care, but I love and care with my soul. I am me. Simply me <3

When I am back in my hometown, I feel stressed. Not that I give myself stress, but I am stressed because I am at home, for my family, especially my parents give me stress. I feel I can't be the nurturing person I was sought out to be. It stress after stress. It makes me not want to be home at all. I feel my parents, especially my mom, never gives me a break for chores. Sometimes I just want to leave my house forever. Back at home, it is like I never find peace. Aside from all the negatively, I some home manage to maintain myself, and end up loving being back home. Where the cooking never stops. Where I can joke with my dad forever, and still have serious talks. I try to only speak Hmong when I am back at home, because that is my native language. I speak English when I can't seem to find any words to say in Hmong. When I am home with my parents, I do a lot of things my parents ask. Such as pick up my siblings from school, go to the farm, go to the farmers' market, and other house chores. Though, I hate not having enough time for myself at home, I still, as much as I can, try to finish the tasks my parents have given me. For they wouldn't have to stress as much. At home my identity is not complete because I can't even find my own identity. I guess at home, my identity is to just be a daughter who is always there.

When I am in Santa Cruz I can fully express myself without all the drama and stress from home. I feel like, this is the place I really belong. Where I can fully nurture myself and grow. I feel like everyone here understands me. I feel like I can never get lost, for I have friends who will never let me fall, and are always willing to listen. The only stress that I will ever have to just school. I feel at peace here. My identity in Santa Cruz, is being my true self.

Mai Foua Her (means girl clouds)

Mexipino

Going to college was something that really shaped my identity and how I viewed myself. I think for me, I began to look into my racial and ethnic identity more once I left for college, and began to reevaluate my racial/ethnic identity since I began my college experience. At home growing up in a multicultural family was normal to me. I got to participate in two cultures that developed my identity and shaped me into the person I am today. I was socialized from a young age to be able to interweave both my cultures and I remember experiences from both my Mexican and Filipino family and growing up in a multiracial household.

I was brought up in a multicultural household but I identified more with being Mexican because that was how I was culturally brought up (raised). Mexican culture was more predominant in my upbringing, so for most of my life I solely identified as Mexican because that was the culture I was familiar with, but I did not forget (and I acknowledged) that I was Filipino. But how I identify myself began to change when I got to college because people questioned my identity. When I first got to college other students where unfamiliar with my background and I was often racially profiled by many students and I felt like I always had to prove my identity to people because they did not know about my cultural background and upbringing. Most students would call me “Asian” just from the way I looked. Apparently my eyes gave it away (whatever that means). The racialization that I went through changed my view of myself. People assumed that my “Asian eyes” meant that I was only Asian and assumed a lot of things about me and did not think I was Mexican. I can remember many instances when people would be surprised when I told them I was Mexican, sometimes I felt they didn’t believe me. Once I got to college I realized that I “looked” more “Asian” or Filipino than Mexican, but I never questioned or thought that about myself while I was at home or when I was growing up because my appearance was never questioned by anyone. My experiences growing up and the community that I came from essentially made me feel that I was always more Mexican than Filipino. So when I came to college I felt that I was challenged and I felt like I always had to prove myself to everyone, even people who were Mexican or other Latin@s. People would force identities onto me and assume things; I would say, ‘I’m Mexican,’ and people would say, ‘You don’t look Mexican. Do you speak Spanish?’ No, but I’m Mexican. Culturally, that’s how I was brought up and that’s how I identify.” There were many times where I have felt like I had to prove myself and reassert my place among certain groups. I’ve had people look at me and tell me I’m not ‘full Mexican’ solely because they can’t ‘see’ my ethnic background etched on my face. It is always in the back of my mind knowing that I’m not fully one thing or the other and I have to often prove myself to both Mexicans and Filipinos that I am “Mexican enough” or “Filipino enough.”

My physical appearance and my ability to speak Spanish came under question many times once I got to UC Santa Cruz. Sometimes I have to ‘perform my ethnicity’ in order to be accepted, and sometimes I am fully embraced by both the Mexican (other Latin@) and Filipino community here at UCSC. I felt like I had to present myself to each group differently in order to be accepted at times. These aspects of my identity have never been questioned when I am at home, and it is difficult at times to be able to deal with the persistent racial profiling or assumptions people have about my identity and who I am.

Robert Bisquera Jr.

I've been thinking about this assignment for a couple of days now, and the answer to the questions finally hit me yesterday while I was walking around my hometown after years of not visiting.

When I am at home, I am more in touch with my emotions and feelings. Surprising as it may be, when I am at school I tend to ignore putting labels to my emotions because I feel it gives them priority in my mind and it forces me to spend more time trying to sort them out and understand why I am feeling a certain way. At school, I allow myself to feel either calm/happy or stressed. I subconsciously prohibit myself from feeling all other emotions like sadness or anger because I feel they slow me down. When I at home, however, I cry. I cry a lot because I let myself think about my emotional state every night before I go to sleep. I allow myself more time to ask myself questions about how I am feeling and why I feel that way.

At home, I also tend to do more critical thinking of my own. I think more about social (in)justice issues and how they affect our people, as well as my stance on many issues that are brought up when I am at school. At SC I find it harder to have my own opinions because I am constantly bombarded with everyone else's. After a while it becomes so overwhelming that I stop questioning many things and just focus on listening to people. It is also hard for me to distinguish where other people's beliefs end and where mine begin, because I don't give myself the opportunity to make those lines clear. When I am home I am alone for the most part because my friends and family all work or go to school and it is easier for me to think critically and it is wonderful! I also feel like I regain my passion to fight for social justice when I am home.

-Laura Hidalgo

For my 20 minutes in section, I shared this video and I wanted to show the whole class! It's basically about Filipina nurses not being able to speak Tagalog to one another during working hours. In our section we discussed how this was definitely wrong and were surprised how something like this happened so recently - especially in California.

Kevin Casaretto

A little late, but better now then never right??!?!

Anyway, I came across this video and I found it really inspirational. It reminded me of that one time during one of our dialogues where I mentioned that on campus when we ride buses everyone is on their ipods or iphones not looking at anyone, not making eye contact, basically not acknowledging the humanity that is on that bus. In this documentary a man goes against the social paradigm of riding a subway and begins to ask people about life. It was really inspiring and dope to see how deep people are, and see how much strangers on a subway have to say. One of the best lines is when the gentleman towards the end says that we only have one life, and we cant just stand around we must keep moving. Here I am one week away from graduating and i can't wait to begin this new journey in life, and I take that advice to heart and will try to keep moving, making sure not to stay complacent.

-Big Mike

oh eff....

Isn't it crazy how much a single country can destroy so much?

The animals, people, trees, water, etc.

-h

#mongabay.com #deforestation #engaging education

Thank you Engaging Education

One love,

#engaging education #Thank you

FINALS WEEK!

Over all GOOD luck to all!

This is a bittersweet note to write. For quite some weeks it hadn't dawn on me that some of the memories i've built with some of you can more than likely be the firsts and last that we have. For three years this city and school have been my get away, far enough to get away from my risky environment, yet close enough to run right back to it when I needed a reality check. This has been my home...and it saddens me and scares me that I must depart from it now. No matter the distance, I had a sense of freedom, to question and fight for what I pleased. I wonder if I will be able to do this elsewhere... Or will I be sucked into the cracks of society that dictate that things 'happen for a reason'. Oh, how I hate that saying.. In shortly 7 days, I will walk on that stage as an undergrad student and walk off as a UCSC Alumni; Class of 2011.

I wish ya'll the best in life. This must had been the BEST class i had ever taken in my stay at UCSC! I'll def take a little piece a wisdom from each and everyone of you! e2 class of Spring 2011!!!! Woot Woot! The hustlerssss!

-Cynthia Fajardo

wow its the last week of the quarter already. i've definitely seen how i've grown emotionally, how i can better understand my social biography, and how we have grown together as a class. everything that we have learned in class about oppressions, liberation, love and its many forms..i see it everywhere now, i stop and reflect more about the interactions i have with others, between others, in the media, and in class. the subjects that we cover in the e2 class that are such a taboo in large lecture classrooms have been popping out at me more and more..or maybe not more but because now that i am aware i can see and critical think about my environment and the situations and people i find myself with.

i really liked that for last weeks class how engaged we were in the reading by Bell Hooks and how everyone was ale to relate to it on some level. i kept thinking about how we as a class would have interacted with each other in a large classroom where these subjects are not even a side note. would we have ever talked to each other? would we have ever found all the things we have in common? would we have been given an opportunity to see a situation completely from another's point of view? would we have dialogued with each other or just talked at each other?

there should definitely be more classes like this, classes that provide a place not only to learn and memorize, but to grow as a student and a person. there are plenty of classes that practice the banking system and expect a simple regurgitation of information, but classes that require reflection, praxis, and love are still sorely needed on this campus.

-Samantha Alemania

So I know it's finals week and most of you may be stressing. Maybe you'll find some motivation here.

Diana

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