Jim swore our family could live cheaper and he’d never shovel snow again when we sold everything in rural Colorado to move aboard our sailboat in Mexico. When we sailed into Baja Sur’s capital city, La Paz, its unexpected “small town” peacefulness surrounded by the coastal beauty of the Sea of Cortez charmed us into staying. We landed a house-sitting gig by word-of-mouth and enrolled our 12-year-old daughter in a Mexican public school to learn Spanish. A two-day drive from the California border through saguaro and organ pipe cactus gardens, and only 1½ hours north of Cabo San Lucas, La Paz sits like a pearl where the Sonoran desert sand meets the glimmer of the Gulf of California.…
I AM DOMINICAN! WAIT NO I AM AMERICAN! Wait no I’m neither. How can it be that I’m neither. I was born in Dominican Republic however I have lived in America since I was two years old.…
If you were to look in my room you’ll probably see a mess clothes all over the floor, papers on my bed, and tennis balls on my desk, you could say that I’m not the most organized person in the world. But upon looking at all that mess, there is a picture hanging on just one nail, collecting dust as if it was some kind of ancient artifact. As I look at it every morning before heading off to school I am instantly reminded of a trip that I now use to define who I am: commitment, compassion, and courage. This was the photo of my trip in Leon, Nicaragua.…
Commencing Unbound A lurid, fuchsia dress with generously powdered glitter and blaring, familiar music danced to by relatives you weren't even aware were relatives are trademarks of the traditional rite of passage into adulthood in my culture and one I never had the pleasure to experience due to my family's financial situation at that time. Still, my own stride into coming of age was too one with renowned garb, although much less garish. Familiar music playing in the background and only my immediate family sat close to the stage in awe to watch me. Graduating from my esteemed high school, Design and Architecture Senior High (DASH), was the omega to the alpha of my future. That experience both humbled me and triggered the tenacity in me to…
I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico and I moved to Jacksonville, Florida. This was a challenging time in my life because I had to get used to Florida's environment , its culture, and its people. New Mexico's environment is dry and hot. When you stand outside you can fee the sun beam on your skin, an the surrounding air is warm. There's mountains and desert landscapes.…
I've lived in the Rio Grande Valley my whole life. Ever since I could remember, I had never been outside these valley roads. I had always dreamed about what a vacation would be like. I ustheir ed to have friends all the time tell me about their trips to San Antonio, Houston, and Florida , just to name a few. I came from a lower class family of five so a vacation was never an option for us.…
Personal Narrative My personal narrative to me was when I went to Mexico. We weren't planning to go to Mexico ,but something really bad happened. One day my uncle called us to inform us that my grandma was really bad in the hospital that they weren't sure if she could of would survive. As soon as my dad hanged up the phone.…
Exposition When I was ten years my mom and my siblings live in Grand Rapids Michigan. My mom was born in the Dominican republic and come to America to raise her kids. She always talk about how life was there and what sacrifices she did to be here. Her mom was the one that made her go and find a better life for her and her kids to be here. I always wanted to see how it was like for myself and visit my other half of my family that’s so far away.…
Its vacation and you don’t have to worry about anything except for to have fun. I knew that day was going to be a great day. I woke up threw my swim suit on, and rushed to the beach. The hot sand on my feet as I was running to the water. The sand got cooler and much softer as I got to the wet part of the beach.…
On September 17, 2016, I woke up around 9 A.M. expecting to go to The Mexican Fine Arts Museum. While riding the train, the intercom came on and said “Cermak China Town is up next.” I turned to my friends and asked if we could go there instead because I have never been there and its a great opportunity. I have been wanting to visit Chinatown ever since I moved into the dorms because there is not one in Indiana and I wanted to gain more knowledge on their cultural background. Once we got off the train, we walked across the streets and through the grand entrance.…
I grew up in a Mexican household, so I always had to deal with my family’s special way of doing things. One thing that the women in my family used to do involved curing a baby’s hiccups. When a baby gets hiccups, a member of my family (usually a woman) would get a piece of red string, wet it, roll it in a little ball, and put in in the middle of the baby’s forehead. That would make the hiccups stop. I never knew this was considered “weird” to other people until I was in the second grade…
My mother is Mexican and my father is Caucasian with European ancestors. Ethnically I identify as Hispanic or Latina. This is especially true as my mother and the female members on my mother’s side were more of an active presence in my life. I lived in Japan until I was six years old and can identify certain behaviors and interests to my and I have an awareness of that experience in me.…
Where I was waving “Adios” to my mother, the others were waving “Goodbye” to their parents. Torn between two worlds is what I thought I would always be. As a Mexican-American I believed that I would never be fully Mexican or American. I believed that I would never really fit into one specific group and would be target of exclusion all my life.…
Early this year, to be exact in the last week of January, happened a tragedy to me. This event marked me because it never had happened to me something similar until then. That is why it was more impacting on me than it probably had to be. People have to learn lessons from experiences either good or bad, and I did learned something after the stealing of my purse that I used to carry when I go to Cd. Juarez.…
Growing up in Jalisco Mexico, growing up to the beautiful life of freedom, peace and tranquility. A place for you to walk around and enjoy the beautiful nature and weather. A place full of traditions, history and legends for you to enjoy. That is how I remember my life as a child, the most wonderful years of my life, and the years I will always remember with joy and a smile on my face. I remember the day when my father told me we had to come to the united states, at first, I was excited, my life as a child was not easy without my father, I always wanted to feel how it was to live as a whole family, since my dad spent most of his time in the united states. My mother was a mother and father to me for a long time.…