When I first started facilitating, I felt really impatient. Since I had not been in a high school setting in a long time, I had forgotten what it looked and felt like. I had also forgotten how shy young people can be, and how much time it takes for them to open up.
On Friday, October 11, 2019, the young people from Mobilizing Youth to Nix Tobacco (MYNT)* of Fresno County, in partnership with Amplify!** ( African American Statewide Coordinating Center), presented the “Building Our Future” Open Mic Night.
But students don’t always want to spend their recreational time outside. They wanted an indoor option where they didn’t have to be quiet, but could talk and socialize. And that is how the idea of a student Lounge was created.
My family narrative is that work is supposed to be hard, we’re not supposed to enjoy it. I am so lucky to have a job that I love, especially when others don’t have the opportunity to do work they enjoy.
The effects of environmental and climate catastrophe are devastating communities on a global scale. Right here in the Central Valley we can feel our summers getting hotter, we taste our water becoming unsafe or scarce altogether, and we see our politicians continuing to collect major dollars from the fossil fuel industry.
Despite real political challenges, it is and has been such an exciting time to be chicano. It’s as if an earthquake merged our Mexican culture…
I am a collage of cultures and experiences. I reflect on the lives of my abuelos and the ancestors that came before with gratitude for the life I love now.
For me, the goal is liberation – freedom from the system that is trying to destroy us native people and people of color. We need to figure out a way to work within the beast – not with the beast – to ensure that our young people have the resources they need to survive.
