What was the environment in which you were raised?
A pivotal importance of growing up included the necessity to secure our Hispanic heritage and culture. Due to living next to the Mexican border my entire life, a part of me knows the vital and constitutive ideals of the environment I am accustomed to live with. "On The Border, By The Sea", is our cities famous slogan, where you can find us dancing to our cumbias on the southern tip of Texas and celebrating festivities where we can show off our green, white, and red nationality. This is the city in the Rio Grande Valley where one can get a taste of Mexico in their own backyard, stand on the same ground of history from the Palo Alto Battlefield and the ending of the civil war, articulate in the communication of not one but two fluently spoken languages with one another, and dedicate a frijol cook off as the famous "frijolympics". This is Brownsville Texas, and this is who shaped me as the individual I am today.
Being raised by parents with Mexican nationality, my life never had the involvement of a dull dinner, but instead was fulfilled with dishes abounding with color and flavor that one could simply devour for. After coming home from school, I would bust open the doors to come to a house smelling like chicken bouillon and I would quickly spot my mother going through the hassle of cooking in order to serve us a nice, and hot meal. I have gained the benefits of coming from a bilingual family by having the prospect to communicate with people who may only speak Spanish. Down here in the valley, one will meet people who will not have the advantage of speaking English, and I am able to say that I have helped many with that disadvantage by translating or helping them captivate and absorb the English language. Due to being surrounded with Mexican culture in my city, I have attended festivities known as our Charro Days Fiesta. Ever since 1937 during The Great Depression, our citizens needed an antidote to remove the despair and pessimism towards our countries economic depression. The thought of creating a celebration to lift our cities spirit shows the dedication in respecting the bi-national friendship of Matamoros and Brownsville. This illustrates how we take our pride in sharing the rich culture from across the border by displaying hand-made floats for the people to enjoy and celebrate the Charro Days parade.
Depicting upon our city's lack of being viewed as a clean and tidiness city, Brownsville needed a change towards the way it was portrayed due to trash being thrown on the Resacas and parks all throughout town. I then joined forces with the parks and recreation to help beautify by volunteering in services where we would clean up not only parks, but also beaches and neighborhoods; attend city events and give recognition towards our community. We are known as "Keep Brownsville Beautiful" and we have gotten so far towards achieving our goal, we got the recognition from our states very own representative, Eddie Lucio III. In seeing how I have helped shaped a city in every possible way I could by bringing hard work and enthusiasm to the table, I have shown my side of commitment and I could not be prouder by the way it has been portrayed. A factor in which has had impacted me on my future and my journey towards my career would depict on an organization I am in known as "Teen Court". Teen court is a volunteer program at the municipal court system in my downtown area to help anyone from seventeen years old or younger of age with a class-c misdemeanor in the department of my school's district to have the chance of having their hearings staffed by high school students. I have been assigned as both defense attorney and prosecutor for the cases and been grateful ever since for the opportunity and experience given to me on how the justice system works.
I am now a person who is willing to continue to embrace all that I know and all that I am to share amongst others. I am formed from the genes and nationality of my parents, from the history behind our city's rich past, through all that came to help shape the person I am now, I show no more than gratitude and to continue to bring the same level of commitment and enthusiasm towards the prospect of our Hispanic heritage and culture.
