I was not always happy being a Mexican...

In the past and sometimes even now I deny that I am Mexican. I always hated speaking Spanish and I would get easily annoyed of everyone speaking it around me. I would always say that I didn't like Mexicans and Tijuaneros (which are people from Tijuana). Where I was from, Moreno Valley, a lot of people didn't talk Spanish in school. So I am not used to having so many people talking it around Southwestern College. I would always say I’m a different ethnicity and that I wasn't Mexican. In reality, I love being Mexican and I absolutely love my culture. I wouldn't want to trade it for anything. I love the food and all but I have done many things to disguise from being Mexican. I would always say I was Filipino and/or African American. I felt as being Mexican was to plaid out (meaning everyone was Mexican). In high school, I would join the Black Power clubs and do their activities. At the end, my mother would always get mad at me for disowning my ethnicity. But I didn't care. Now, I would take it all back and do my best to make Mexicans look better and be prideful of my cultural. Mexican is what I was raised to be and Mexican is what I'm going to be until I die. This all ties in to the question from the Bayan retreat questions, "Have you ever done anything to disguise or hide your racial/ethnic identity?"

Some college advice

The advice "Sometimes studying hurts and that's a good thing" is something we, college students, can live by. I really agree with this because I know for a fact that we really do need to know that studying and learning is really good for ourselves. Our minds are like muscles in our body, we lift weights to get toned but what are we doing to our minds to get more educated? I really have to take this advice and actually study, read, and enjoy doing it. I don’t want to do it to become rich, I want to be more educated because education is power and we won’t get there if we don’t study.
When I entered college I got much advice from every single one of my family. My top advice is to get out of community college as soon as I can; that I shouldn’t waste my time there and go straight to an UC. Another one is not to get distracted and stay focused on what I want in the future. Lastly is to never leave things for the last minute. They are all useful to me mainly because I know that each of family only tell me this for my own good and to see me being successful. But I don’t have a hard time following their advice. I think any student can relate to these advises. They are very accurate because they go into every little thing that college students can get into. Students need to know all these thing to become a better student and finish college with ease.

Article; Advice for New College Students

Failures

My mother always told me failures can always be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you take it. I completely agree with that because I believe it makes you a stronger person by pushing yourself to do things harder. If you fail and take it as how I did before, then you will take your failures as that you can’t do anything right in life. I think of failure for me, is disappointing your parents or in my case, my mother. Before, I always thought of myself as a failure; first because I didn't get into a UC straight out of high school like all my friends. Second, I would always get on my family’s nerves. Third, I never had a relationship with God. I always failed tests, always found myself alone and didn’t always make my mom proud. Then suddenly things changed once I started getting into church and changed my mind set of not being a failure but taking those failures to push me harder to succeed.
Failure to everyone is something negative and down breaking. Failures is something to remind you, you are not good enough and you can’t succeed in life. You have those negative people around all the time and that they only notice all your failures but not the good qualities you have. Because those who do take their life failures in a positive way, I don’t know how they do it, but they always find a positive route to go. They don’t let one bump on the road stop them from their dreams and goals. That is how all of us should be, be optimistic and have faith that you will succeed in life. You don’t see Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or anybody who are successful take people’s negativity to the heart. We should do something about our failures and make something beautiful come out of it, instead of crying that we didn’t make it at least we tried and we can choose to keep going. I feel as that failure only brings your closer to your dreams and that with failure you are more of a human than ever.