For my last Personal is Political blog, I interviewed my friend Sarah from home about her heart condition she was diagnosed with in the 9th grade. While it is not a serious or life-threatening condition, it has impacted her life in some way and I wanted to hear more of her insights on this topic. 

 

Can you share what your diagnosis is and how it has impacted your life?

So, I was diagnosed with Supraventricular Tachycardia, which is a type of arrhythmia where my heart beats too fast sometimes. Basically, it’s not necessarily harmful to me, but sometimes it does get in the way of everyday life. Usually it happens if I’m exercising, or I have too much caffeine, or I’m really anxious. It doesn’t harm me, but it’s uncomfortable in my chest and makes me feel like I’m going to pass out. I know how to handle it now, but when it first started happening, I thought something was wrong so I was kind of scared. It also got in the way of me playing volleyball, which was hard at first.

 

How did you first become aware of your heart condition? 

During practice. We were doing a drill and I could feel my heart fluttering and I thought ‘wait something’s wrong’. So i went to the trainer and she took my heart rate, which was at like 190. And then it stopped after a few minutes, but yeah that was the first time it happened. 

 

How do you manage day-to-day activities with your heart condition? Are there any lifestyle changes you’ve had to make?

I have to limit how much caffeine I drink, but that’s about it. Since it’s not harmful, it just kind of feels bad, I don’t really change what activities I do. But, I just have to be prepared to handle it if it does happen, and just be aware of what’s going on in my body.

 

Have you faced any challenges or misconceptions from others about your condition? If so, how have you dealt with them?

Not really. I think I was embarrassed about it during volleyball season. Because I thought I was going to pass out, so I’d have to go to the nurse, which was embarrassing at the time. But I realize now that nobody really cares or is going to judge you about a health condition you can’t control. 

 

Did you have any support networks or resources that have been particularly helpful for you in coping with your condition?

When I went to the cardiologist for the first time, I was pretty nervous because I thought something could be very wrong with my hard. But once the doctors made a diagnoses, they really assured me I was going to be okay. They were definitely helpful in giving me all the information I needed and eased my nerves a lot.

On spring break this year, my friends and I went to the Outer Banks and we happened to have some college-aged neighbors from North Carolina in the house right next to us. They introduced themselves and invited us over multiple times, and while we had a great time meeting new people, we did discover they had very different perspectives than us. It was a very interesting experience overall and so I thought I’d interview my friends Alexis and Mia about our encounter with our neighbors. 

 

Can you share about your experience on spring break meeting our neighbors?

Alexis: I thought it was a very interesting experience. We didn’t know what to expect when we walked in their house, and it was interesting to meet a whole different group of people, people we’re not used to up at Penn State. 

 

Mia: I would say that it was mostly interesting because where I come from, it’s very urban and I never really interacted with people who have different political beliefs than mine and are maybe more on the conservative side. I thought they were very welcoming at first, and then I felt there were some things that I didn’t exactly agree on. 

 

Alexis: But it was kind of like, you’re going into their home, so you can’t really say anything because you’re walking into their space I feel like. They welcomed us into their home, so I feel like we were maybe a little bit quieter than normal about some of the things they said that we didn’t agree with. 

 

What challenges did you face when engaging with people of different beliefs than you during spring break? 

Mia: I felt like one really big challenge was sometimes they said some words that I really don’t think should be said out loud.

 

Alexis: Especially by them. And I feel like it was hard to kind of bite my tongue, but we didn’t really know them very well and didn’t know how they were going to react if we would’ve spoken up. So we kind of just kept quiet on that. 

 

Did encountering diverse political perspectives on spring break lead to any enlightening or eye-opening moments for you? 

Mia: Yeah I felt like it did. Especially because where I grow up, I feel like everyone is very not conservative and everybody there was very conservative, so it was just interesting seeing how people interact, and how they judge and perceive you based on where you’re from. I felt like they all kind of assumed that we had different views on things because we’re form the north, and I think they even made comments about that at times. Like, ‘Oh you guys stick out like sore thumbs’. 

 

Alexis: I felt like we had some opinions based on where they came from and I think they definitely had some opinions based on where we came from, and it was just interesting to see all the different perspectives everyone has.

 

Can you recall a particularly memorable conversation or exchange you had with someone of an opposing political stance during spring break? 

Mia: So, one thing is one of our friends from spring break asked me where my parents came from. And I am very open that I am, like second-generation, so I really didn’t care to tell him or care that he asked, but it wasn’t a conversation starter, I feel like he more just wanted to know. Which I found a little bit weird because he didn’t have anything to say after that. 

 

Were there any specific strategies or techniques you used to foster positive interactions with our neighbors?

Mia: I felt like we just tried to not bring stuff like that up at all, if anything was brought up it was by them, like making comments about it. And I feel like that just shows even more how they interact and how they view their own beliefs because they were very vocal about them.

 

Alexis: Yeah, I think we, just in general, don’t really talk about that stuff as much, and I felt like it was very prominent in their discussion and even just, some of the memorabilia they had hanging around the house. There’s really not any of that stuff up in my house, so. 

For this Personal is Political blog, I wanted to interview my friend Andrew about his Hispanic heritage and how it has influenced his experiences and perspective in life. Hope you enjoy the interview!

 

Can you tell me a bit about your family’s cultural background and where they’re from?

Both my parents are fully Hispanic and they were both born and raised in Venezula. My dad moved here for college and my mom came here after my father graduated from grad school. My father got into Colgate University, so he came here to attend college, and his four brothers all got into college and moved here too. Then, my dad went to graduate school at UMiami, but during the summers he would go home to work at a law firm in Venezula, and he met mom because she was an assistant at the law firm. They started dating and did long-distance until my dad graduated, and they moved to Brooklyn and got married in the states. 

 

What are some traditions or customs that your family has that are unique to your Hispanic heritage?

For New Years, we do a lot of different stuff. Like, we have to walk around the house with a suitcase with coins in our shoes, we throw eggs at the street, and obviously everyone eats the grapes so I wouldn’t say that’s our thing. And for us we celebrate Christmas the day before mostly, like we have a big Christmas Eve dinner with my family, that’s something that’s always really special to us. And just things like that, nothing really crazy or that different, I would say.

 

How has your family’s Hispanic heritage influenced your upbringing and identity?

So, Hispanics are stereotypically really loud and outgoing people, and I think that personality has really rubbed off on me, because I’m pretty outgoing too. And especially my mom, she’s like this really short, basic, stereotypical Hispanic, like 4’8 and super loud. But i feel like her personality and strength really rubbed off on me. She really motivated me to be outgoing and like, push myself. 

 

Can you share any experiences of discrimination or challenges you faced due to your Hispanic identity while growing up?

One story that I always remember is when we went to go pick up my dad from the airport because he was coming back from a business trip. We were all kind of young, and we were in a packed minivan. It was my two younger brothers, me, and my older sister, and my mom. To be fair, we were parked in the wrong spot, but this police officer came up to us, and at this point my mom didn’t speak any English she only spoke Spanish, and the officer was prominent on her only speaking English. She was like ‘Oh no you have to speak English. I can’t talk to you if you’re only going to speak Spanish’. So I remember my older sister trying to translate, but at the time she was only like eleven, so a lot of the things she wasn’t able to say. I remember my mom just getting really flustered because she had like six cops all yelling at her to speak English and she can’t do anything about it. And she has four kids all parked in this minivan, and obviously my brothers were all upset and crying. The officer was just saying all these kind of derogatory things, like ‘You should be able to speak English’, ‘You have to learn’, ‘This is inappropriate’. And when we got out of the minivan she was like ‘How many of there are you’, and she was just saying things like that which really stuck with me. When my dad came out he was really upset too and I just remember the whole scene and everybody watching us. It was just really awkward.

 

In what ways do you feel your Hispanic heritage has influenced your perspective on the world and your sense of self?

I remember when I was growing up I lived in a really white town and I was the only Hispanic kid in my elementary school. So I kind of almost forgot about it and pushed it off because I wanted to be like everyone else. But I think as I got older, and my middle school and high school was more diverse, so I got into my heritage a lot more. And especially since where my parents are from there is lot of poverty, so when I would go visit or just here stories from my family, it always made me think about how fortunate I was to grow up here and not be in the same situation that they were. So it kind of made me take advantage more of the opportunities that were given to me. And now I’ve learned to be proud of my heritage and not just like, push it off, just like embrace who I am.

 

For this Personal is Political blog, I decided to interview my friend Sophia again to get more insight into her dad’s drinking problem and how it has affected her life and family dynamics. It is only something she has shared with me somewhat recently, so I wasn’t sure how comfortable she’d be talking about it, but she said she wanted to do the interview and knew that she only had to share however much she felt comfortable with. I hope you guys enjoy reading about her family’s story. 

 

Could you provide some background on your family’s situation?

So, my parents were both Christian and met at church, and they got married and had me. For a while, we were living in Somerville (outside of Boston), but my dad was working near here (my hometown), where we live now. So he would only come home on the weekends, but when he was here he stayed with a friend, and that’s where he developed his drinking problems. When we moved here when I was in 4th grade, that’s when we all saw how different he was and his lifestyle. He would come home late a lot and always missed our stuff. Last summer, my dad got pulled over for drunk driving and got his license taken away. He couldn’t drive anymore which sort of forced him to stop drinking since he didn’t have transportation. He started going to church again with our family which has brought us all closer and I think helped him to fight off his drinking problem. He also has a lot more free time so he can focus on his hobbies, like working out, playing the guitar, cooking, and reading the bible. He has more time to work on himself now, but he has had some slip-ups with drinking. 

 

How has your relationship with your dad been affected by his alcoholism?

My sister was younger, so she doesn’t really remember as much but I remember always resenting him for not being home much and everything when he was in the thick of his alcoholism. I never really wanted to talk to him because of it and I wasn’t very close with him. Since he has stopped drinking we have had a much better relationship and have been talking more now. It is still kind of hard because I’ve always been so used to just ignoring him, but it’s gotten better, and when I’m at college I don’t have to worry as much about whats going on at home.

 

Are there any support systems you have in place to cope with your dad’s situation?

The main one is God. That was the main reason I started reading the bible on my own and getting closer to God. I hung out with my friends a lot, too. Or with my sister. But I think because I was so used to it I didn’t really think about it much.

 

How optimistic are you for your dad’s recovery from alcoholism? 

When he first got his DUI, he did like a complete 180 and changed up everything in his life. But then he started slipping up again, because even though he wasn’t able to drive he still had friends drive him sometimes. On New Years, my mom gave him divorce papers and basically said ‘if you don’t actually stop drinking we are getting a divorce’, and he hasn’t slipped up since then. So I think there’s more at stake for him now and even though it will probably be tough, I am hopeful that this will be a lasting change.

 

Have you learned any lessons from this situation?

Definitely that everyone is redeemable and everyone can change. Even when it looks like someone is too far gone, which I used to think that of my dad, there is still hope for everyone.

For this week’s Personal is Political blog, I decided to interview my friend Mallory here at Penn State to get her account on growing up in rural Pennsylvania and the impact that had on her political stance throughout the years. She had told me before this interview that when she was younger she leaned into a more conservative political perspective mainly because of the environment she grew up in and many people around her also shared conservative beliefs, but since then her political viewpoint has evolved. I was very interested to hear her perspective on this, since I consider myself to have more liberal political views, and coming from a progressive Massachusetts town, I’ve never really experienced what it’s like to have changing or different political views than the people around me.

 

Can you explain a little about the area and environment you grew up in?

So growing up, I lived in a rural area that was predominantly very conservative in their views and my parents were very conservative in their views. I feel like I would have conservative news channels on in the background and my parents would talk about it periodically, so that’s just what I knew. Specifically, in middle school, we had a mock election when Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton were running, and Donald Trump won with flying colors. As I’ve grown older, the impact of moving schools helped me form my own opinions that strayed away from the far right beliefs, not necessarily all the way far left, but I’d say I’m more independent in my beliefs and in politics. 

Were there any specific events or experiences that influenced your change in political beliefs?

I think moving from a very rural middle and elementary school to a private school in a more suburban area that was predominantly more wealthy population had an impact. It was somewhat of a culture shock at first, but moving schools combined with just maturing and forming new opinions were the main causes of my changing beliefs. 

 

Have you faced any challenges or conflicts with friends or family as a result of your changing political stance?

So one thing that I think really influenced my parents political views was my mom converting to Catholicism, which is I’d say primarily conservative nowadays. She really gets into the conservative views of moral issues in politics and our world, so I think that definitely caused some conflicts in our opinions and viewpoints. I’d say an example is abortion. My mom is very pro-life and personally, I think it really doesn’t matter what people do to a certain extent. So yeah, we have differing opinions on that.

 

How do you navigate conversations or debates with people who hold different political beliefs now that your views have shifted?

I think I do a good job of really listening to others and really putting myself in their point of view and trying to find an equal, middle ground that we can both agree on. I also just think it’s important to listen to others and respect their opinion. 

My mother is one of the strongest, most hard-working women I know. Growing up, I watched her work diligently at her job, earning her way up the company ladder all while balancing her work with raising a family. She is a role model and inspiration to me every day, and I wanted to interview her to get a better understanding of what it was like for her being a woman in the workforce and how she handled adverse situations throughout her career. 

 

Can you tell me about how you started your career and your journey in your profession?

I was in a retail job and I recognized really quickly that I didn’t like it much, but I always liked working and apparel and clothing and fabrics. I found a job opening at Timberland, and while I was not thinking that I would ever go into supply chain, the department I got hired into was called supply and demand, and that was my entry into supply planning. That was in 1991. I later realized that I wanted to get more into the manufacturing and technical side of supply and demand. I recognized that if I stayed any longer in the apparel business, it would be difficult for me to move to other industries, so I left Timberland after 5 years and moved into supply planning at a medical device company for around 2 years. That was my first introduction to true manufacturing and the purchasing side. Then I worked at Bose which was automotive and electronics for about 20 years. Now I work at Takeda which is a pharmaceutical company. 

 

What were some of the challenges you faced as a woman in your profession, and how did you overcome them?

I think one of the biggest challenges, especially at Bose, was that it was highly male-dominated, especially at the senior leadership level. And Bose being an industry leader in audio and electronics, the engineering team was very male-dominated, as was the automotive team. So I think it was difficult going into the meetings with the engineering team and it being ultra-technical, while I didn’t have that technical or engineering background when it came to those industries. I overcame that just by asking a lot of questions and recognizing that I have a skill they they don’t have, which is supply chain planning, so they’re just as lost when I’m speaking about my work as I am when they’re getting into the technical things about what they do. But really, just asking a lot of questions, connecting with certain people who were really smart, and learning as much as I could from them helped.

 

Did you encounter any instances of gender discrimination or bias in your workplace? If so, how did you handle them?

I can’t say that I’ve felt too much gender discrimination, but I’ve seen it. I feel like 20 or 25 years ago the men that did the same role as me were probably paid a lot more. Secondly, and I remember this really distinctly, was at one point in time I managed a big program and a big project at Bose, and I had just come back to work. Even though I was working on it prior to having children, but they brought some man in and he was pretty much assigned to take over some of the high visibility areas of that project, so I felt a little discriminated based on that. 

 

How did you balance your professional aspirations with family responsibilities? Did you feel any discrimination because you were a mom in the workforce?

My biggest challenge was at Bose, and I don’t feel like I was being discriminated, but it was a difficult transition having young children, and in the supply chain world, being a male-dominated workforce, there was not a lot of flexibility. It was a time when there was not as a lot of work-from-home options, and in my specific department, the senior leader was a women but she didn’t have children and she did not approve of any type of flexible hours, so it was really difficult to balance. How I got through that was that your dad was home with you guys when you got home from school. He had more flexible hours and was able to do the pick up, and I did the drop-off when we had daycare. The other thing was I was working with the Japan and China teams, so I would do a lot of conference calls at 10 or 11 at night. That allowed me to come home at a reasonable hour and spend some time with you and get you guys ready for bed before I started working again later that night.

 

How have you seen the workplace change for women throughout your career?

I feel like at Takeda there a lot of women at high senior level positions. Senior leaders are women, the president of the US business unit is a woman, and I see a lot more women at high level management positions than I did at Bose in electronics and manufacturing, where 20 years ago they were all men. Also, seeing a lot more women in the technical fields and engineering fields. 

For my third Personal is Political blog, I decided to interview my friend Keira, whose family has been fostering NAS babies (Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome) since 2017. NAS babies are born addicted to drugs because they were exposed to drug use by the mother during her pregnancy, and they often experience painful withdrawal symptoms after birth. Keira’s family has fostered a total of 7 babies since she was in middle school and I have always admired how much dedication and care her whole family puts into it. I really enjoyed my discussion with Keira on this topic and learned so much from this interview, and I hope anyone reading it does too!

 

How did your family start fostering NAS babies?

It was 2016 and there were a lot of stories on the news, as the opioid crisis was getting really bad, about babies being born addicted to drugs and there was a shortage of foster families, so they didn’t really have a place to put them. And then there was this one story about a baby who was put into foster care but then died of negligence, which struck my dad really hard. He thought about how these babies were getting removed from their parents to go to a safe place but it could end up not being a safe place for them, so my dad was the one who really wanted to do it. He sat down with all of us and talked about the idea and what it would look like. He wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable with the sacrifice of doing it, and then they started the process.

 

What did the process of starting this journey look like?

It was honestly really simple. My parents had to take a class, and then we all had to do an interview, and we had to do a home study, and that was basically it. 

 

What responsibilities does that come with for you and your family?

Most of the time, if it’s a newborn, the responsibility starts with visiting them in the hospital, because most of them are still in the NICU and have more medical needs than a healthy-born baby. My parents would go to the hospital to meet them and sit with them and hold them. The nurses would explain how to take care of them, how much they eat, and if they’re underweight they take a special formula. And then, you bring them home and they’re normally crankier and more unsettled because their nervous systems are underdeveloped, so most of them are not happy babies, per se, they’re tempered babies. They don’t sleep a lot, and they don’t get good sleep when they are sleeping, because their bodies just don’t calm down. Mainly you love them and care for them like you’re raising your own baby. You watch them, take them places, bring them to the doctors, all those things. For my responsibilities, we started when I was only in 7th grade, so I wasn’t really doing much. But as I got older, I think I just got more involved, not because my parents made me but just because I liked to. So I would feed the babies, change the babies, put them to sleep, and once I turned 18 I was allowed to drive them and take them for nap rides. 

 

How long usually is the period of time you look after them for?

It really just depends on when their birth family is able to care for them again. The shortest we’ve had was 2 weeks, and the longest we’ve had was 2 years. That was my 8th grade to sophomore year, during COVID.

 

Did COVID affect fostering or the foster care system as a whole?

Yes. There were no in-person family visits, so that was a big change because normally a social worker comes and picks the kids up, brings them to visit with their parents, and brings them back. But my mom had to zoom with the parents, so that was interesting. I also think it changed a lot of reunification plans because they were more rushed. They wanted to get kids back home because they weren’t going to be having in-person visits. You don’t want to send a kid home after 2 months of not seeing their parents, so I think some were rushed and some were elongated. And then, towards the end of COVID, when [foster baby] was going to be reunified, social workers still weren’t running visits, so my mom would oversee the visits. She’d drive to a public place and watch him visit with his mom, and then drive him back home. So I think it helped build a relationship between my mom and his mom, but it was also terribly awkward. Like the zoom calls, especially with babies and toddlers because they don’t know what’s happening, so a computer screen with a face on it to them is not interesting, so it was hard. I think it was harder on the parents, obviously, because they were used to seeing their kids once a week, and then they didn’t get to see them at all, which was horrible. 

 

How has the experience of being a foster family impacted you and your family?

I think it’s impacted my family dynamic in that it brought us closer together, in the sense that babies and toddlers bring people together because they’re entertaining and you want to spend time around them. So when we do have a baby in the house we spend more time together, more time downstairs instead of in our rooms. It also gets us to go places because you want a baby to see things, just like if they were being raised by their own parents. Their parents would bring them to like, the aquarium and fun places like that, so you kind of want to give them that experience. So I think it gave us more fun times and reasons to do things. It can also be stressful because it does completely change from when you’re in a house with all adults, and then randomly there’s a baby in the mix it changes the schedule and makes things harder. But I’d say the reward is way bigger than the sacrifice you make. And for me, it taught me to be more understanding of people. I think I had a lot of judgment before because I didn’t personally know anyone who was in the situation of having to give up their kids. But I think when you see the parents who are trying so hard for their kids but are struggling so hard, you learn to be more sympathetic to them, and less judgmental. You see that they’re not just people making choices, but they have a disease, and that’s the reason why they’re in the situation they’re in.

 

What is the most challenging part about fostering NAS babies?

Giving them back, for sure. If you do it right, and you love them like they’re a part of your family, then they feel like part of your family and you’re losing a part of your family. And there’s nothing that says you’ll see them again, there’s no binding contract that you get to stay a part of their life, it’s completely up to whoever they go back to. So even though the plan all along is reunification, it’s scary and sad because it’s up to their caretakers to decide if they want to keep you in the child’s life. My mom’s really good at being supportive of the moms and building relationships with them, so we’ve had a lot of luck getting to see them again after. Especially since for the first 6 months after they go home they’re still in DCF custody, so they’re not allowed to be watched by anyone who’s not licensed in foster care. So right now, my mom’s watching [their most recent foster baby] because her mom has court so nobody else can watch her. But yeah, that’s the hardest part, because it’s really sad. And even though you know it’s what’s best for them in the long term, it is hard to see that in the moment when you know that they’re going from a home with 5 people who will take care of them and be there for their every need to, most of the time, circumstances that are hard. Like, you know they’re gonna have a hard life, but you know there’s also a reason that the birth parents have the rights that they do because they’re an important part of their life.

 

What is the most rewarding part?

I’d say the most rewarding part is getting the chance to take care of a baby and provide them with the life and the love they deserve when somebody else isn’t capable of doing it. Like, I know that they’re getting what they deserve when they’re with us, but also that they’re safe. It feels like, calm and peaceful knowing that they’re with us because they could’ve been in a bad place right now. But I know they’re safe, and loved, and their needs are met, and everything like that. I’d say that’s rewarding, because if they’re not with us then you never know. Like, there’s bad people out there who are not in foster care for the right reasons, who are trying to make money and taking in multiple kids at a time. So it’s just rewarding to know that the care that you provide is what’s best for them in that moment. And also just seeing a kid grow is the most rewarding thing ever. Especially when they come in small, maybe underweight, malnourished, neglected, and then seeing them flourish into babies and toddlers that you can tell have been cared for. Like they just change, especially with babies who have been addicted to substances. You see that change where they just get further away from that point, and happier, and it’s just rewarding.

For my second Personal is Political blog, I decided to continue with the interview-style blog and have a conversation with another one of my friends from home, Sophia. Her parents both immigrated from Brazil, and she only recently told me that her parents were undocumented. This sparked my interest in what it’s like being the child of illegal immigrants and just immigrants in general, and I think she has some really great insights. Her overall thoughts are that while having immigrant parents comes with its hardships, she still feels lucky to have parents with good jobs and a supportive family. Here is my interview with Sophia:

 

Can you share why and how your parents immigrated from Brazil to the U.S.?

To be honest, I’ve never really asked why, but I assume it was probably for better jobs. My mom came here legally with a Visa, but my dad came illegally through the border in Mexico. My mom’s Visa expired, but both my parents have been trying for the Green Card for forever, but it takes so long. The process is so slow, unfortunately.

 

Can you explain more about the process for getting a Green Card, and why it is so difficult to obtain one?

I don’t know too much about the process, honestly. I know it’s very complicated and there are a lot of steps involved in getting one. I also don’t know why the process takes so long. It really shouldn’t.

 

Are there any new policies that have been implemented to make it easier for undocumented immigrants?

Yes. I think it was in July of this year a law passed where you don’t need to have a Green Card or citizenship to get your driver’s license. My mom already had her driver’s license when she had her Visa, but when it expired she couldn’t renew it. But now she gets to take her road test soon to get her new driver’s license. I also know there is a law where when I turn 21 I can help my mom become a permanent resident, but not my dad, because my mom came in legally. I think that’s been a thing for a while, though.

 

How do you think being the child of immigrant parents has impacted you?

I would say it was kind of hard that they weren’t able to help as much with school. And especially since they don’t know much about college, I’ve had to figure a lot out on my own. The language barrier is also an obstacle. They also always have to work a lot. When I was younger too, they were working overtime and I had to stay home alone a lot with my sister. That wasn’t too bad though. The only traumatic experience I had was in 2016 when the clowns were a thing and I was deathly afraid to be home alone. I guess another thing is that living in more of a white town, I kind of felt different having immigrant parents. It was hard to talk about, even up until like high school. I just never felt comfortable because it felt like a lot of people around me couldn’t relate.