Two times a year. Even though I only got to see you two times every year, you somehow managed to glue inspiration into me. I remember putting on the best performances of my life in front of you, my feet arching into the perfect point, showing you every ballet move I had learned since we saw each other last. The language barrier made things challenging but my love for Spanish was sparked because of it, I would point to all the colors and proudly state the Spanish name grasping for recognition of my growth, I wonder if you would be proud of me now, If you were still here I could talk to you without any sort of interpretation. 

It was the time of year when the snow had just vanished and the sun was starting to warm up. My mom and dad brought my sister and I to a local coffee shop, grabbed some hot chocolate, sat us down on the outdoor patio and explained to us what had happened that the cancer invaded your lungs and defeated you in the battle, that you were now looking over us from the clouds. My instant reaction was not grief or sadness but that of worry. “Does that mean we aren’t Mexican anymore” I asked my mom. My eight year old self never experienced death before so how would I know how it would work. My mom tried to hold back her laughter and made me rethink my whole life, my whole identity when she answered, “Honey, you were never Mexican, Papa is your dad’s stepdad meaning that they do not share blood”. My mind began to race, my whole life I would proudly tell my teachers, my friends, my peers that I was something I was not. It made sense to me, my dad and sister’s complexions had the dark glow of caramel and eyes so dark like rich colors of tree bark, it just made sense. Not only did I find out that day that I had lost my papa, but also the identity I lived by was a lie and that I was actually Native American. 

It took me a while to accept that part of me, at first it was because the textbooks at school would call us “savages” and blame my ancestors for “holding back colonizers from creating America” I was scared of who I was, but as time passed and my innocence slowly started to disintegrate, my hesitancy towards my culture evolved to I am not 100% Native so I can’t claim that as my identity. I battled the blood that pumped my heart for years, was I good enough? The thought of my blood grandpa living out there somewhere in the world and not wanting anything to do with me shredded me to pieces, made me hate that part of me even more. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when I decided to do a do a poetry program on my culture for competitive speech that I realized, this is a part of who I am, It does not matter how much blood I have or that my relative that links me to this identity is a ghost in my life. I realized that I believe that blood has no value when it comes to identity. Whether that be me identifying myself to my papa because I looked up to him and wanted to be like him even though our bloods didn’t mix, or that I am not 100% native but I still have blood that rushes through me and that still counts. If I want these things to make up who I am, and fulfill my identity, I’m going to proudly open the gates to it because I do not need to let blood define who I am.

My top two ideas for the “This I Believe” assignment are summarized below:

1. When my grandpa (dad’s stepdad) died I was in 3rd grade, I didn’t quite understand how death worked so my reaction to the news was filled with innocence. After a long conversation with my parents I leaned that family doesn’t always share blood and who I was and about my culture.

2. With COVID my life came to a stop which was very difficult for me because the last months of my senior year were filled with things I was looking forward to for years, including national tournaments for speech. I was on the track to go to state and nationals for speech but COVID took that away. Through this I learned the lesson of not letting regret take over your life and the lesson of giving it your all when you have the chance because it’s never 100% certain you will get another chance, in my case another chance to share my story and speech.

My two ideas for my passion blog are:

1. Drive to a new Minnesota city each week (that I have never been too) and explore and write about the city.

2. A food blog where I would try to cook a meal each week and give a review. One of my 2021 goals was to learn how to actually cook not just pasta and pizza so this would be a blog coming from someone with very little prior cooking experience.

My two civic issues blog ideas are:

1. Foreign language and culture education in schools, many schools don’t have a solid language requirement and almost every US public school does not have opportunities to learn languages and cultures outside of the main 5; Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin.

2. National felon voting rights. All felons should have the right to  vote according to the country not the state. A policy should be created to give ex-felons voting rights.

Yesterday I attended the event that was lead by Schreyer for Women. This event consisted of watching part of the PBS documentary titled “The Vote” and then a panel of experts on the Women’s Suffrage Movement answering questions from attendees. This experience was enlightening for me, I learned a lot and as I reflect now I realize how little I knew about the Women’s Suffrage Movement. When I learned about the Women’s Suffrage Movement in high school, my teachers outlined this topic as a more inspirational event; they left out or covered up by positive outcomes a lot of the hardships that occurred during this movement. By being fed the perspective that the Women’s Suffrage Movement was all positive because the outcome was positive was definitely detrimental to my understanding of this important historical event. This event led by Schreyer for Women really cleared up some of my past conceptions about the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

To start, watching the documentary, I learned that there were parades. I knew there were protests and other public demonstrations but I did not know there were organized parades, with signs and everything. That was a new learning that I took away from this event. To add onto the parades, I had no idea how awful men treated the women in the parades. Men would spit on, threaten and sometimes physically assault women who marched in these parades. Many men would also forbid their wife in participating in the movement as a whole and would abuse their wife if they spoke about it or tried to take part. This was shocking to me because I always thought that a lot of men were in support of the movement but in reality the majority of men were against it.

Another learning I took away with me from this screening event was the fact that a lot of black women participated in the movement. I knew that they benefitted from the outcome with the 19th Amendment but I did not know that they were out on the streets protesting. I have no idea why I thought this, perhaps it was because of all the media that I had seen in my textbooks were all white women or that the only influential women I had learned about from this movement were white, whatever the reason this was an important take away for me. Breaking down my preconceived notion, I learned that in fact one of the most influential activists was a black women. Although I can not remember her name, the panelists said that she is often forgotten but she was up front in all the parades and protests.

“The Vote” documentary and panelists for the event hosted by Schreyer for Women truly changed my perspective on the Women’s Suffrage Movement. I learned so many new things that I wish I was taught earlier in my education, but I am grateful that my perspective was able to change because of this new information. I highly recommend watching the PBS documentary “The Vote” and reflecting on the movement because if it was not for these brave, strong women who fought back then, my rights and maybe yours may not have been here today.

Reflecting on my Ted Talk, I feel okay about how I did on my Ted Talk. I definitely feel like I could have done better especially on the organization of my content. I wish I would have focused more on the shift since that was the point of the project, I got carried away with the facts and interesting things about my topic of locks and keys. My delivery also could have been improved. I did speech and debate in high school, so every speech I do the delivery is never good enough. I had crooked and stiff hand gestures, not enough build in intensity to my climax (hardest hitting point), and I stumbled over my words a couple of times. Overall, overlooking my nitpicking criticizing speech voice in my head, I feel like I did a good job and I know what I can work on for the next time.

Next here is a list of topics that My group and I could potentially use for our History of a Public Controversy project.

• Women’s fashion: For whatever reason women have always been criticized on clothing choices, ie; in the 20s flappers were the first women to wear dresses above their knees in public.
• Mission trips: the idea of white saviors and how most mission trips actually hurt the group that was being helped.
• Buying new and corporately: this adds to climate change, the stigma behind thrifting and why people are so hesitant to go. Supporting small and local and how Tik Tok has helped promote this.
• Electronics: kids now a days have iPhones and iPads and this is decreasing time outside and well, time being a kid.

I have decided to go with the topic of locks and keys and as a division of thesis security. With this topic, I will talk about the paradigm shift being when locks became electronic. Then I will discuss where the future is headed with chip implants as keys and societal concerns abut these upgrades. Here are some potential sources and how it will play into my overall argument.

NYTimes: A Chip in My Hand Unlocks My House. Why Does That Scare People?

My first source is from the New York Times. This source talks about societal concerns about implanted chip keys and both the cons and pros of this lock moving into the future. This would fit into my argument because it gives both sides to the idea of implant keys and valid concerns about this way of security. This can help frame my future concerns argument of my paper.

Gizmodo: The History and Future of Locks and Keys

My second source would be from Gizmodo. This source simply goes through the history of locks and keys giving key evidence to the paradigm shift. I would use this sentence, directly quoted from the article, to prove my paradigm shift; “Tor Sørnes patented the first electronic keycard lock in 1975, opening a new market for programmable locks”. Overall this source has a lot of information on the history of locks and keys that could potentially become handy while writing this paper.

NYTimes: How to Protect Your Smart Home From Hackers

My third source would be from the New York Times. This article talks about the dangers of smarts locks and how they can be hacked. This source would help form the argument of whether or not electronic security, although easier in our day to day life, is the right way to go when protecting our things.