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In the early 1990s, my parents met in New Britain, CT while working the same janitorial job. My parents are both immigrants with my mother coming from Poland and my father coming from Mexico. The two of them did not speak much English when they met, but they still enjoyed each others presence and eventually got married in 1995.

This was a big moment for my family since my mother broke tradition and married a man outside of her race. Unfortunately, this led to many members of her family saying negative things to her about my father and wishing bad things. She endured abuse from her family, yet she did not let their racist ideals get in the way of what she wanted to do.

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On March 12, 2000 around 2:30am, I was born at New Britain Hospital. Welcoming me into this world were both my parents and my older sister, Michelle. I was born into a loving family that has always loved me and continues to love and support me to this day which is something I am privileged to have.

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Growing up, I always looked up to my older sister and still do to this day. She is 3.5 years older than me, but the age gap never was an issue for us. I was raised in a loving home where we were encouraged to be ourselves and my older sister gave me a lot of confidence from a young age to do just that. She was and still is my role model in life.

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From preschool to 8th grade, I attended a Catholic school. This school was in New Britain, CT which has a large Polish community, so a majority of the students at the school were of Polish ancestry.

My parents opted to send my siblings and me to a private Catholic school because they wanted us to get a good education, while also learning about our religion.

As a middle class family, my parents worked very hard to ensure we can become the best versions of ourselves and this is why they invested in sending us to a private school.

Catholic principles were instilled in ever since I was a young kid. We had daily religion class that educated us all about the Bible and this began to form my morals as a young kid. Although I am not too religious to this day, this school still instilled some good morals in me. For example, I live my life following the Golden Rule which states "Treat others the way you want to be treated" and this was the biggest lesson I took away from my time in Catholic school.

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This is a family picture from a vacation we took one summer. I didn't realize it at the time, but my parents really sacrificed so much just to make us have a good childhood. We were a middle class family living paycheck to paycheck so taking family vacations was not common for us, but my parents worked their hardest to occasionally go on a trip with us. My parents have worked in factories for most of their lives in America and always worked long hours. There would be times where money was really tight, so my parents worked 14 hour days for 6 days of the week. This is when my older sister was given much more responsibility and was asked to help take care of my younger sister and I so my parents can continue to work, a common theme among immigrant families.

Later in life is when I realized the privilege I had growing up. My parents worked a lot, but it was because they wanted to go above and beyond to create a better life for us compared to what they had. They sacrificed their dreams so we can fulfill ours and that is something not everyone had growing up.

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I enjoyed the school that I went to. I was privileged to be placed in a nourishing environment that allowed for me to thrive and learn .I had a lot of friends, liked my teachers, and was learning a lot. However, around 1st grade is when I realized I was a little different from everyone else. The school was primarily Polish and all my classmates looked very European. They had light eyes, light skin, and lighter hair, while I have dark eyes, dark hair, and tan skin. I began to notice that I don't look much like them, even though I am Polish as well and this led to some confusion early in my life. I did not think much of it however, because all my classmates and friends did not treat me any differently.

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This was a time of a lot of change for everyone in middle school. We were all going through puberty and were beginning to discover who we are. This is when I began to discover my true identity. I began to be more interested in the girls in my class and this is when I had my first girlfriend in 6th grade. Although we were only together for a month, it made me realize that I am a heterosexual male.

Additionally, this was also the first time I experienced racism. The older Polish kids in grades above me often targeted me because I looked different. They began to make fun of my Mexican origin and would say bad things about me in Polish, which confused me at the time since I understood everything they said to me since I was also Polish. This occurred every once in a while until these kids eventually graduated. This led to me becoming ashamed of my Mexican heritage and even having anxiety about it. This was a turning point in my life because I realized that not everyone is inherently a good person and some people will not like me simply because of how I look.

This is also when a lot of confusion with my racial identity began. Culturally, I was more Polish since most of my Mexican family is not in America, so we defaulted to celebrating holidays the Polish way. However, I looked Hispanic and enjoyed many aspects of my Mexican culture, such as Mexican food, soccer, and the music. I was in a cultural identification crisis since I felt like I was too Hispanic for the white kids, and too white for the Hispanic kids.

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Going to a public school after spending all my life in a private Catholic school was a big change. All my Catholic school friends were going to a different school so I would have to make new friends, something that I did not need to do for a long time. Luckily, I ended up finding my group. Interestingly, my friend group became more diverse. Although Berlin High School is also a predominantly white school, there was more diversity than my Catholic school. This was new to me and I really appreciated more people of color being in my environment. I think this really helped me grow as a person since I was exposed to so many different cultures outside of Polish. I was living in a Polish bubble for my entire life up until high school, so leaving that bubble was another turning point in my life since I started to learn more about myself and the real world.

This is when I began to become proud of my Mexican heritage again. I was not afraid to speak about my culture since my friends encouraged me to educate them about the Mexican side of my family since they did not know any Mexican people very well. They empowered me and made me love my Mexican culture again.

As a person living with no disabilities, I am in a privileged position because the world was built for people like me to live in. Those living with disabilities have a more difficult time in the world because some places may not have thought to accommodate their needs. This is something I became more aware of when I was in high school and saw a student who was permanently in a wheelchair. I never realized how accessible the world was to me until I noticed her daily life in a public-school setting. For example, she had to often go across the school and use the elevator to get to class and then go to the other side of the second floor

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Going to UConn was a massive shock to me. I never have seen so many POCs in a learning environment and I had my first POC teacher. These were things that were unheard of in both my Catholic school and high school experience. Going to UConn is what really made me feel like I was living in the "real world" cause everyone was so different and was able to express themselves however they pleased.

This is when I found who I truly am. I was proud of my ethnic background, proud of my interests, and proud of the trajectory of my life. I am a first generation college student and there were so many other people like me on campus, which is something I did not get to experience much growing up. This is when I truly realized the importance of diversity and how beneficial it is. I became friends with people from all over the world and different faiths. This has stuck with me today and has led me to continue advocating for diversity across several aspects of life.

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As a 24 year old biracial male, I have experienced my fair share of advantages and disadvantages regarding privilege, which have molded me into the person I am today.

Today, I can say that there are many privileges I have. For example, being a male. Something as simple as going outside alone at night does not make me feel anxious, while many women will feel anxious because they might experience street harassment. I hate that many women have to feel this way, but this is something I became aware of in college when my girl friends would always carry pepper spray on them to protect themselves in case anything happened. That blew my mind when I first heard that, but it also opened my eyes to the privilege that I have since that is something I never needed to worry about.

In regards to the racial/cultural identity development model, I would place myself in stage 5 which is the integrative awareness stage. In the earlier stages of my life, I would have placed myself in stage 1 due to being ashamed of my Mexican heritage. This was primarily due to being in a “bubble” of mostly Polish people who I had some trouble identifying with. I wanted to conform within my environment and look more like the Polish kids I grew up with and this led to me depreciating my Mexican culture. As I was exposed to more diversity and interacted with people from various regions of the world and heard their stories, it made me begin to appreciate my Mexican culture again. This made me feel empowered and boosted my self-esteem as I was finding out who I was in my 20s. After some reflection, it made me realize that diversity is incredibly important and it’s something everyone should be exposed to so all cultures can be celebrated. This is why I continue to advocate for things such as more representation in books, shows, movies, etc. Growing up, there were no books including people who looked like me and there were minimal children's shows. Exposing children at a young age to diversity will help kids be proud of their cultural or racial identity and will make them feel empowered and confident.

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Identifying as a young Hispanic male will greatly impact how I understand my future clients and interact with them. I think it will help me relate to clients who are POC since we may possibly have had similar experiences living as minorities in America. As a male, I also hope that will make other men feel more comfortable speaking about their mental health issues. A stigma still exists revolving around men and their mental health, so I want to help men feel validated and like their issues are important to manage and talk about. Ultimately, I want to be able to help everyone, regardless of how they identify, but I think I will always have a special place in my heart for other Hispanic men dealing with mental health disorders due to the stigma we face from society and our culture.

Additionally, I am bilingual, so I have the ability to work with a community that most people can’t due to the language barrier. Social work is a female-dominated field so being a Hispanic Spanish speaking male will allow me to have several opportunities that are unique to who I am. This will allow for a lot of job growth potential and will also allow me to connect with more members of my community and helping them get the assistance they need.